New subject: [Announcement] James Forrester joins WMF as Technical Product Analyst

17 May 2012

Everyone,

It’s my pleasure to announce that James Forrester is joining our San
Francisco office as a Technical Product Analyst, supporting the Visual
Editor team. James started his work as a remote contractor yesterday
and will be joining us in San Francisco later this year as a staff
member.

James will help prioritize the short term and long term work log on
the Visual Editor, conduct user research, and incorporate community
feedback into the development process.

As many of you know, James is a long-time Wikimedian. He started
contributing to English Wikipedia in October 2002, and was a founding
member of their Arbitration Committee. He was also the movement’s
volunteer Chief Research Officer, helping shepherd the predecessor of
what is today the Research Committee, has for years been the
“gopher-in-chief” at the Wikimania community conferences, and helped
found Wikimedia UK in 2005.

James joins us following a successful career in the UK government,
where he implemented key open access and open government initiatives.
Most recently, he was the acting Head of data.gov.uk, and then the
Digital Engagement Policy Lead in the Government Digital Service, both
at the Cabinet Office. James holds a Masters of Engineering in
Computer Science from the University of Warwick.

Beyond technology, James has strong interests in international
politics, physics, communications, economics, law, the constitutional
history of Britain, and education.

Please join me in welcoming James!

Howie