About Zak Greant: Bio and Background

Hi! My name is Zak Greant and I've tired of writing things in the third person (at least for today.)

I own a strategic consultancy called Foo Associates – we help technology organizations adapt to and thrive on the electronic frontier. We're a tiny shop, but we've got great clients (like eZ Systems AS and the Mozilla Foundation.)

The Net has been a part of my daily life for more than a decade now - most of my adult life, in fact. After dropping out of high school, then cooking school, the Net was a gateway to tremendous opportunity and wonder. Like all tools, it wasn't the Net that mattered so much - instead it was what the Net let people do that was the true alchemy.

I've been an active participant in many Free Software/Open Source communities, from PHP (my first love, who I still have the occasional fling with) and MySQL (where I worked as MySQL AB's community advocate) to volunteering with the Free Software Foundation's License Compliance Lab Team and acting as a board observer for the Open Source Initiative.

Flippant Conference Bio

Zak's love of Free Software and Open Source is turning him into a penguin. The only visible changes (so far) are a gradual accumulation of blubber, a loss of hair (which he hopes is the prelude to feather growth) and a growing preference for raw fish. When not practicing how to waddle or wear a tuxedo, he runs Foo Associates strategic consultancy and works with the Mozilla Foundation on various community and foundation issues. As time permits, he also volunteers with the Free Software Foundation's Compliance Lab and the Open Source Initiative.

In the past, Zak worked for Sxip Identity as their Technical Evangelist and MySQL AB as their Community Advocate. Additionally, Zak has written and contributed to several books on PHP, MySQL and Free Software/Open Source, and was an early participant in the PHP community.

LinkedIn

You can find my LinkedIn profile here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zakgreant.

Events, etc.

• Blogs
  • http://zak.greant.com/ aggregated on:
    • Planet eZ publish
    • Planet MySQL
    • Planet Advocacy
    • Planet PHP
• Conferences
  • Chair or (co-)organizer of the following technology events
    1. MySQL ComCon Europe 2004
    2. MySQL Users Conference & Expo 2003
    3. MySQL Users Conference & Expo 2004
    4. Open Source DBMS Conference 2005
    5. Open Source DBMS Conference 2006
    6. OSCMS Summit 2006
    7. PHP Vikinger 2006
  • Committee member or track chair for the following technology events
    1. International PHP Conference 2003
    2. International PHP Conference 2004
    3. OSCON 2002 (MySQL track)
    4. OSCON 2003 (DBMS track)
    5. OSCON 2004 (DBMS track)
  • Speaker or tutorial presenter at the following technology conferences
    1. ApacheCon 2002
    2. ApacheCon Europe 2005
    3. Euro Foo Camp 2004
    4. eZ publish Conference 2006
    5. eZ publish Summer Camp 2005
    6. FLOSS Foundations Meeting 2006
    7. Foo Camp 2004
    8. FOSDEM 2003
    9. International PHP Conference 2001
    10. International PHP Conference 2002
    11. International PHP Conference 2003
    12. International PHP Conference 2004
    13. International PHP Conference 2005
    14. LinuxTag 2002
    15. LinuxTag 2003
    16. LinuxTag 2004
    17. LinuxTag 2005
    18. MySQL ComCon 2004
    19. MySQL Users Conference 2003
    20. MySQL Users Conference 2004
    21. MySQL Users Conference 2005
    22. MySQL Users Conference 2006
    23. O'Reilly European Open Source Convention 2006
    24. O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2002
    25. O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2003
    26. O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2004
    27. O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2005
    28. O'Reilly Open Source Conference 2006
    29. Open Source DBMS Conference 2005
    30. Open Source DBMS Conference 2006
    31. OpenFest 2003
    32. OSCMS Summit 2006
    33. PHP Quebec Conference 2003
    34. PHP Quebec Conference 2006
    35. PHPCon 2002 (Conference and conference site now defunct)
    36. PHPCon East 2003 Conference and conference site now defunct
    37. PHPCon West 2003 Conference and conference site now defunct
    38. SCALE: Southern CaliforniA Linux Expo 2002
    39. Sun Open Source Summit 2004 Internal Sun Microsystems event. The only public records are photos (such as http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jimgris/SunOpenSourceSummit) and blog entries
    40. Vancouver PHP Conference 2004 Conference site now defunct
• Industry/Technology Community Organizations
  • Contract positions held with major players in industry
    • eZ systems, Managing Director North America (2005 - 2006) (also Director of Legal Affairs)
    • Mozilla Foundation, Ombudsman (2005 - 2006)
    • MySQL AB, Community Advocate (2002-2004)
  • Founder/co-founder of the following industry groups
    • Community Management Project (2004) - the project is now mostly defunct, thought the informal ties developed by the effort are used by many of the participants.
    • Open Source Database Management System Consortium (2005) A private group of Free Software/Open Source DBMS vendors and projects that cooperates on issues of common interest (See http://www.planetmysql.org/kaj/?p=31)
    • PHP Quality Assurance Team (2001)
  • Participant in the following industry groups
    • Advisory Council Member for CLUE, A Canadian Free Software and Open Source advocacy group
    • Committee Member, GNU GPL v3 Committee D (2005 - 2006)
    • Free Software Foundation Licensing Team Member Not a public group
    • OSAC 4 GOSAC (Government Open Source Advisory Committee) Member
• Publishing
  • Contributor to the following books
    • Not Your Momma's Crochet: The Cool and Creative Way to Join the Chain Gang (September 2006) Contributed patterns of crocheted cat toys - what can I say, I'm eclectic :)
    • Professional PHP4 Programming
  • Misc. Work
    • "How to Win Friends and Influence People: Effective Evangelism for Geeks", LinuxFormat Magazine, Issue 68, July 2005 - some minor errors induced by magazine editors.
    • Helped start the MySQL Press
    • Practical Manager's Guide to Open Source - Provided expert review and cover endorsement (without a fee or other consideration, so as to avoid a conflict of interest)
  • Primary author of the following books
    • MySQL Phrasebook (2006)
    • PHP Functions Essential Reference (2002)
  • Technical editor or expert reviewer for over 20 books, including:
    • Advanced PHP Programming (2004)
    • Mastering Regular Expressions (3 ed.; 2006; not yet released)
    • MySQL (3rd edition; 2005)

Tags: Apache, ApacheCon, California, CMS, community, conference, Copyright, Crochet, DBMS, electronic frontier, Events, eZ, eZ Publish, eZ publish Conference, eZ Systems AS, FLOSS, FLOSS Foundations, Foo Associates, Foo Camp, FOSDEM, FOSS, Free Software, Free Software Foundation, GNU, GPL v3, International PHP Conference, Legal, License, Licensing, LinkedIn, Linux, LinuxTag, MIT, Mozilla, Mozilla Foundation, MySQL, MySQL AB, MySQL ComCon, MySQL Phrasebook, MySQL Users Conference, ombuds, Open Source, Open Source DBMS Conference, open source initiative, OpenFest, OSCMS Summit, OSCON, OSI, PHP, PHP Quebec Conference, PHP Vikinger, PHPCon, Planet Advocacy, Planet eZ publish, Planet MySQL, Planet PHP, Quebec, SFO, Uncategorized, Vancouver PHP Conference, wiki, Zak Greant

Related posts

• Conference Report: OpenMind & MindTrek 2007 (5)
• Coaching the Next Generation of FOSS Developers (5)
• Mozilla Foundation Report for January 2008 (0)
• SCALE 6x: Wrapup - People (0)
• Mozilla Foundation Report for 2008 Week 8 (0)

About

Zak Greant's love of Free Software and Open Source is turning him into a penguin. When not practicing how to waddle or wear a tuxedo, he passes the time running the Foo Associates strategic consultancy and by working with various Free Software and Open Source projects and companies.

Recent Posts

• A Pirate Captain visiting the Pacific Northwest
• eLiberatica 2009
• Introducing Wikis into Distributed Teams
• For Love, Not Money (or Leaving the Mozilla Paycheck)
• Non-Profit2Non-Profit Resources

Archives

• May 2009 (2)
• April 2009 (1)
• March 2009 (2)
• February 2009 (10)
• January 2009 (14)
• December 2008 (15)
• November 2008 (5)

• 2009 (29)
• 2008 (87)
• 2007 (104)
• 2006 (106)
• 2005 (16)
• 2004 (33)
• 2003 (86)
• 2002 (62)