An Open Letter To the NEM Foundation Team and NEM Community

An Open Letter To the NEM Foundation Team and NEM Community

Dear NEM Foundation Team and NEM Community,

A month before the 2017 NEM summit in Malaysia, I suffered life-threatening heart failure. One minute I was standing in a shopping mall holding my baby and joking with my daughter. The next minute I felt pain and I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t say anything. The words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t tell anyone I needed help. I passed out.

Light comes in the darkest of times. For me, light emerged when I awoke from heart surgery. My eyes opened to a team of doctors standing over me. I took a deep breath and exhaled. I wasn’t sure what had happened but I knew that these people were here to help — even though I didn’t yet realize what they were helping me with.

The heart problem was a congenital defect. The surgery repaired it, and I made a full recovery and jumped right back in to working on Inside NEM.

One month later, I was sitting in a boardroom in Malaysia with all the global NEM teams collectively strategizing how to help NEM succeed in 2018. My heart was beating fast then too— but it was out of excitement, not pain.

Governance groups work like bodies. They don’t perform well under stress. They need a heart and brain to keep things working properly. Sometimes governance groups like the NEM Foundation need help getting back on track when things go painfully wrong. This requires us to have a willingness to accept feedback in many forms.

Our team has taken the brunt of brutal feedback in the form of a community-driven POI vote to challenge the “official elections”, heated discussions in our social channels, and an onslaught of accusations. If we lose the faith of the community, the Foundation itself may even be in danger for its life. But let’s take a deep breath. There is light in the darkness. If we open our eyes we can see those around us who are here to help.

The lifeline of any Foundation governance is in the shared vision between the Foundation and the community. There has to be transparency, respect, accountability, communication, and a mutual understanding that NEM is owned by the community. If we in the Foundation are at odds with one another it is because we are at odds with the community.

The new NEM Foundation ExCo and Council that will be elected this Friday have the opportunity to govern differently, more cohesively, and in better partnership with the community. We needed this reset. Let’s not waste it.

To our community, please know that every global team member is doing the best we know how. We will make mistakes and ask for you to give us grace and forgiveness when we fail. Yes, many members have pent-up frustration, but keep in mind the constant negative feedback undermining our efforts is discouraging and demoralizing. Please be mindful that attacking anyone’s character isn’t helping NEM’s success.

To every candidate running in the NEM Foundation elections, I want to say thank you for putting yourself out there and stepping up to help.

Sincerely,

Alex

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You are an amazing and strong woman Alex!

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Agreed. Including regardless who comes into leadership, we need to support each other in our roles, as an employee, community member or registered voter.

Thanks for being open about your past Alex. Let us continue to work together, and protect each other in times when the ‘immune system’ is weakened from everything that is surfacing that we may rise to the occasion and develop a solid foundation for NEM.

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Thanks for sharing this Alex. Must have been a very powerful experience for you to go through. I really hope that after the elections are over the community and foundation can close ranks- whoever wins- remember the lessons, hold people accountable to their election promises, and create better systems of governance.

I’m very glad that you’re sending a message of cooperation and goodwill in these heated times. All the best in elections!

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Thanks Alex, this election is messy. I joined because I truly believe in the Ethos of Decentralization with governance.

This election showed the difficulties and hurdles that our community must overcome. It is an age old conversation in political spheres and now pushed and made real into the blockchain world.

I am glad that you do believe in community, as this is the only real reason people advocate for a true blockchain solution (technology) and hopefully we can have a governance structure that echos those ethos.

Hard yards for yourself and others going forward, but something beautiful can come out this.

In my mind, our work in the foundation is set for the community. The community must be heard evenly, and this includes # of members, POI, but also time.

We have much to work on to truly hear the voice of the ALL the community, so to yourself and Stephen, whomever take on the leadership role.

Lets work in that faith of the people :slight_smile:

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Jason and Alex, I hope you both get elected.

El nuevo Consejo y Consejo de la Fundación NEM que se elegirá este viernes tendrá la oportunidad de gobernar de manera diferente, más cohesiva y en mejor asociación con la comunidad. Necesitábamos este reinicio. No lo malgastemos.
Strong with NEM!!! Alex super woman !!! Goo president :tada::tada::confetti_ball::confetti_ball:

I totally agree with you, Alex. And I hope the foundation can act truly in the best interest of the community. We need to listen to the voice of the community to aware where our weakness are and get improvement through success as well as sometime failures.

I still remember int the Malaysia Summit how you take all your time help everyone of us to record a video for community and how you encourage me when I was too nervous to performing well.

Sometimes I am worrying that you put yourself in too much stress, but now I understand how strong you can be for the community. Thanks Alex for all the fantastic work you’ve done. Also I wish you great health!

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Agree more than ever with you. So unfortunate that some candidates accuse others of all deadly sins, ban in official chats and even break most straightforward laws of corporate ethics instead of helping each other and whole NEM community to go through this tough time together.

I appreciate your openness Alex …

Curious to know what people think if the closed elections vs. the POI elections are drastically different from each other?