"My short-term priorities are to build a foundation for growth. It's not sexy but 'plumbing' is important. So my immediate focus will be on making sure the Foundations' finances and governance issues are solid. The third priority is to begin planning for a major OIDF event later in the year."

Thibeau comes to the Foundation most recently as an independent consultant. He has a history of executive roles at companies like QSent (which was acquired by TransUnion in 2006) and LexisNexis. In the early '80s, Thibeau was a Presidential appointee to the US Department of Labor and served as White House liaison for the US Synthetic Fuels Corporation.

Thibeau succeeds Bill Washburn, the inaugural executive director for the organization.

Here are the details of our guests in this show (in alphabetical order):

• Brian Kissel is CEO at JanRain, Inc.
• Scott Kveton is VP of Open Platforms at Vidoop
• Chris Messina is employed by Vidoop, runs Citizen Agency and works on the DiSo Project, facilitating the development of the "Open Stack" for the social web.
• David Recordon is Open Platforms Tech Lead at Six Apart.

Some of the topics we'll explore on the show include:

• How to increase adoption of OpenID
• Plans for the OpenID Foundation
• Opinions on Google Friend Connect & Facebook Connect

We welcome your suggestions, either in the comments here or by tuning in LIVE to the show - via Calliflower or Facebook - and participating in the chat room.

UPDATE: the audio is available now.

Download MP3

After a successful 2008, this Board comes into a proving year for OpenID. With a number of household names getting on the OpenID and Open Stack bandwagon, the tipping point could be very near in 2009.

For context, just listen to a recap on 2008 from The Social Web TV for a better idea of everything that's happened in the Open Web over the past 12 months - and some predictions for what could be in store for 2009:

No matter what happens, it will be an interesting year for OpenID and the OpenID Foundation. And you can be sure that we here at RWW will be reporting on what's happening with OpenID and all of the Open Stack.

• Martin Atkins
• John Bradley
• Johannes Ernst
• Snorri Giorgetti
• Eran Hammer-Lahav
• Dick Hardt
• Mike Kirkwood
• Brian Kissel
• Scott Kveton
• Chris Messina
• Peter Nixey
• David Recordon
• Eric Sachs
• Nat Sakimura
• Luke Shepard
• Joseph Smarr
• Allen Tom

Current members of the OpenID Foundation are encouraged to visit the OpenID Foundation, log in with their respective OpenIDs, and cast votes for up to seven candidates. For those who have not yet joined the Foundation, registration is open, starting at $25 for an individual account.

The elections will remain open until December 24, 2008. The new Board will be announced before December 31, 2008. Board members begin their term on January 1, 2009.

That's only going to be more true in the future, so if you'd like to have a say in how it all goes down - now's the time to get involved. The OpenID Foundation is one of the leading organizations in the new standards world and it's having its first ever election of community board members this month. Nominations close Monday and the voting begins on Wednesday.

Individuals will have to pay a $25 Foundation membership fee in order to vote, but this author just paid his and is looking forward to pulling the virtual voter's lever. Nominees so far are listed below.

What Are the Issues?

OpenID usability, getting major players to respect incoming OpenID and not just authenticate their own users elsewhere with OpenID, the personal data payload that travels with OpenID and many other difficult questions remain unanswered, despite all the progress the Foundation and other organizations have made in the last year.

A year ago this week we wrote a post saying that OpenID was in serious trouble. One year later, the situation seems to have improved quite a lot. That's thanks not just to the work of the OpenID Foundation, but they deserve a large part of the credit.

The protocol is far from out of the woods, though, and so this election is going to be an important one.

Who's Been Nominated?

So far twelve people have been nominated. Once you register as a Foundation member, you can see the nominees and their position statements. More nominations will likely occur before this weekend is over. Seven of the following twelve total number of people nominated by Monday will get positions on the board. Here's who's been nominated so far.

Johannes Ernst - founder and CEO of startup Netmesh
David Recordon - is from SixApart and is one of the most publicly visible members of the OpenID community
Mike Kirkwood - CEO of iPhone-centric medical patient data service Polka
Eric Sachs - Product Manager at Google
Snorri Giorgetti - OpenID Foundation's European Representative
Eran Hammer-Lahav - Open Web Evangelist at Yahoo! and OAuth lover
Allen Tom - Architect, Yahoo! Membership
Scott Kveton - Current OpenID Foundation Chair and VP Open Platforms at Vidoop
Nat Sakimura - Identity tech wonk from Japan
Brian Kissel - CEO of JanRain, makers of MyOpenID.com
John Bradley - OpenID security wonk
Martin Atkins - an OpenSocial and identity developer

Which seven of those people do you want driving the future of the OpenID Foundation? Register as a member, read their policy statements and you can have your hopes for this important technology paradigm recognized.