Hello HDF Community!
Thanks for the warm welcome into the HDF family: in my 4+ months as the new CEO, I've been blown away by your passion, diversity of interests and applications, and willingness to provide feedback on: 1. why you use HDF5?, and 2. how can HDF5 be improved? I also want to thank my predecessor Mike Folk for his invaluable and ongoing support.
The HDF community is growing fast: when I last checked, there are nearly 700 HDF5 projects in GitHub<Search · hdf5 · GitHub! I've had the privilege of connecting via phone/web with dozens of you over the past few months. Across all of my discussions, one piece of feedback came back loud and clear: The HDF Group<https://www.hdfgroup.org/> needs to be more engaged with its users and help foster the community. We hear you, and here are two actions we're taking to demonstrate this commitment: [data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7]
1. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: Since community-building is an intentional focus, we've designated Dr. Lindsay Powers as Deputy Director of Business and Community Development. Lindsay's priority is to engage with the HDF community through proactive outreach, fostering groups with similar interests, and helping users navigate the many resources and tools that can help them be successful with HDF. Dr. Powers is an interdisciplinary earth scientist who holds a Ph.D. in Water Resources Science from the University of Minnesota. She has a strong research and project management background, extensive experience in national and international scientific collaborations, and is widely known for her leadership and expertise in community engagement. Please reach out to Lindsay at lpowers@hdfgroup.org<mailto:lpowers@hdfgroup.org> and introduce yourself! She is actively collecting user stories of "HDF in the wild," and would like to hear yours.
1. NEW WEBSITE (COMING SEP 1!): A critical first step towards engaging the HDF community is to know who's in it... so it may surprise folks that we frankly don't know who all of you are or have any way of reaching you. 
It also doesn't help that our website is dated and hard to navigate. We're targeting a re-launch (just the first of many phases) of our website with the goals of: 1. simplifying what HDF5 is, 2. clarifying what the HDF Group does.
You can help: For this initial website launch, we want to showcase you and the cool things you do with HDF. If you and your organization are willing, we would love to be able to include any/all of the following on our website:
1. Your organization's name (as in the fact that your organization uses HDF)
2. Your organization's logo
3. Witty quote about how HDF and the HDF Group have added value for you, your project and your organization
4. Extra points: Lindsay will be highlighting compelling examples of HDF-based data visualizations on the website so feel free to send her yours, with proper accreditation. (We will provide appropriate credit for any visualizations we include on our website.)
In subsequent updates to the website, we'll also provide ability to register to download pre-built binaries, submit support tickets, participate in new discussion board, etc. And more to come...
I continue to be very interested in connecting with every single person in the HDF community ... you can always reach me at david.pearah@hdfgroup.org<mailto:david.pearah@hdfgroup.org> so we can set up a time to talk.
Dave Pearah
The HDF Group CEO
