On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Erik Moeller <[email protected]> wrote: > 2009/9/16 Samuel Klein <[email protected]>: >> Putting aside the unnecessary bad faith and challenges to the >> foundation's integrity: I find this all exciting - planning for >> significant tech budget support, possible major sponsorships (I've >> always hoped we would one day find multiple sources for long-term >> in-kind support of servers and bandwidth), &c. I would simply like to >> see more open discussion of what our perfect-world tech dreams are, >> and how to pursue what sorts of sponsorships. > > Thanks, Sam. I find the discussion of the last few days symptomatic of > the problems we've begun to brainstorm about with regard to the > signal/noise ratio, healthiness and openness of this particular forum. > (And by openness I mean that a forum that is dominated by highly > abrasive, high volume, low signal discussions is actually not very > open.) I do want to revisit the post limit question as a possible > answer, but let's do that separately. > > The thread did surface some topics which are worth talking about, both > in general and specific terms, and I'm taking the liberty to start a > new thread to isolate some of those topics. For one thing, I think > it's always good to revisit and iterate processes for defining > priorities, and for achieving the highest impact in those identified > areas. > > Developing more sophisticated processes both for short-term and > long-term planning has been precisely one of the key focus areas of > the last year. Internally, we've begun experimenting with assessment > spreadsheets and standardized project briefs, drawing from the > expertise of project management experts as well as Sue's specific work > in developing a very well thought-out prioritization system at the > CBC. Publicly, we're engaged in the strategy planning process -- the > associated Call for Proposals is a first attempt to conduct a > large-scale assessment of potential priorities. (I hope that with > future improvements to the ReaderFeedback extension we'll be able to > generate more helpful reports based on that particular assessment.) > > Ideally, the internal and public processes will converge sooner rather > than later. For example, I posted a project brief that I developed > internally through the strategy CfP: > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Volunteer_Toolkit > > I believe this one was submitted by Jennifer: > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Volunteer_Management_practices_to_Expand_Participation > > And this one by Tim: > http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Directed_community_fundraising > > The next phase of the strategy planning process, the deep-dive task > forces, will be an interesting experiment in serious community-driven > planning work, complemented by the research conducted with the help of > our partners at The Bridgespan Group. All of this will become part of > the institutional memory of the Wikimedia movement, and hopefully > we'll continue to raise the bar in our thinking, planning, and > collaboration. > > - - - > > Of course separately from setting priorities, there's the critical > need to improve our ability to execute upon those priorities. This > includes the further development of project pipelines, more systematic > volunteer engagement, additional internal HR support, additional > hiring of staff to address key capacity gaps, etc. I'm thrilled by how > far we've come, and to be able to have supported, and continue to > support, an unprecedented large-scale initiative like the usability > project. I'm well-aware that there continue to be key priorities that > we aren't executing as effectively as we could. > > The first thing many partners, donors and friends say when they visit > Wikimedia Foundation is how astonishing it is that an operation of > this scale can function with so little funding and staff. The truth is > that by any reasonable measure of efficiency and money-to-impact > ratio, we're achieving wonderful things together, and that's easy to > forget when looking at issues in isolation. (Yes, it would be > wonderful to have the full-history dumps running ASAP. Hm, it would be > nice to have the full-history dumps for some other top 50 content > websites. Oh, right, they don't provide any.) > > But I don't measure our success compared to other organizations. The > most important question to me is whether we are continually raising > the bar in what we're doing and how we do it. The most recent > Wikimania was the most thoughtful and self-aware one I've ever > attended, with deep, constructive conversations and very serious > efforts of everyone involved to re-ignite and strengthen our movement. > There are elements of groupthink, but also very systematic attempts to > break out of it. > > There are great opportunities today for anyone to become engaged in > helping to shape the future of what we do, and to accomplish real > change in the world as a result. Ultimately we all have to make a > choice how we spend our time -- how we spend our lives -- but I hope > we're creating a legacy that will fill us with pride and joy, and > inspire others to do the same. > -- > Erik Möller > Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
I'm encouraged by taking the positives out of the earlier discussion and moving forwards. I have a specific question regarding the CTO role which has been floating around not yet completely defined. Brion announced the impending opening a while ago now and the formal definition of the job role (and possibly title, I suggest it's more of a CIO role than CTO per se) was to follow. As operational technical concerns are a credibly large part of the overall concerns people have about strategy and execution, can you tell us if there's a defined timeline on the new CTOish role being formalized, announced, etc? Thanks. -- -george william herbert [email protected] _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
