Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Marc A. Pelletier]

On 15-04-09 04:52 PM, Lila Tretikov wrote:
> but it is also not for everyone as it can be
> isolating

I think that, at the Foundation, we are blessed to have several
opportunities a year to meet with our colleagues during events, and that
things would be much more difficult as a distributed team if it weren't
the case.

-- Marc


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Lila Tretikov]

All --

As a matter of strategy we should be leveraging our open-source roots more
as we grow. This means distributed, loosely-coupled teams. We know from
software industry history that distributed teams work best when they are
*entirely* distributed.  We are working on some structures that will allow
teams to either be entirely distributed or mostly co-located, consistent
with what we know about best outcomes. In SF, remote working is not very
common as the software companies demand people to be on-site and we have an
advantage with remote talent, but it is also not for everyone as it can be
isolating. Net-net.. before we worry about growth and costs we need to
worry about effectiveness, but we are thinking about this.

Thanks,
Lila

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 9:02 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> On 9 April 2015 at 16:47, Garfield Byrd  wrote:
> > Hi Fae,
> >
> > We have 215 staff in total, with a hub of activity in San Francisco and
> > other staff in several other states and 18 countries.  So I agree
> talented
> > people can be found globally and WMF does hire the best talent it can
> find
> > wherever they are located.  At this point adding offices in other
> locations
> > add cost without any benefits to the community or the Wikimedia
> > Foundation.  We also do not have the luxury of Mozilla's $300 million
> > budget that can support a London office or Microsoft's billions to have a
> > globally distributed workforce with offices.  So we are not closing the
> > door to anything. Based on our test project of trying to develop centers
> of
> > activity in other parts of the United States there is no need for
> > additional offices. We do need and will continue to hire a globally
> > distributed staff of talented people to support our global community of
> > talented volunteers.
>
> Thanks for the response, it makes sense to me.
>
> I agree with avoiding additional offices unless there is a very good
> business case. Back in the late 1990s I was part of a small
> consultancy where we chose to eliminate having a central office
> altogether. It was a strange thing to try back last century, but
> moving more of the administrative functions into the virtual working
> space, and arming employees with excellent teamworking tools they can
> use from home (or bookable office spaces locally) has become part of
> the ordinary world of work these days.
>
> WMF development happens this way already, and you writing here shows
> that management/executive level folks are comfortable and skilled with
> virtual spaces. It would be jolly interesting if the WMF were seen to
> try out more virtual methods in other parts of its operation, and find
> meaningful ways of reporting on benefits or avoidable costs. I see
> this as part of the learning organization... Maybe a topic for another
> thread at some point. :-)
>
> Fae
>
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] This week on the Wikimedia Blog

[Fabrice Florin]

Hi folks,

Here are some of the stories featured this week on the Wikimedia Blog:

• Wikimedia Foundation releases latest transparency report
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/07/wikimedia-transparency-report/

• The new Content Translation tool is now used on 22 Wikipedias
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/08/the-new-content-translation-tool/

• How content translation improved my wiki edits
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/06/content-translation-improved-my-edits/

• Women and gender diversity on Wikimedia: our top stories
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/03/women-and-gender-top-stories/

• Inspire Campaign receives hundreds of new ideas to increase gender diversity 
on Wikimedia projects
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/03/inspire-campaign-new-ideas/

• Fighting corruption with Wikipedia: Johnson Oludeinde
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/04/08/fighting-corruption-johnson-oludeinde/

More stories on the Wikimedia Blog:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/

Best regards,


Fabrice


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Fabrice Florin
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Wikimedia Foundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Fæ]

On 9 April 2015 at 16:47, Garfield Byrd  wrote:
> Hi Fae,
>
> We have 215 staff in total, with a hub of activity in San Francisco and
> other staff in several other states and 18 countries.  So I agree talented
> people can be found globally and WMF does hire the best talent it can find
> wherever they are located.  At this point adding offices in other locations
> add cost without any benefits to the community or the Wikimedia
> Foundation.  We also do not have the luxury of Mozilla's $300 million
> budget that can support a London office or Microsoft's billions to have a
> globally distributed workforce with offices.  So we are not closing the
> door to anything. Based on our test project of trying to develop centers of
> activity in other parts of the United States there is no need for
> additional offices. We do need and will continue to hire a globally
> distributed staff of talented people to support our global community of
> talented volunteers.

Thanks for the response, it makes sense to me.

I agree with avoiding additional offices unless there is a very good
business case. Back in the late 1990s I was part of a small
consultancy where we chose to eliminate having a central office
altogether. It was a strange thing to try back last century, but
moving more of the administrative functions into the virtual working
space, and arming employees with excellent teamworking tools they can
use from home (or bookable office spaces locally) has become part of
the ordinary world of work these days.

WMF development happens this way already, and you writing here shows
that management/executive level folks are comfortable and skilled with
virtual spaces. It would be jolly interesting if the WMF were seen to
try out more virtual methods in other parts of its operation, and find
meaningful ways of reporting on benefits or avoidable costs. I see
this as part of the learning organization... Maybe a topic for another
thread at some point. :-)

Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Garfield Byrd]

Hi Fae,

We have 215 staff in total, with a hub of activity in San Francisco and
other staff in several other states and 18 countries.  So I agree talented
people can be found globally and WMF does hire the best talent it can find
wherever they are located.  At this point adding offices in other locations
add cost without any benefits to the community or the Wikimedia
Foundation.  We also do not have the luxury of Mozilla's $300 million
budget that can support a London office or Microsoft's billions to have a
globally distributed workforce with offices.  So we are not closing the
door to anything. Based on our test project of trying to develop centers of
activity in other parts of the United States there is no need for
additional offices. We do need and will continue to hire a globally
distributed staff of talented people to support our global community of
talented volunteers.

Regards,

Garfield

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 2:19 AM, Fæ  wrote:

> On 9 April 2015 at 01:16, Garfield Byrd  wrote:
> > ... The advantages of having good access to talented people and
> > organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving
> to a
> > lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.
>
> I find the world-view expressed here slightly odd to read, perhaps
> because I am more European than American in background.
>
> My background includes working for long periods with many companies in
> the U.S. (such as Microsoft) and we managed to do that perfectly with
> a handful of employees in a Seattle office, and most developers and
> internal operations such as HR, finance etc. in Europe (very few of
> these people ever had a need or desire to talk directly with customers
> or partner organizations). It was easy enough for me to visit the U.S.
> a couple of times a year when there was a lot going on there, and work
> on a daily basis within a lively virtual team spread out in offices
> across London, Paris and New York.
>
> "Talented people" can be found in many places including San Francisco,
> and though Google is incredibly important, there many other critically
> important potential open knowledge partners without headquarters in SF
> (Europeana springs to mind). Even Mozilla has a very nice office to
> work with here in London. The idea that having all functions in SF has
> advantages that "far outweigh" all other considerations seems to
> over-egg the case, perhaps it would be a good thing to leave the door
> open a crack for alternative ways of working to be possible in a far
> future.
>
> Fae
>
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>



-- 
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext 6787
415.882.0495 (fax)
www.wikimediafoundation.org

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

*https://donate.wikimedia.org *
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[Wikimedia-l] Fwd: [Chapters] News from the Board of Wikimedia CH

[Ilario Valdelli]

FYI an official message from Wikimedia CH:


  Dear all,

Wikimedia CH held its annual General Assembly on 21 March. We're pleased to
announce that all of the Board re-candidated and were re-elected. We're
even more pleased to welcome a new, seventh Board member: Micha Rieser (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Micha).

Besides being an active administrator on the German Wikipedia, he has also
been our Wikipedian in Residence both at the Swiss Federal Archives and the
National Library. He's currently doing the job again at the Basel
University Library - this time without part-funding by WMCH. We trust that
his personal network among GLAMs will be an asset for us, and he's an
all-round great guy anyway (you can follow him on Twitter: @MLRzh)

People come, people go: Charles Andrès, our current Chief Scientific
Officer (in charge of projects and collaborations), has decided to move
back to France for family reasons. His last day in the Lausanne office will
be 30 June.

Charles has been around the French Wikipedia since 2007, joined our Board
in 2010, became our President and finally made the move to CSO. He has
given a lot of time and effort to the movement, and those who know him will
miss his relentless enthusiasm for new ideas and projects (you can still
check him out @chandreswp). The Board will consider the replacement
process, and after 30 June our Board members Stephane Coillet-Matillon and
Frédéric Schütz will handle the interim.

Best regards,

Patrick Kenel, President

Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch






-- 
Ilario Valdelli
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
Switzerland - 8008 Zürich
Wikipedia: Ilario 
http://www.wikimedia.ch
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Garfield Byrd]

Hi Pine,

I have answered your questions in your email.

Regards,

Garfield

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 12:38 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Garfield,
>
> Ok, follow up questions:
>
> * Does WMF have a plan to keep the Foundation and its essential functions
> operational if, say, the San Francisco main building all SF staff are
> completely offline and unreachable by phone for a week after an earthquake?
>
Yes, we have a plan in place in case the building in San Francisco is
unavailable.  All San Francisco staff will not be offline for a week after
an earthquake.  Not all staff live in San Francisco, and Loma Prieta showed
that even a major earthquake does not take the entire San Francisco Bay
Area offline.  So essential functions will continue even after an
earthquake.

In addition, even though many of our staff are in San Francisco, we do have
staff in many other states and 18 countries.

* Would there be worthwhile advantages to establishing a second main office
in someplace like the US east coast or Europe?

We have tried to setup a center of activity in other states and it did not
prove to be worthwhile, as staff preferred to work from home or other
locations.  So it was an an additional cost with any additional benefit. It
is my understanding that having an office outside the United States creates
complications for Wikipedia and the other Wiki projects in the area of
content protection.

> Thanks, and please reply when it's convenient for you.
>
> I'll follow up offline with HR about talent pool questions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pine
> On Apr 8, 2015 5:16 PM, "Garfield Byrd"  wrote:
>
>> Hi Pine,
>>
>> If the Foundation decides to move, the cost of making the space usable
>> for our staff is not a recoverable cost from the building owner.
>>
>> At this point, WMF is not planning on moving out of the San Francisco
>> market area.  We will be doing our best to manage cost when we renew our
>> lease or move. The advantages of having good access to talented people and
>> organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving to a
>> lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Garfield
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Garfield,
>>>
>>> I'm asking this on Wikimedia-l because a number of Wikimedians have
>>> noted the expensiveness of the San Francisco area including its high cost
>>> of living for staff, employer competition for engineering talent, and
>>> associated high salaries for WMF employees.
>>>
>>> I see on
>>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/8/8a/RFP_for_Real_Estate_Services.pdf
>>> that WMF is considering relocating its offices when its current main office
>>> lease expires.
>>>
>>> Questions:
>>>
>>> What happens to the remodel expenses that WMF is paying for at its
>>> current location? If WMF vacates the premesis, will it be compensated for
>>> the remodel by the building owner?
>>>
>>> I hope that WMF is contemplating fully exiting the San Francisco market
>>> area in order to economize, get better value for our donors' funds, have
>>> less competition for talent, and lower costs of living for staff. Is this
>>> being considered?
>>>
>>> Thanks very much,
>>>
>>> Pine
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Garfield Byrd
>> Chief of Finance and Administration
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> 415.839.6885 ext 6787
>> 415.882.0495 (fax)
>> www.wikimediafoundation.org
>>
>> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
>> the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
>>
>> *https://donate.wikimedia.org *
>>
>


-- 
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext 6787
415.882.0495 (fax)
www.wikimediafoundation.org

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

*https://donate.wikimedia.org *
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] My article on Wikipedia Zero and Net Neutrality, just out today at Reason.com

[Mike Godwin]

People who are interested in the history of my views on network
neutrality may find fodder here in this 2006 article I wrote on behalf
of the American Library Association.

http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/oitp/publications/issuebriefs/A%20Library%20Perspectiv.pdf

To the extent my views have evolved since them (and I'm inclined to
say they haven't changed much), this is due partly to my years of work
for Wikimedia Foundation and partly to my work on internet policy in
the developing world.

See, for example, how I dealt with the issue in developing the Great
Charter for Cambodian Internet Freedom.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/great-charter-cambodian-internet-freedom-mike-godwin.


--Mike

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 5:35 AM, geni  wrote:
>
>
> On 9 April 2015 at 00:51, Mike Godwin  wrote:
>>
>> http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/08/nothing-but-net
>>
>>
>> --Mike
>
>
>
> I'm not convinced you are helping your case with your choice of venue.
>
>
> --
> geni

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] My article on Wikipedia Zero and Net Neutrality, just out today at Reason.com

[Mike Godwin]

I'm not convinced you offered me a better choice of venue, geni. (If
you did, I missed the email.) But, then, I'm also not convinced that
worrying about venue -- rather than, say, focusing on publishing with
a journal that would give me the space to develop an argument at some
length.

I'm not well-positioned to game out the way every snarky commenter on
the sidelines will interpret anything I write or where I manage to get
published.  But it's worth noting that the same journal asked me to
make the case for Obama's re-election back in 2012, which is also
something you wouldn't expect.

We may reasonably expect, given the choice of venue, that my argument
will be considered quite heterodox to its regular readers, which is
actually good, not bad. (Other pieces by other authors have decried
net neutrality in general--I didn't do this, however, and they knew I
wouldn't.)


--Mike




On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 5:35 AM, geni  wrote:
>
>
> On 9 April 2015 at 00:51, Mike Godwin  wrote:
>>
>> http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/08/nothing-but-net
>>
>>
>> --Mike
>
>
>
> I'm not convinced you are helping your case with your choice of venue.
>
>
> --
> geni

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] My article on Wikipedia Zero and Net Neutrality, just out today at Reason.com

[geni]

On 9 April 2015 at 00:51, Mike Godwin  wrote:

> http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/08/nothing-but-net
>
>
> --Mike
>


I'm not convinced you are helping your case with your choice of venue.


-- 
geni
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Fæ]

On 9 April 2015 at 01:16, Garfield Byrd  wrote:
> ... The advantages of having good access to talented people and
> organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving to a
> lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.

I find the world-view expressed here slightly odd to read, perhaps
because I am more European than American in background.

My background includes working for long periods with many companies in
the U.S. (such as Microsoft) and we managed to do that perfectly with
a handful of employees in a Seattle office, and most developers and
internal operations such as HR, finance etc. in Europe (very few of
these people ever had a need or desire to talk directly with customers
or partner organizations). It was easy enough for me to visit the U.S.
a couple of times a year when there was a lot going on there, and work
on a daily basis within a lively virtual team spread out in offices
across London, Paris and New York.

"Talented people" can be found in many places including San Francisco,
and though Google is incredibly important, there many other critically
important potential open knowledge partners without headquarters in SF
(Europeana springs to mind). Even Mozilla has a very nice office to
work with here in London. The idea that having all functions in SF has
advantages that "far outweigh" all other considerations seems to
over-egg the case, perhaps it would be a good thing to leave the door
open a crack for alternative ways of working to be possible in a far
future.

Fae

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] WMF office location and remodel

[Pine W]

Hi Garfield,

Ok, follow up questions:

* Does WMF have a plan to keep the Foundation and its essential functions
operational if, say, the San Francisco main building all SF staff are
completely offline and unreachable by phone for a week after an earthquake?

* Would there be worthwhile advantages to establishing a second main office
in someplace like the US east coast or Europe?

Thanks, and please reply when it's convenient for you.

I'll follow up offline with HR about talent pool questions.

Thanks,

Pine
On Apr 8, 2015 5:16 PM, "Garfield Byrd"  wrote:

> Hi Pine,
>
> If the Foundation decides to move, the cost of making the space usable for
> our staff is not a recoverable cost from the building owner.
>
> At this point, WMF is not planning on moving out of the San Francisco
> market area.  We will be doing our best to manage cost when we renew our
> lease or move. The advantages of having good access to talented people and
> organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving to a
> lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.
>
> Regards,
>
> Garfield
>
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Pine W  wrote:
>
>> Hi Garfield,
>>
>> I'm asking this on Wikimedia-l because a number of Wikimedians have noted
>> the expensiveness of the San Francisco area including its high cost of
>> living for staff, employer competition for engineering talent, and
>> associated high salaries for WMF employees.
>>
>> I see on
>> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/8/8a/RFP_for_Real_Estate_Services.pdf
>> that WMF is considering relocating its offices when its current main office
>> lease expires.
>>
>> Questions:
>>
>> What happens to the remodel expenses that WMF is paying for at its
>> current location? If WMF vacates the premesis, will it be compensated for
>> the remodel by the building owner?
>>
>> I hope that WMF is contemplating fully exiting the San Francisco market
>> area in order to economize, get better value for our donors' funds, have
>> less competition for talent, and lower costs of living for staff. Is this
>> being considered?
>>
>> Thanks very much,
>>
>> Pine
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Garfield Byrd
> Chief of Finance and Administration
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415.839.6885 ext 6787
> 415.882.0495 (fax)
> www.wikimediafoundation.org
>
> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
> the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
>
> *https://donate.wikimedia.org *
>
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