Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I would dearly love the eye of a professional marketing person, someone who
cares about customers, to give a good look at the whole of our product
range. The problem is that many see the community as one entity, and its
members as the objective for the Wikimedia Foundation. The reality is that
our customers are the people who consume what we do; our readers.

For our own consumption it is wonderful to see that we have a tiny error
rate. This is defined as the percentage of errors in our existing content.
However as a market our top product covers only some 30% of who we target
and what it offers is biased in that it does not provide the information
needed in our emerging markets [1]. At a WMF strategy meeting the notion
that the information that we do not cover is an error in itself was not
accepted; this idea was too awful, an idea not to entertain.

A case in point; today in a Dutch newspaper a Syrian refugee laments the
lack of available information about Syria [2].

When a whopping 50% of potential information is lacking, you could say "but
that is not what our readers are looking for". You could but we do not know
what people are looking for and not finding and this invalidates the
argument. Even so, we have over 280 Wikipedias and the answer to this
question will be different on every one of these projects. There has been
great research on suggesting what people could write about. This is
effective. Many people will be motivated when they are told "This is the
most asked not found subject.. Could you please?" and "You started this
month an article on ***. So many people read it so far! :) ". You may say
this takes research ... YES PLEASE!

When we want to bootstrap small Wikipedias, the first thing we need is
content. There are many strategies and this [3] is one. We first need
content that is linked and an emerging community of writers and do
remember,  we did not require sources in the beginning, that came later.

We do not consider our other projects like Wikisource; it is only
functional for editors not for readers. We need to market these projects as
well.

When you have read all this so far (thank you) you will wonder what this
has to do with a communication officer; the message this person has to
convey is not about "us" but about what we do, where there are
opportunities and how we serve our market. So imho we need more business
marketing than political marketing because as a business we are exposed;
when we do not cover our subjects, we can easily be replaced.
Thanks,
  GerardM


[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2017/04/wikidata-user-stories-sum-of-all.html

[2]
http://www.volkskrant.nl/4497302?utm_source=VK_medium=email_campaign=20170528|ochtend_content=%27Lieve%20lezers,%20ik%20ben%20geen%20gelukzoeker%27_term=37659_userid=8e2978c-c065-e461-be04-40021281a60b
[3]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2017/05/teaching-wikipedia-using-local-news.html

On 28 May 2017 at 05:53, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Joady,
>
> Thank you for publishing this. Overall I like this draft. I would like to
> offer two comments.
>
> 1. My impression is that WMF Communications is largely used to support
> fundraising, readership, and sometimes legal or advocacy topics. The
> department seems to be externally focused. I would like to see work by WMF
> Communications and/or WMF Community Engagement on developing a systematic
> "internal" communications system among content contributors and WMF
> departments. There are currently many internal communications flows, and
> while I think that there have been some noticeable improvements over the
> past few years (I particularly want to acknowledge the WMF Community
> Liaisons), there is a long way to go in systematizing and optimizing these
> communications flows. So instead of looking for a chief communications
> officer whose main strength is in marketing, sales, PR, or other forms of
> external communication, I would encourage WMF to seek a chief
> communications officer who has a track record of facilitating long-term
> improvement of internal communications in complex and diverse environments.
>
> 2. For the line in the JD draft which currently reads "A clear, effective
> communications style, including experience guiding messaging for major
> organizations, political candidates, or movements", I would encourage
> considerable caution about hiring someone into this role who has had a
> background in political campaigns. I would prefer that the individual have
> no affiliation with any political party. I can think of some organizations
> which are not aligned with a specific political party and which support
> civil rights issues which are likely to be largely compatible with WMF's
> mission, but I would still be very cautious about hiring someone who has
> any background in politics. Keeping in mind WMF's recent and controversial
> annual report, I think it is particularly important to hire a chief
> communications officer who can guide 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Rogol Domedonfors]

Pine

I agree with Risker that it would be improper to select candidates on the
basis of their own personal political views.  But I do agree with your
point that expertise in the field of party-political camapigning would not
be an appropriate criterion for the post of CCO.

"Rogol"

On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 5:45 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> Risker,
>
> > Your point #1, with respect to improving internal communication, is
> > primarily handled by other departments within the WMF (Learning, Human
> > Resources), with Communications as a resource rather than the primary
> > messager.
>
> If WMF wants to have a different department lead efforts on internal
> communication (my impression is that currently no one is actually leading
> efforts in a holistic way) that would be OK with me. My impression is that
> as WMF is already strong on external communication, and I think that WMF
> should hire for what it needs rather than what it already has. If WMF would
> like to have someone outside of the Communications Department take the lead
> role -- and actually does assign somebody with relevant experience to work
> on this as one of their primary responsibilities -- then perhaps hiring an
> external communications expert into the chief communications officer role
> would still be OK.
>
> > Your point #2 is pretty much irrelevant; some of the best
> > communications leaders work for political campaigns, and they're usually
> > "hired guns" rather than true believers.
> There are a few exceptions, but
> > again, it's irrelevant, and not ethical to screen directly for political
> > affiliation - and possibly illegal to do so.
>
> Hmm. I don't know what percentage of political campaign communications
> leaders are "hired guns", but I'm not sure that this is a risk that I would
> want to take. That said, I hadn't considered your point that screening out
> candidates with work histories in politics might be considered an illegal
> practice; thanks for bringing that up. I'll defer to WMF HR and WMF Legal
> on that. I wonder whether screening out all paid jobs for political parties
> or campaigns (regardless of which affiliation or campaign was involved)
> would trigger the same kind of legal scrutiny as screening out one party or
> another (which I'm fairly certain would be a violation of U.S. employment
> laws). Perhaps this could get into such complicated legal territory and
> provide enough opportunities for lawsuits that it would be best to do as
> you suggest rather than risk lengthy and expensive litigation. I disagree
> that this issue is "irrelevant", but thanks for pointing out that this kind
> of screening may have its own kind of risks which I hadn't considered.
>
> Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Pine W]

Risker,

> Your point #1, with respect to improving internal communication, is
> primarily handled by other departments within the WMF (Learning, Human
> Resources), with Communications as a resource rather than the primary
> messager.

If WMF wants to have a different department lead efforts on internal
communication (my impression is that currently no one is actually leading
efforts in a holistic way) that would be OK with me. My impression is that
as WMF is already strong on external communication, and I think that WMF
should hire for what it needs rather than what it already has. If WMF would
like to have someone outside of the Communications Department take the lead
role -- and actually does assign somebody with relevant experience to work
on this as one of their primary responsibilities -- then perhaps hiring an
external communications expert into the chief communications officer role
would still be OK.

> Your point #2 is pretty much irrelevant; some of the best
> communications leaders work for political campaigns, and they're usually
> "hired guns" rather than true believers.
There are a few exceptions, but
> again, it's irrelevant, and not ethical to screen directly for political
> affiliation - and possibly illegal to do so.

Hmm. I don't know what percentage of political campaign communications
leaders are "hired guns", but I'm not sure that this is a risk that I would
want to take. That said, I hadn't considered your point that screening out
candidates with work histories in politics might be considered an illegal
practice; thanks for bringing that up. I'll defer to WMF HR and WMF Legal
on that. I wonder whether screening out all paid jobs for political parties
or campaigns (regardless of which affiliation or campaign was involved)
would trigger the same kind of legal scrutiny as screening out one party or
another (which I'm fairly certain would be a violation of U.S. employment
laws). Perhaps this could get into such complicated legal territory and
provide enough opportunities for lawsuits that it would be best to do as
you suggest rather than risk lengthy and expensive litigation. I disagree
that this issue is "irrelevant", but thanks for pointing out that this kind
of screening may have its own kind of risks which I hadn't considered.

Pine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Risker]

Pine -

I am hardly the best informed person, but even I know that Communications
handles the Blog, the twitter feed, the Facebook feed, provides support to
the Board, executive and C-levels for communication, and handles thousands
of media requests a year. In other words, you're missing about 90% of your
workload in your description.  They also assist other departments with
communication, both internal and external.

Your point #1, with respect to improving internal communication, is
primarily handled by other departments within the WMF (Learning, Human
Resources), with Communications as a resource rather than the primary
messager.  Your point #2 is pretty much irrelevant; some of the best
communications leaders work for political campaigns, and they're usually
"hired guns" rather than true believers.  There are a few exceptions, but
again, it's irrelevant, and not ethical to screen directly for political
affiliation - and possibly illegal to do so.

Risker/Anne

On 27 May 2017 at 23:53, Pine W  wrote:

> Hi Joady,
>
> Thank you for publishing this. Overall I like this draft. I would like to
> offer two comments.
>
> 1. My impression is that WMF Communications is largely used to support
> fundraising, readership, and sometimes legal or advocacy topics. The
> department seems to be externally focused. I would like to see work by WMF
> Communications and/or WMF Community Engagement on developing a systematic
> "internal" communications system among content contributors and WMF
> departments. There are currently many internal communications flows, and
> while I think that there have been some noticeable improvements over the
> past few years (I particularly want to acknowledge the WMF Community
> Liaisons), there is a long way to go in systematizing and optimizing these
> communications flows. So instead of looking for a chief communications
> officer whose main strength is in marketing, sales, PR, or other forms of
> external communication, I would encourage WMF to seek a chief
> communications officer who has a track record of facilitating long-term
> improvement of internal communications in complex and diverse environments.
>
> 2. For the line in the JD draft which currently reads "A clear, effective
> communications style, including experience guiding messaging for major
> organizations, political candidates, or movements", I would encourage
> considerable caution about hiring someone into this role who has had a
> background in political campaigns. I would prefer that the individual have
> no affiliation with any political party. I can think of some organizations
> which are not aligned with a specific political party and which support
> civil rights issues which are likely to be largely compatible with WMF's
> mission, but I would still be very cautious about hiring someone who has
> any background in politics. Keeping in mind WMF's recent and controversial
> annual report, I think it is particularly important to hire a chief
> communications officer who can guide communications and the WMF
> organization away from involvement in political matters to the maximum
> extent possible while still supporting freedom of expression in the limited
> circumstances in which constraints on freedom of expression would impede
> Wikimedians' ability to communicate freely about matters of important
> public interest.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Pine
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> wiki/Wikimedia-l
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Chief Communications Officer search & job description

[Pine W]

Hi Joady,

Thank you for publishing this. Overall I like this draft. I would like to
offer two comments.

1. My impression is that WMF Communications is largely used to support
fundraising, readership, and sometimes legal or advocacy topics. The
department seems to be externally focused. I would like to see work by WMF
Communications and/or WMF Community Engagement on developing a systematic
"internal" communications system among content contributors and WMF
departments. There are currently many internal communications flows, and
while I think that there have been some noticeable improvements over the
past few years (I particularly want to acknowledge the WMF Community
Liaisons), there is a long way to go in systematizing and optimizing these
communications flows. So instead of looking for a chief communications
officer whose main strength is in marketing, sales, PR, or other forms of
external communication, I would encourage WMF to seek a chief
communications officer who has a track record of facilitating long-term
improvement of internal communications in complex and diverse environments.

2. For the line in the JD draft which currently reads "A clear, effective
communications style, including experience guiding messaging for major
organizations, political candidates, or movements", I would encourage
considerable caution about hiring someone into this role who has had a
background in political campaigns. I would prefer that the individual have
no affiliation with any political party. I can think of some organizations
which are not aligned with a specific political party and which support
civil rights issues which are likely to be largely compatible with WMF's
mission, but I would still be very cautious about hiring someone who has
any background in politics. Keeping in mind WMF's recent and controversial
annual report, I think it is particularly important to hire a chief
communications officer who can guide communications and the WMF
organization away from involvement in political matters to the maximum
extent possible while still supporting freedom of expression in the limited
circumstances in which constraints on freedom of expression would impede
Wikimedians' ability to communicate freely about matters of important
public interest.

Thank you,

Pine
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