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 <[email protected]> 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 > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
