Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities will take place on Thursday, July
11, 2013 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). Please note that on this occasion
we are holding this meeting on the second Thursday of July, but we
will resume holding the meetings on the first Thursday of each month
thereafter.
The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net and the
meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream.
The current structure of the meeting is:
* Welcoming recent hires
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytics
* Review of financials
* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest
priority initiatives
* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available
Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
for further information about how to participate.
We'll post the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you, Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development
+1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689
www.wikimedia.org
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM
Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi folks,
consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking &
talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people
about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product
department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take
seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view
that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept
and a product dept in about 6-8 months.
To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I
want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below
is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan,
I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to
anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting
tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can
also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such.
There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to
wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in
this note, so feel free to set it aside for later.
Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering
and product departments:
- It’ll give product development and the user experience more
visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more
conversations at that level about the work that most of the
organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is
represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions
- me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of
whack.
- It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions
as appropriate without making my head explode.
- I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s
recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an
engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in
managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform
issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that
are less visible than our feature priorities.
A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams --
we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.),
and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly
autonomously.
It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two
functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications
breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would
outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the
negatives.
The way we’d get there:
I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities
and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as
a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start
that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue
that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of
Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in
place today.
So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of
the fiscal year.
Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new
world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role,
so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the
search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the
kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job.
The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions.
Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes
sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and
User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated
Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes
a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working
closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as
follows:
* VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering
* VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new
Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new
leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize
here because it works so closely with product)
Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I
believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build
this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past
experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering
operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned
issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of
thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening
questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority".
I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in
coming weeks.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
--
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi,
a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this interview given by Sue to
m/Oppenheim Associates <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gRqtx9-A0c>.
At 11:19 <http://youtu.be/4gRqtx9-A0c?t=11m19s> Sue mentions that in the
next year (2013/2014), the WMF is going to spend US$55 million.
Are there any documents that we as community members could read to see
what exactly will this money be spent on? And is mentioning budget plans
on YouTube now the preferred way of communication between the WMF and
its donors/community members?
-- Tomasz
Those oft you interested in Internet governance can follow the EuroDIG conference in Lisbon right now via webcast:
http://www.eurodig.org/important/webcast-remote-participation
and / or follow the hastag #EuroDIG in Twitter.
Yesterday we had the General Assembly oft EURALO, the regional at-large organisation where I represent Wikimedia CH and Wikimedia Österreich AS members of ICANN At-Large. I will serve another term von the EURALO board.
We had a very interesting visit from ICANN's new president and CEO Fahdi Chehade. With its multi-stakeholder approach and also developed and grown based in external needs and in ever-changing environment it faces similar challenges like the Wikimedia movement. This was a surprising understanding for me, having experienced ICANN as a big, bureaucratic organisation. I am aiming toward an exchange, being aware that is still hard to be heard within ICANN but without our critical and demanding voices we give away our ability to influence policy making on the Internet.
/Manue
Dear all,
We wanted to thank all of you who participated in this election,
voters as well as candidates who helped stir the debate around the
Funds Dissemination Committee. We are aware of the responsibility that
you have chosen us to take up and are looking forward to working with
the other FDC members and FDC dedicated staff, as well as all the
volunteers and staff in Wikimedia organisations that are taking part
in the FDC process.
As first community elected members, we are bringing your voice to the
FDC process and hope that you will participate as much as possible in
the forthcoming debates, evaluations and assessments and support us in
making the right decisions concerning funds dissemination to all
entities supporting Wikimedia's mission and sharing our vision. The
FDC process will only work better and develop smoothly if we all
participate in it. The FDC portal on meta [1] is a good way to start
learning more about the FDC and the Community participation page [2]
is a good bookmark to have on your watchlist to know where your
participation and feedback are needed.
In any case, should you have any questions about the FDC or the FDC
process, please do ask them and we will do our best to answer them
timely and accurately, along with our fellows FDC members and staff.
We want to extend our congratulations to Susanna for being reappointed
as FDC Ombudsperson and to the newly (re-)elected Trustees of the
Wikimedia Foundation, María, Phoebe and Sj. And our thanks to all
members of the election committee for the tremendous work in this
election.
Best,
Delphine & Cristian
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Community_participation
Wikipedia for prisoners – an unexpected partnership between a swiss prison and Wikimedia CH
Following an initiative from Emmanuel Engelhart, with the support of Wikimedia CH CAO, Chantal Ebongué, since March 2013, prisoners who request can have an access to Wikipedia offline (Kiwix project). The idea is to stimulate or to support the interest for education of prisoners who were, for a large majority, condemned to long-time sentences.
After three months of pilot phasis, the project is successful : Among the 36 prisoners of the Bellevue’s prison in Gorgier, 18 possess or rent a computer. All of them requested the upload of Wikipedia offline on their PC. For security reasons, swiss prisoners have a very restricted access to internet.
More informations in the press releases (ENG, DE, FR, IT) that was sent today to the swiss media
Regards,
Charles
___________________________________________________________
Charles ANDRES, Chairman
"Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
www.wikimedia.ch
Office +41 (0)21 340 66 20
Skype: charles.andres.wmch
IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
