[Foundation-l] WMF Office Move

[Samuel Klein]

Repatriate the Usability Team - very nice.  That looks like a lovely
part of town.

Thanks for the update, Daniel.  Someone should tell the story of how
it was scouted just in the nick of time...  SJ

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Daniel Phelps <dphelps at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> I'd like to announce the upcoming office move for the Wikimedia
> Foundation.  We have outgrown the current office space in the SOMA
> district of San Francisco.  This was a great space for us when we
> first landed in SF, but it's small, and we've been over capacity for
> several months now.  We want to provide space that enables the staff
> to get their work done (including sufficient meeting space and
> collaborative space, which we don't currently have) and we'd also like
> to be open to other people spending time with us, including hosting
> local meet-ups, and visits (including workspace) from out-of-town
> community members, Board and Advisory Board members, and people from
> like-minded organizations.  None of that has been possible in the
> current space.
>
> A move was approved as part of our 2009-10 annual plan, and we started
> looking for space a few months ago.   There are many good things about
> looking when we did; the local commercial real estate market is in a
> low point which afforded us the ability to find larger spaces for less
> $$ per square foot, and the vacancy rate allowed us to be very
> thoughtful about where we ended up.
>
> We ran a highly collaborative internal site selection process, which
> included some good conversations about accessibility, openness and
> brand fit.  (For example, being near South Park, the heart of dot-com
> land, has not been ideal for us from a brand perspective. Lots of
> people assume Wikipedia is a dot-com, and we don't want to
> accidentally encourage that misunderstanding.)
>
> In the end, one location was the shining beacon that as a group we all
> agreed 100% on.  I have never worked with an open, collaborative
> office move process in the past and I certainly didn't expect we'd
> find a space that we all liked and were excited about, but we did.  It
> met all of our current needs and should accommodate us in the years to
> come as it offers expandability and flexibility.  Today, we signed the
> lease, and we will move in mid-to-late October.
>
> As many of you may know, we have been somewhat secretive with our
> current address.  We made this decision for several reasons, the
> largest concern was for staff safety and reduction of interruptions
> that would keep us from our work.  The offices of any big website are
> vulnerable to all kinds of stalkers and gawkers, and -unlike Google or
> Yahoo or AOL- we don't have elaborate sign-in processes, security
> staff, or armies of receptionists intercepting visitors.  Our current
> space is on a back alley and the ground floor, with no security, so we
> have been worried about the safety of the staff.
>
> On reflection though, we don't think being secretive about the address
> was a good idea.  It ran counter to our values of openness and
> transparency, and it wasn't successful: anyone interested was easily
> able to find our address.   And, our new office is somewhat more
> secure: it's on a busy street, we'll be on the third floor, and there
> is a security person on-site.  So, we have decided not to continue to
> try to keep the address hidden.  It will be posted on the website and
> will be on our business cards and office stationery.  There is still
> the risk that we may have interruptions, but we are putting in place
> safe-guards to reduce this while also looking to the future and how we
> can be more receptive and approachable.
>
> Having said that, I invite you all to Google the new location to see
> for yourselves where we will be:
>
> 149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.  Our
> phone and fax numbers will remain the same.
>
> Another positive aspect that will come with this move is the ability
> to repatriate the Wikipedia Usability team.  As our current office did
> not have enough space for them, we had to find nearby subleased office
> space.  This move will allow us all to be under one roof and will
> allow us to freely collaborate with them, something we all value
> immensely.
>
> We do have some additional time on our current lease and will be
> looking to sublease the office space or turn it over to someone who
> will take it as a direct lease and remove us from the responsibility.
> We have had much interest since we started looking and have a short
> list of possible sub-lessors.   Our hope is to have the office leased
> out by the end of November 2009.
>
> We look forward to the future in our new location and hope that we get
> a chance to have you all visit us.  We will do our best to post photos
> as we settle in so that people can imagine us all in our new setting.
>
> --
> Daniel Phelps
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
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