Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for your dedication and service to this organization, the Wikimedia movement, and the broader Big Open.
Since meeting you at Wikimania London in 2014 I've known you as an unflagging advocate for the power of community, and the importance of working hand-in-hand with our movement to confront our thorniest challenges. In 2017, you came to Wikimedia Summit in Berlin, while still CEO of Creative Commons, and gave the movement strategy equivalent of former US President John F. Kennedy's moonshot speech [1] -- something to the effect of, "we do strategy as a radically open process, not because it is easy, but because it is hard -- and it is by going through what is hard that we get to what is great." (Also, that the process of making choices in strategy can make us sad, which we’ve all certainly experienced!)
I knew then that you would have a role to play inside the Wikimedia movement, and was thrilled in 2019 when you joined us as Chief of Staff. In that role, I asked you to take on leading the movement strategy recommendation process through to completion and working with the movement to build an implementation plan; and getting developing a response to the challenge of disinformation to our projects, putting together a team and a plan for how we would tackle this work as a united movement. You did both, and I couldn't be more grateful.
Along the way, you ensured that the Movement Strategy work was defined by a culture of inclusion, creativity, and exploration. You created space for participants and organizers alike to experiment, with empathy for the occasional inevitable setbacks. We had moments of joy and celebration, and moments of frustration, but no matter what, people continued to come to the table with shared commitment, respect, and understanding that participation in this process matters in a meaningful way to the future of the movement. I am hopeful that this successful approach you pioneered continues to inform Foundation and community alike as the movement begins the work of implementation.
Most of all, I'm grateful for your commitment to our values. You are leaving unflagging in your belief that our movement can live into its ideals of inclusivity and shared power, that our movement governance can be more representative and effective, and that the Foundation can continue to put our stakeholders at the center of all of our work in ways that cultivate trust and care. You were an excellent advisor on the strategic ecosystem issues faced by our open movement and the broader commons, a champion of patient, kind, and inclusive community building, and a friend to many around the movement.
You've led Creative Commons, been COO at Mozilla, and Chief of Staff at Wikimedia, which must be the triple crown of the Big Open. (And perhaps a legitimate reason to retire!) But I know a movement person when I see one, and like so many of us, I know you're not going far. You're interwoven into our work and the Big Open, which will continue to benefit from your insight and support. I'm grateful for the great work we got to do, especially on movement strategy, which still offers so much richness and potential.
I'm so glad you took the gamble and joined us these past two years. I'm so excited for your next move, and I hope others will join me in thanking Ryan for his commitment to what movement leadership can be. I look forward to a future Wikimania when we can reminisce while searching for that elusive decent coffee!
Katherine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_choose_to_go_to_the_Moon
On Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 11:21 AM Ryan Merkley rmerkley@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear colleagues,
With the transition well underway for the Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, it is time for me to begin my own transition from the organization. I shared with our executive team earlier this month that I will be departing on 1 April 2021.
There is never a perfect time to leave an organization. It’s difficult to step away from this important work, and a community of colleagues, collaborators, and friends that I admire and appreciate. However, after successfully delivering two major strategic projects on behalf of the Foundation, notably the final movement strategy recommendations and coordinating the Foundation’s programme to combat disinformation, and with Katherine's departure as our CEO — the timing feels right. I want to afford the next chief executive the opportunity to select a chief of staff who has as close a working dynamic as Katherine and I have shared.
Many of you know me from our work together in the free and open movement over many years — we’ve discussed the future of the web over a good coffee at MozFest, debated copyright reform and license terms at CC Summits, or worked to reshape our global movements in Berlin, Stockholm, Esino Lario, Tunis, and online. Over the past decade, it’s been a real joy to have so many conversations about the future we want to build together, and then to actually go out and work on it. The Wikimedia communities are at the center of the world’s most powerful collective act, and it’s been thrilling to be a part of it with you.
For me, this most recent role in our open community was an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the future of free knowledge. It has been a tremendous honor to get to know our communities more deeply through the movement strategy process, and support this work to develop the strategy towards tangible actions that are now being implemented across our movement. It was exactly a year ago today that a small group of us met in New York City to finalize the draft recommendations, and today there are concrete commitments and an incredible momentum towards a new model of distributed, community-led governance that I know will reshape the movement forever. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have done this work with our movement, and for the collaboration and friendships that developed along the way.
I’m also proud of our work together to combat disinformation. Wikimedians have been fighting disinformation together for 20 years — it’s a core value and approach. But this year brought unprecedented threats, and as always, communities stepped up to lead. At the Foundation, we came together with community members to make sure we had a coordinated approach to defend the projects against disinformation around COVID-19 and the US elections last fall. The experience of the disinformation taskforce taught us several valuable lessons that are informing how we understand and prepare for threats to the quality of knowledge on our projects.
This is a movement built on the promise of radical collaboration. What I will miss most are the people that I have had the privilege to work with during my time here. I’m not certain what is next for me, but I have some conversations in the works and hope to have more to say soon. I will continue to be a part of this Big Open movement, and look forward to seeing you again — online or (fingers crossed) in person.
With gratitude, Ryan
Ryan Merkley (he/him) Chief of Staff and Board Liaison Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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