Hi Pine,
I have answered your questions in your email.
Regards,
Garfield
On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 12:38 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Garfield,
Ok, follow up questions:
- Does WMF have a plan to keep the Foundation and its essential functions
operational if, say, the San Francisco main building all SF staff are completely offline and unreachable by phone for a week after an earthquake?
Yes, we have a plan in place in case the building in San Francisco is unavailable. All San Francisco staff will not be offline for a week after an earthquake. Not all staff live in San Francisco, and Loma Prieta showed that even a major earthquake does not take the entire San Francisco Bay Area offline. So essential functions will continue even after an earthquake.
In addition, even though many of our staff are in San Francisco, we do have staff in many other states and 18 countries.
* Would there be worthwhile advantages to establishing a second main office in someplace like the US east coast or Europe?
We have tried to setup a center of activity in other states and it did not prove to be worthwhile, as staff preferred to work from home or other locations. So it was an an additional cost with any additional benefit. It is my understanding that having an office outside the United States creates complications for Wikipedia and the other Wiki projects in the area of content protection.
Thanks, and please reply when it's convenient for you.
I'll follow up offline with HR about talent pool questions.
Thanks,
Pine On Apr 8, 2015 5:16 PM, "Garfield Byrd" gbyrd@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi Pine,
If the Foundation decides to move, the cost of making the space usable for our staff is not a recoverable cost from the building owner.
At this point, WMF is not planning on moving out of the San Francisco market area. We will be doing our best to manage cost when we renew our lease or move. The advantages of having good access to talented people and organizations WMF interacts with far outweigh any advantages to moving to a lower cost location outside of the San Francisco market area.
Regards,
Garfield
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Garfield,
I'm asking this on Wikimedia-l because a number of Wikimedians have noted the expensiveness of the San Francisco area including its high cost of living for staff, employer competition for engineering talent, and associated high salaries for WMF employees.
I see on http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/8/8a/RFP_for_Real_Estate_Se... that WMF is considering relocating its offices when its current main office lease expires.
Questions:
What happens to the remodel expenses that WMF is paying for at its current location? If WMF vacates the premesis, will it be compensated for the remodel by the building owner?
I hope that WMF is contemplating fully exiting the San Francisco market area in order to economize, get better value for our donors' funds, have less competition for talent, and lower costs of living for staff. Is this being considered?
Thanks very much,
Pine
-- Garfield Byrd Chief of Finance and Administration Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext 6787 415.882.0495 (fax) www.wikimediafoundation.org
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