To understand Hoi you first need to get yourself some stroopwafels to go with your coffee
On Sat, Feb 11, 2017 at 9:50 AM, Anna Stillwell astillwell@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Feb 10, 2017 at 11:52 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, Anna I absolutely loved what you write.
Gerard, I'm feeling the love, dude. (A fellow co-worker and I were talking the other day and she said that she even calls inanimate objects dude. I deeply resonated. So "dude" for us is not a gendered pronoun.)
It is very much uplifting to see that you want to move forward and want to do this based on the facts on the ground
Yes. Keep in mind that *we will make mistakes*. A lot of them. I promise you. I'm probably making one right now.
and not so much on our convoluted history that is spread out so much that even someone like me who has been involved for the longest time has given up on yesterdays arguments.
I agree with this statement. We need to build relationships for the future.
And, "Rogol" wasn't talking about the past. He was inquiring about a product roadmap, which is all about the future. And his questions were fair.
Some will say but.. but ... and from their position they may be right.
They
forget that there are over 280 languages, more in the pipe line and even more projects and as it is we do not consider this at all. English Wikipedia is less than 50% and as Asaf said in a recent presentation less than 50% of the people in this world have English as a first or second language. Arguments from the past mean that the diversity we are is less important than the incumbency of the present talking heads.
Yes. Think of all of the places we could go and things we could do. Remember to offer your important ideas in the movement strategy conversation. It's about a strategic direction, a theme for the next 15 years. A general layer of meaning that sits right below the vision and describes the theme of the next 15 years. Might that not help coalesce our efforts?
When arguments are based in the past, the reality check if the arguments still fit the present is typically left out. When arguments are of high quality, they should still convince and do not need to consider their legacy.
I often forget to reality check if an argument still fits. Good reminder for me. It would be so much easier if reality would just let us make up our minds once and for all. lol.
Thanks,
GerardMp.s. I know this may sound really ignorant, but what does "Hoi" mean? That's how you've started every email that I can ever remember.
On 11 February 2017 at 02:34, Anna Stillwell astillwell@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Sun, Feb 5, 2017 at 10:03 AM, Rogol Domedonfors <
domedonfors@gmail.com>
wrote:
Anna,
As you may have noticed, threaded discussions become difficult for
me
to
visually navigate after a while. Thus, the color.
Sorry, colour doesn't come through on the mailing list.
Thank you for explaining that. I appreciate you teaching me the rules. After I posted, I also had a number of wiki elves simultaneously ping
me
on
a number of different channels to let me know the very same thing. A
bunch
of gardeners just tending to the commons. It was delightful. It felt
like
an entrance into a different world. I was wondering when the hobbits
would
show up with second breakfast and above all: ale. I want some ale.
Call me naive, but I’m excited by the prospect of the movement
strategy
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
. I
know
that many other things will need to happen to arrive at the state
that
you
speak of, but thinking together at that scale is likely a good
start
in
my
mind. It might even be a necessary but insufficient pre-requisite
for
the
kind of collaboration you speak of.
Let us hope that it does what is both necessary and sufficient.
Yes.
Sometimes I wonder if hope isn’t at the base of it all. Perhaps hope is necessary but certainly not sufficient for it all to transpire. Hope is
not
a strategy. But maybe it's a foundation.
Besides, I could use some. Hope, that is. It’s looking bleak out there. It’s tough to wake up in the middle of your life and realize that it
looks
like most of the world thinks a regression back to nationalism and censorship and white, straight power is a good idea. Not as tough as needing knowledge and food and health every single day and not having access to it, but tough in a Maslow’s-hierarchy-kinda-way. There is so much work to do on so many fronts.
I wake up thinking about and feeling unsure about the future.
The current notion being instantiated in the proposed Technical
guidelines
is very much about a wise and benevolent Foundation steering its
ideas
through a reluctant community. That is frankly insufficient.
Would you direct me to those Technical guidelines? I don’t know the reference and I should.
They are at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_Collaboration_ Guidance which is currently under discussion. This appears to be a successor project to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_product_development_ process/Communities which is described as stalled.
Thank you. I have not yet read these because I spent a lot of time this week clarifying Joady’s and my role with KM and JL. We all wanted
clarity
on which problems we were solving and which ones we were not. My JD is
at
the end of the email if you would like that clarity as well.
> > Maybe not. But if it could strike a deeper cord around
transparency,
I
> wanted to show up for that conversation. Talk openly. Let
people
know
that > we are listening, that we believe in transparency… that’s why
we
all
fought > for it. > > To be clear, I have no sense whether it did strike a cord
around
> transparency, but I enjoyed the conversation nevertheless. >
My experience of the Foundations notion of Transparency has been
patchy
at
lest -- and that's a polite way of saying breathtakingly awful.
That good? All jokes aside, I take this very seriously. I’d like to
hear
your notion of transparency, but first I’ll offer this one that I
recently
heard because I have the sense that it will resonate with you.
We're
in
the
final stages of an org-wide conversation on our values https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Values/2016_discussion/Framing.
We
invited some current and former community-selected board members as
well
as
volunteers beyond the board to these conversations. I enjoyed them
very
much.
Normally, I would attribute this quote, but these conversations
were
anonymized, so I don’t have permission to reveal my brilliant
source.
They
talked about how transparency was likely not the right word for
what
they
really wanted. They wanted a way to join in. They wanted to know
where
they
could plug in. Is that a notion of “maybe more than transparency"
that
resonates with you?
That’s the problem that I’m chewing on. And so your ideas around collaboration are interesting to me. So I’m thinking about them.
What
they
would mean, how it could be done, the myriad of constraints that
make
it
seem quite difficult to orchestrate.
The difference between Transparency and Engagement is indeed what I
have
been concerned about. But genuine engagement cannot take place on a
basis
of asymmetric access to information. So transparency seems to be the prerequisite
Cool. I think we’re thinking in some similar directions. It seems
like
we're interested in similar problems. I still don’t know what to do
about
it. It's not as easy as it looks, but it definitely looks like that is
the
direction we should go in.
What has changed in the last fortnight to make me expect that it
will
be
different this year?
Look, if there’s one thing I think I’ve learned throughout my
career,
it’s
all of the things that could go wrong. Sometimes it feels like
that’s
all I
have to offer: what not to do.
I also don’t think grand pronouncements are the way to go. So I’d
be
happy
to explain some of the things that I do think have changed, as long
as
you
know I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m just
legitimately
answering your question from my partial point of view.
Leadership has changed. I see more people internally looking to
involve
relevant stakeholders in their work (New Readers and ORES come to
mind).
I’m also hopeful about the movement strategy process. It looks
like a
good
faith effort on everyone’s part to come together and discuss the
future
in
open, inclusive, documented discourse <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
.
I see progress, not perfection.
I see confusion. In the last fortnight was a reference to the ED's
public
pronouncement that she thought it waste of her time to engage with
people
like me directly on her Meta talk page. Her predecessor had not
thought
that.
I don't have time to investigate this statement and work to piece
together
what happened, and since I don't have that time, I will not comment in
any
way on this particular instance.
Generally, I am thinking about community service training across the organization. I would love your help with that. I can do little about
the
past. I can address the future. To properly address the future, ad hoc
and
particular solution sets won't suffice. We'll need coherent and general solution sets, with enough particulars to keep the solution set honest.
> In the middle ground, there is the > > issue of the current product roadmap and its delivery.
Perhaps
an
> > indication of what that roadmap is may help to refine and
revise
the
plan > > that will have to be drawn up for executing the work that is
left
hanging > > by these events.
[...]
I don’t have enough information.
[...]
Is any of those close to the truth, do you think?
I do not know.
I want to be polite here.
We're cool.
It is very unusual for an organisation like the WMF not to have the sort of Roadmap that I describe,
I didn’t say that we didn’t have a Roadmap. I said that I did not
know.
and extraordinarily unusual that a person at your level in the organisation should not know of its existence and be able to confirm
at
least whether or not it exists.
Agreed.
One caveat: I am a Director in Talent and Culture. Please allow me to explain. You may have noticed we’ve had some talent and culture
challenges
as of late. I’m sure you can imagine how those challenges could keep me (one of two senior leaders in a department of 10, 5 of whom are solely dedicated to recruiting and 1 dedicated solely to employee benefits), relatively busy. Although I agree with you in principle, I’m just
asking
you to see how under those circumstances it could make sense that a Director in T&C might not be up to date on what is going on relative to Product Roadmaps.
However, I am here now.
You must be aware that your answer suggests at a bare minimum the possibility that you, as an officer of the WMF, are evading the
question.
That possibility genuinely never occurred to me. Evading the question? Quite the contrary, Rogol. I have answered in the most
exposing
and real way possible. I have said, "I don’t know", on a public mailing list. Talk about a total lack of spin! I think that is in the Wharton-Business-School http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/for-individuals?gclid= CMGp9YTnhtICFURqfgod_AYI_g&slx=NAM_BRAND&ef_id=WFbx6wAAAN1GRt7g: 20170211003858:s-what-not-to-do manual... admit that you don't know something in public.
To be any more transparent, I would have to wear a body cam. I trust
the
NSA is working on it.
If I may be so bold, it seems that your interpretation of my words
lacks
even basic faith. It seems to be the penultimate worst possible interpretation (the worst being lying, the second... evading).
But your nearly automatic interpretation may point to a deeper issue. I hear you saying that you don't take me at my word. That you may not
take
us
at our word. And I imagine that we have done some things to earn your distrust. I hear you.
But I assure you that I am telling you the truth now: I do not know.
I work to identify general problems. Once identified, I seek to
understand
which problems are my most important problems. I don't think in terms
of
priorities. I think about my most important problems because the
wording
helps me get to and stick to the heart of it.
Then I like to debate my most important problems because someone could
see
information that I can't. Why those problems? What is the rationale? Potentially I revise my most important problems based on input or reading or
speaking
to other knowledgeable people.
Then I decide which problems I am going to work to solve. Then I think about the best way to solve them. Then I try to imagine all of the
things
that could wrong. Then I remember that no plan survives its first engagement with reality and that I have to get started experimenting.
You've helped me see some new possibilities for how we might
organize.
Thank you.
Thank you,
"Rogol"
Ok. How do you pronounce your fictitious name? I asked around, “Hey,
how
do
you pronounce Rogol’s fictitious name”? Everyone pronounced it
differently.
Some had a hard g. Some had a soft one. Some placed emphasis on the
first
syllable. Some on the second.
I couldn’t stop laughing. I said to them, “But he’s made up…. how can
you
be *so sure*?”
It made me want a fictitious title for myself that no one could
pronounce.
Perhaps that’s why my new title, which someone else came up with,
sounded
so fun to me: it’s a fictitious title that almost no one can pronounce.
For
example, when I first said it to Guillaume, he winced at my
pronunciation.
He tried not to. He really did. He put in a good faith effort.
But that made me wonder, does Rogol even know how to pronounce his fictitious name?
THE JD
Chargé d’Affaires
Collaboratively build a culture and organization for the future.
In partnership with the executive team, think and act in service of talent and culture needs for the future of our projects and movement (e.g., forecast future talent needs—individual and collective competencies).
Co-design (with Joady) the vision and execute a leading-edge, comprehensive talent management strategy.
Co-define and co-execute (with Joady) a coherent, inclusive
philosophy
across the employee lifecycle.
Champion our values, embed them throughout the employee lifecycle.
Champion special projects and ideas worthy of support.
Represent culture and organizational design at executive team.
Collaboratively recruit high-level roles for the future: Board of Trustees, Endowment Board, executives, and special projects.
Engage leaders in their own development:
Roll out a leadership framework, a central architecture of accountabilities at different levels of leadership throughout the organization, sync JDs.
Drive and evolve our cutting-edge leadership program.
Drive adoption of our leadership practices.
Develop, drive, and evolve manager training (hiring, orienting, performance management, development, succession planning).
Drive adoption of management practices.
Lead the people side of succession planning.
Manage and evolve cultural orientation.
Be an ambassador (Charge d’Affaires)
Make WMF a creative, generative, well-regarded culture to work
within.
Develop and represent the public profile of the Wikimedia Foundation
as
an employer and culture leader, including writing, external
networking,
and representing the foundation at public engagements.
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-- "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." -
Margaret
Fuller
Anna Stillwell Chargée d’Affaires / VP Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org http://www.wikimediafoundation.org* _______________________________________________ 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: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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-- "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it." - Margaret Fuller
Anna Stillwell Chargée d’Affaires / VP Wikimedia Foundation 415.806.1536 *www.wikimediafoundation.org http://www.wikimediafoundation.org* _______________________________________________ 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: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe