Hi all!
As I write this, I feel almost like a student returning to school. With Wikimania behind us and autumnal weather starting outside it feels like the start of a new year - and a return to serious things after the last days of summer sunshine, storms, and socializing at Wikimedia in Montreal. But I was always the sort of kid who loved the return of the school season as much as I regretted the end of summer holidays: it meant it was time to return to learning, exploring, and doing substantive things.
And we have many substantive things to do! Phase I of the strategy is drawing to a close, and Phase II will start in November. A reminder that Phase I was about collectively developing a shared strategic direction, and Phase II will be about developing plans for how we make the direction a reality. We’re nearly halfway there!
*Draft strategic direction*. Throughout the past few weeks community members have been reviewing the draft strategic movement direction[1] which was presented shortly before Wikimania. Thank you to everyone who has already shared feedback. For those who haven’t yet, I encourage you to join the discussion on the talk page. Because of the high volume of feedback collected at Wikimania, we are extending the timeline to ensure the draft incorporates the feedback appropriately. We expect to publish draft 2 sometime in early to mid September. Then we will have a 2-week period for community review. If all goes according to plan, the final draft will post by the end of September.
*Wikimania movement strategy space*. At Wikimania in Montreal, we welcomed the community to learn more about the strategy process and discuss the draft direction in the movement strategy space. We held three feedback sessions, five facilitated sessions, and two presentation-oriented sessions over four days. They focused on sharing insights from New Voices (experts, attitudes and usage research in high awareness regions, research in low awareness regions, and key global trends), insights from discussions for organized groups and individual contributors, and exploring considerations for Phase II (roles, responsibilities, and resources). The feedback from those sessions has been collected in a report available on Meta.[2]
*Strategy keynote and session materials*. At Wikimania, our Wikimedia Foundation Board Chair, Christophe Henner, and I discussed the strategic direction during the opening keynote [3], and held a panel discussion with fellow community members Ivan Martinez, Mervat Salman, Magnus Manske, and Anasuya Sengupta, where they shared their perspectives on the strategic direction. I also joined the heads of Creative Commons (Ryan Merkley) and the Mozilla Foundation (Mark Surman) for a discussion about “The Big Open” and how open culture organizations can join forces to strengthen our movement. In other sessions and events, the strategy team presented insight from this process. Many of those session presentations and notes are posted on Meta, and more materials will be published in the coming days.[4]
I’ll be sure to send an update as soon as the new draft direction is ready, but for those who are watching as we go, keep an eye on Meta - we’ll be making changes there over the next few days as we continue to integrate your feedback. In the meantime, thank you for your insights and participation!
مع أطيب التحيات (Arabic translation: “Best regards”)
Katherine
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction#W...
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Sources/Wik...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdr2F8aB9y0 [4] https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/All_Session_Notes [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities_...