On 30 June 2010 15:13, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
Sam Klein writes:
I do think there are more risks inherent in this sort of growth than
are listed in the 'potential risks' section -- for instance, "inability to acculturate new staff due to aggressive growth" -- and we should be alert to these risks to avoid them.
Just to be clear about this, I read Sam here as saying something like "there is a potential risk that we will be unable to acculturate new staff as we grow." This of course is true -- and it's even true when growth is slow! But in practice the Foundation takes this risk very seriously, and takes pains to promote the acculturation of new staff, not just to Foundation culture but to the larger community. One way we do this is by sending new staff to Wikimania, if it makes sense to do so, and/or promoting new staff's interaction with the community in other ways. Attendees at Wikimania this year will see a number of staff who haven't been there before -- everyone is urged to engage staff members in conversations about our work together, or other topics of common interest. (I'll be there too -- first Wikimania since Taiwan!)
--Mike ___________________
Will the new staff be wearing some kind of identifying marker so we can spot them? Perhaps a silly hat? Or, could they walk around carrying a board that says "Talk to me about copyright edge-cases"! 'm not so much sure that that would be good acculturation but it would definitely be a baptism by fire :-)
Seriously though, perhaps the opening keynote or some other time could be used to ask new staff to stand up and be briefly introduced?
-Liam
wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata