Anna,
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.
Certainly, but there is an old saying about "the triumph of hope over experience". The general tenor of your comments suggest that you are less interested in learning from the past as you are planning for the future. I merely suggest that the two go hand in hand.
[stuff]] 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.
That is your decision, but it means that you will learn nothing from it.
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.
I am not sure what you mean by "community service" here. In the UK, it is a form of punishment given to young offenders for anti-social behaviour. I assume you mean something different?
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=WFbx 6wAAAN1GRt7g:20170211003858:s-what-not-to-do manual... admit that you don't know something in public.
The underlying quesrion, as was sure you would have recognised, is not "Do you Anna Stillwell happen to know whether or not the WMF has a technical roadmap ..." but "Does the WMF have a technical roadmap and if so please will the WMF publish it." Perhaps I failed to make that clear, and you were assuming I was asking a more personally specific but significantly less useful version. My long-standing question, then, remains unanswered:
*Does the WMF have a technical roadmap and if so please will the WMF publish 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).
I can only go by what I see as a pesistent refusal to address this issue over many weeks by multiple members of the WMF staff.
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.
Do you propose to take any steps to find out? If you do, please will you let the community know?
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*?”
Philippe Beaudette pronounced it acceptably it in the July 2015 Metrics Meeting, see, or rather listen to, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXWNGEht9lU&feature=youtu.be
"Rogol"