Institutional memory and Institutional knowledge are two subtle and unique
characteristics, sharing knowledge is what we are supposed to be good at
yet internally its our biggest weakness. The WMF would do well to have a
"historian" on staff to document and maintain our movements' history.
Internally it is the responsibility of the human resources department to
ensure that the knowledge required and collected in any position is
captured and then transferred appropriately as people and positions change.
One issue we have is that a very significant amount of our Institution
knowledge is held by volunteers that knowledge is held closely as it builds
their reputation while creating a power base that gives them leverage for
special opportunities. Its difficult to get volunteers to willingly hand
over knowledge that makes them special and able to stand out. Part of that
is ensuring that at least WMF staff are able to connect directly with a
wider selection of the community at events, and why its so important that
conduits of knowledge are broadly dispersed beyond just these gatekeepers.
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 09:11, Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com> wrote:
On 8/25/2020 4:34 PM, Pete Forsyth wrote:
I've thought about institutional memory quite
a lot since I stopped
working
at WMF in 2011. A few points I think are worth
considering:
5. The Wikimedia Foundation has not historically done very much in
terms
of thorough encyclopedic documentation of
important events in its
history.
There have been exceptions, and I believe
that where it has been
done and
done well, much good has come of it. The best
example of this, in my
opinion, is the Assessment of Belfer Center Wikipedian in Residence
program
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Assessment_of_Belfer_Center_Wikipedian_in_R…
.
This was initiated by then-Executive Director Sue Gardner and her
deputy
Erik Möller, who participated actively in it.
Specific programmatic
improvements in the Grants department were a direct outcome.
11. In closing, I'd like to make a point about the skillset the WMF
board has hired. I want to be really explicit -- I like and admire
the
WMF's Executive Director/CEO; she is
highly skilled, and a kind
person. But
I am continually surprised that there has
been little acknowledgment
of
what the board did by hiring her, and the
direction the WMF has
(unsurprisingly) taken since her hire. She was previously the WMF's
Communications Director, and her earlier career was largely in
communications. I would urge others to consider that it is not
surprising,
if an organization is guided by an executive
with a Communications
background, that it would not embrace an encyclopedic approach to
its own
self-knowledge.
I want to react to a couple of Pete's points here. First, as to the
closing point, I think it overrates the effect of the individual
Executive Director/CEO on what are, after all, institutional and
collective processes. While I recognize the importance of the role in
heading the organization, that person may try to shape the overall
culture, but they are not really the source of it. Just consider what
transpired between the two Executive Directors mentioned above; while
that was a difficult time and the organizational culture suffered
significantly, I would argue that the underlying culture at the
community/staff/"grassroots" level is what forced the organization to
reconsider and change directions. Organizational culture determines how
institutional memory is transmitted, and simultaneously that memory
becomes part of the culture and shapes it.
Pete also offers much good advice about maintaining institutional
knowledge, but I think it's a mistaken dichotomy to view two different
modes of presenting information ("encyclopedic" and "communications")
as
if they are conflicting philosophies rather than merely separate
skillsets. People can have both, or value both even when their personal
skills are stronger in one or the other. To the extent the Wikimedia
Foundation struggles to have an encyclopedic approach to institutional
memory, frankly that problem is nearly universal among organizations.
It's less the background of a particular leader than the general
emphasis on "getting things done" over documenting what was done, how,
and why.
Going back to the earlier point, it's good to recognize Sue and Erik's
leadership in an assessment that can serve as a positive model. With
respect to encouraging a more "encyclopedic" approach, I think it's
worth observing that from a conventional organizational leadership
perspective, Erik was a pretty nontraditional choice for the deputy role
(and even a sometimes controversial figure within the community).
Nevertheless, he and Sue made an excellent pairing in their roles, and
he was an important part of ensuring that the organization understood
and valued the community, its culture, and the "encyclopedic" approach.
I believe this illustrates why it's important for the Wikimedia
Foundation to continue valuing experience in the community for all of
its hiring, so that the staff can maintain a culture that stays in sync
with the movement. It's less about one or two specific leadership
positions, and more that every Wikimedia ED/CEO needs to surround
themselves with a variety of people who bring different pieces of
institutional memory with them.
--Michael Snow
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