[Wikimedia-l] Advisory Board and Board-appointed seats (was: Beyond the Board)

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak &lt;darekj(a)alk.edu.pl&gt; wrote: Long time ago I suggested more structured way to use Advisory Board. So, here is the draft of the idea again. I don't think you need too specific "Community Advisory Board", as you could reach, for example, AffCom, LangCom, stewards, en.wp ArbCom etc. -- or, if you really need too general advice and there is no assembly yet, all of them -- if you need a specific advice. Basically, you have much better granulated "Community Advisory Board", although the Board is not using it usually. You definitely need a kind of "Governing Advisory Board", which would be consisted of the former Board members and people with very good knowledge of governing and other ways of social organization (NPOs, business, movements...). But, on top of that you could structure your needs. You could start it by imagining any expertise you collectively lack (I could give you one clear example immediately: relations with formal diplomacy) and start thinking how to find appropriate people for that group. Then, you could create an "Innovation Advisory Board", put there all Jimmy's technolibertarian ubercapitalist friends and ask them about their ideas. I am sure they could be very useful in such body. They could also find useful to participate in such body for Wikim/pedia cause. And so on. Any of such advisory boards be even more useful if you could find them not just an advisory role, but a committe-like ("Diversity Committee", with strong advisory role in relation to the social diversification of Wikimedia bodies, for example -- "strong advisory role" = people don't do something against their recommendation without very strong reason) or even more active role inside of the movement ("Technology Innovation Committee", with the role to plan long-term technological innovation). If you have a couple of active advisory boards, you could recruit new Board members from them, with the specific purpose, based on the Strategic Plan or other organizational needs. That could give us After their mandate as Board members, they would still stay inside of hopefully active Wikimedia bodies and we won't lose their experience. Actually, if they don't have enough time to fully participate as Board members and you still have the same focus, you could always replace them with a fellow <particular> Advisory Board members. Said so, this is not that straight-forward task and requires active work per advisory board you create. There should be a need, a structure and a way how to engage them. Find a person per advisory board who is willing to lead such body and delegate the creation and communication of that body to her or him. (That could be Board member, somebody from the movement or an employee.) I also don't think it's in collision with the assembly. Those should be Wikimedia bodies and any Wikimedia body should be able to ask them for advice. They could be helpful bodies to the future assembly, as well. While I wrote the last paragraph, I realized that we badly need one of those bodies: Legal Advisory Board: the body which could be asked by any Wikimedia organization or Wikimedian in relation to any legal issue they are struggling with. -- Milos