Seeing this "brand" discussion eat up all the limited available unpaid volunteer oxygen on wikimedia-l makes me sad.
If the WMF's biggest strategy topic this year is to enter into navel gazing about its brand, then the WMF looks like it has a problem with setting meaningful work for its senior management, or maybe just its team from Wolff Olins; anyone seen a budget line for this consultancy, I'm assuming this advice is not free, or cheap?
If volunteers want to chew over something that is more meaningful how about /transparency/, a target that by all practical measures has got visibly worse over the last five years and appears to have been deliberately dropped from every top level strategy document: * Should the WMF cap CEO personal expenses to under $1,000,000 a year, and publicly report on all individual senior management total expenses over $50,000 a year AND report on these within a year of the spend? * Should Wikimedia project volunteers be able to request and view the reports that the WMF holds about them, in the same way as is legally required under European law? * Should the WMF publish flight travel expenses, and set targets for decreasing year on year flight travel as part of actively doing anything at all to decrease the WMF's contribution to climate change?
Ps, it is worth looking at some of the links in the original email, it is revealing that WMF senior management appears to believe that it is a competitor with the commercial worlds of social media, YouTube and internet search engines. If this is how strategy and targets are created, then the "sum of human knowledge" goals are horribly watered down between ideology and delivery through the eyes of management consultants.
Thanks, Fae
On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 at 03:14, Zack McCune zmccune@wikimedia.org wrote:
:: Apologies for cross-posting to multiple mailing lists. We want to ensure we spread the word about this opportunity to as many people as possible. ::
Hi all,
We are writing today to invite you to be a part of a community review on Wikimedia brand research and strategy.
Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation set out to better understand how the world sees Wikimedia and Wikimedia projects as brands.[1] We wanted to get a sense of the general visibility of our different projects, and evaluate public support of our mission to spread free knowledge.
We launched a global brand study to research these questions, as part of our planning toward our 2030 strategic goals.[2] The study was commissioned by the Board, carried out by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins, and directed by the Foundation’s Communications team.[3][4] It collected perspectives from the internet users of seven countries (India, China, Nigeria, Egypt, Germany, Mexico and the US) on Wikimedia projects and values.
The study revealed some interesting trends:
Awareness of Wikipedia is above 80% in Western Europe and North America.
Awareness of Wikipedia averages above 40% in emerging markets,[5] and is
fast growing.
- There is awareness of other projects, but was significantly lower. For
example, awareness of Wikisource was at 30%, Wiktionary at 25%, Wikidata at 20%, and Wikivoyage at 8%.
- There was significant confusion around the name Wikimedia. Respondents
reported they had either not heard of it, or extrapolated its relationship to Wikipedia.
- In spite of lack of awareness about Wikimedia, respondents showed a high
level of support for our mission.
Following from these research insights, the Wolff Olins team also made a strategic suggestion to refine the Wikimedia brand system.[6] The suggestions include:
Use Wikipedia as the central movement brand rather than Wikimedia.
Provide clearer connections to the Movement projects from Wikipedia to
drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to smaller projects.
- Retain Wikimedia project names, with the exception of Wikimedia Commons
which is recommended to be shortened to Wikicommons to be consistent with other projects.
- Explore new naming conventions for the Foundation and affiliate groups
that use Wikipedia rather than Wikimedia.
- Consider expository taglines and other naming conventions to reassert the
connections between projects (e.g. “______ - A Wikipedia project”).
This is not a new idea.[7][8]
By definition, Wikimedia brands are shared among the communities who give them meaning. So in considering this change, the Wikimedia Foundation is collecting feedback from across our communities. Our goal is to speak with more than 80% of affiliates and as many individual contributors as possible before May 2019, when we will offer the Board of Trustees a summary of community response.
We invite you to look at a project summary [9], the brand research [10], and the brand strategy suggestion [11] Wolff Olins prepared working with us.
For feedback, please add comments on the Community Review talk page [12] or email brandproject@wikimedia.org with direct feedback. You can also use either of these channels to request to join a group meeting.
We know this is big topic and we’re excited to hear from you!
- Zack McCune and the Wikimedia Foundation Communications department
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/07/how-does-the-world-see-wikimedia-...
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
[3] https://www.wolffolins.com/
[4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Defining_Emerging_Commu...
[6] https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/02/26/leading-with-wikipedia-a-brand-pr...
[7] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-May/029991.html
[8] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AStrengthening_and_uni...
[9] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_researc...
[10] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Wikipedia_and_Wikimedia_Brand...
[11] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Wikimedia_brand_strategy_proposal_...
[12] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Communications/Wikimedia_brands/2030_re...
--
Zack McCune (he/him)
Senior Global Brand Manager
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe