[Foundation-l] WMF Office Move - Wikimedia-l

17 Sep 2009

Hello Everyone,

I'd like to announce the upcoming office move for the Wikimedia  
Foundation.  We have outgrown the current office space in the SOMA  
district of San Francisco.  This was a great space for us when we  
first landed in SF, but it's small, and we've been over capacity for  
several months now.  We want to provide space that enables the staff  
to get their work done (including sufficient meeting space and  
collaborative space, which we don't currently have) and we'd also like  
to be open to other people spending time with us, including hosting  
local meet-ups, and visits (including workspace) from out-of-town  
community members, Board and Advisory Board members, and people from  
like-minded organizations.  None of that has been possible in the  
current space.

A move was approved as part of our 2009-10 annual plan, and we started  
looking for space a few months ago.   There are many good things about  
looking when we did; the local commercial real estate market is in a  
low point which afforded us the ability to find larger spaces for less  
$$ per square foot, and the vacancy rate allowed us to be very  
thoughtful about where we ended up.

We ran a highly collaborative internal site selection process, which  
included some good conversations about accessibility, openness and  
brand fit.  (For example, being near South Park, the heart of dot-com  
land, has not been ideal for us from a brand perspective. Lots of  
people assume Wikipedia is a dot-com, and we don't want to  
accidentally encourage that misunderstanding.)

In the end, one location was the shining beacon that as a group we all  
agreed 100% on.  I have never worked with an open, collaborative  
office move process in the past and I certainly didn't expect we'd  
find a space that we all liked and were excited about, but we did.  It  
met all of our current needs and should accommodate us in the years to  
come as it offers expandability and flexibility.  Today, we signed the  
lease, and we will move in mid-to-late October.

As many of you may know, we have been somewhat secretive with our  
current address.  We made this decision for several reasons, the  
largest concern was for staff safety and reduction of interruptions  
that would keep us from our work.  The offices of any big website are  
vulnerable to all kinds of stalkers and gawkers, and -unlike Google or  
Yahoo or AOL- we don't have elaborate sign-in processes, security  
staff, or armies of receptionists intercepting visitors.  Our current  
space is on a back alley and the ground floor, with no security, so we  
have been worried about the safety of the staff.

On reflection though, we don't think being secretive about the address  
was a good idea.  It ran counter to our values of openness and  
transparency, and it wasn't successful: anyone interested was easily  
able to find our address.   And, our new office is somewhat more  
secure: it's on a busy street, we'll be on the third floor, and there  
is a security person on-site.  So, we have decided not to continue to  
try to keep the address hidden.  It will be posted on the website and  
will be on our business cards and office stationery.  There is still  
the risk that we may have interruptions, but we are putting in place  
safe-guards to reduce this while also looking to the future and how we  
can be more receptive and approachable.

Having said that, I invite you all to Google the new location to see  
for yourselves where we will be:

149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105.  Our  
phone and fax numbers will remain the same.

Another positive aspect that will come with this move is the ability  
to repatriate the Wikipedia Usability team.  As our current office did  
not have enough space for them, we had to find nearby subleased office  
space.  This move will allow us all to be under one roof and will  
allow us to freely collaborate with them, something we all value  
immensely.

We do have some additional time on our current lease and will be  
looking to sublease the office space or turn it over to someone who  
will take it as a direct lease and remove us from the responsibility.   
We have had much interest since we started looking and have a short  
list of possible sub-lessors.   Our hope is to have the office leased  
out by the end of November 2009.

We look forward to the future in our new location and hope that we get  
a chance to have you all visit us.  We will do our best to post photos  
as we settle in so that people can imagine us all in our new setting.

--
Daniel Phelps
Wikimedia Foundation