Then if we are to approach this more realistically, the outcomes should be measured on a longer scale. You do not develop a network from a single networking event. And certainly I'd prioritise this for more established community members. Certainly I'd see community integration as a significant positive outcome for the chapter.
I'd be very keen to see a dedicated technical community manager as a paid role, who would mostly spend their time going to London tech events and representing the movement.
*Edward Saperia* Chief Coordinator Wikimania London http://www.wikimanialondon.org email ed@wikimanialondon.org * facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/edsaperia * twitter http://www.twitter.com/edsaperia * 07796955572 133-135 Bethnal Green Road, E2 7DG
On 18 March 2014 13:12, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 March 2014 12:12, Edward Saperia ed@wikimanialondon.org wrote:
Perhaps part of the reason that we struggle to recruit is that we don't publicly take part in events in related topics. An event like this has a communications budget far in excess of our own, we might as well take advantage of it. We should have someone charismatic there to present on behalf of the community.
"Promotion" and "networking" is a rationale we have put forward many times before for paying for conference/event attendees. Often the money is put up based on commitments to write a blog post or an internal report. For a speculative, principality social networking event, the lost opportunity cost of volunteer and employee time and expenses should be justified with measurable reported outcomes, such as increased project participation, content creation or productive long term partnerships with other organizations.
The charity is accountable and committed to transparency, so if money and time is spent in ways with no direct outcome that benefits Wikimedia projects or the open knowledge aims of the charity, we should expect questions to be raised. In my view, and that of several other members, an example of a poor decision was sending an inexperienced new volunteer for an all expenses paid weekend at a Berlin conference last year, there was a blog post afterwards with ideas, none has provided any measurable outcomes in the several months since; in fact the volunteer has been completely inactive in terms of creating educational content for Wikimedia projects.[1][2]
If there were a couple of conference that we could see made a real difference to finding new active volunteers for Wikimedia projects or where highly productive long term partnerships with organizations were started, then I would prefer to see the charity provide scholarships for several active volunteers to take part or attend. The key here is measurement of outcomes, something that the new board have made a fuss about in the new strategy and should be a natural part of the way the charity works and makes decisions about where to spend its £700,000+; keeping its active volunteers at the centre of the decision making process.
Links
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Water_cooler/2013#Diversity_Conference_-_how_m... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Kwaku_BBM
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
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