[Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

[Erik Moeller]

On 6/13/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
> What are examples of things a hypothetically ideal management would do
> *right* that the present management is not?
>
> I suspect this would be a much more productive discussion than constantly
> claiming the board is "stacked" -- which of course it is, intentionally and
> openly so.

I agree that constantly pointing out the fact that the Board is
"stacked" is unproductive. As Anthere has pointed out, Michael Davis
is now doing a lot of good work for Wikimedia, and it seems unlikely
to me that he would vote in whichever way Jimmy wanted him to. As for
Tim, we've been through that -- he will probably leave soon. Jimmy's
initial decision to install two business associates as Board members
without much discussion was regrettable, but there's no reason to
dwell on it forever.

My only wish would be for Michael to more frequently participate in
open discussions, so that the community gets to know him a little bit
better. The same is true for Brad now that he serves in two very
important official capacities.

What could be done better? I've already written a long response in
that direction in the InstantCommons thread, and I don't want to a)
provoke people unnecessarily, b) repeat myself all the time. Besides,
Anthere only responded with a two-line comment that this was my Board
candidacy propaganda. :-)

I will only say briefly that I think Wikimedia is now making the
transition from "college club" to "corporate structure with volunteer
support". This is good in many ways: a new level of professionalism in
dealing with communications, partnerships, and so on is badly needed.
In that respect, I welcome the appointment of Brad as legal counsel,
and the search for an Executive Director (even though I would prefer
the term "Administrative" for reasons I already stated).

This new corporate structure, with some tweaks, will hopefully help us
to keep the projects running and let the communities evolve. One thing
I frequently say when talking about Wikipedia is that the project is
"doomed to succeed". It is very difficult to mismanage it in such a
way that it will literally collapse. Our community grows
exponentially. Our policies evolve naturally. When our servers get
slow, the goodwill increases -- even in the worst case, a corporation
will approach us and offer us charitable support with few strings
attached ("show our logo!"). Not to mention that "we" are _not_
mismanaging the project on the technical level: you and the other
people administering the servers are doing fantastic work.

Having a corporate structure to maintain our existing resources,
acquire funds, hire personnel, deal with legal issues, comply with
regulatory requirements, and establish a few strategic partnerships is
excellent. If all we want to do is keep our projects running and let
the community do the rest, this is the way to go.

Wikimedia, has, however the stated mission to bring free knowledge to
every single human being on the planet. This requires a renewed focus
on quality control and distribution. But Wikimedia is not just
Wikipedia. It is also Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikisource,
Wikicommons, Wiktionary, and Wikispecies. Taking on each of these
projects brings with it a responsibility to help them succeed wherever
we can. And each of them is a unique challenge, each of them requires
us to think deeply and strategically about how to make it work.

If we stay within the current corporate structure, I predict that most
major innovations around these projects will be driven by volunteers,
and these will increasingly group together in outside organizations.
Moreover, there will be an increasing number of outside projects (some
of them forks) competing with us in delivering functionality and
content. Not all of them will be non-profit, not all of them will be
free content, most of them will not benefit from the huge potential
for reaching a gigantic number of volunteers that Wikimedia has, and
many of them will not be able to deal with their organizational
requirements. Quite a few of them will be Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft
projects. Their goal is not to deliver free knowledge, their goal is
to monetize the work of volunteers in the most efficient fashion.

Of course, competition is a good thing. That is, unless you _lose_ to
the competition. Then it's pretty annoying. At the moment we are not
able to compete well when it comes to innovation. As a non-profit, I
believe we need to do more than just continuing to provide what is
there. We need to constantly innovate and keep reinventing ourselves.
We need strategic leadership at the top which takes our long term
goals into account, and which makes decisions -- in terms of funding,
organization, partnerships, etc. -- in order to further our goals.

This is not something where the corporate structure is very strong.
AOL may be a profitable company, but it innovates primarily by
acquiring new assets. Wikimedia does not assimilate existing
resources, so it is even less competitive. The community alone can
drive innovation to a certain degree, but if you take a large
undertaking like WiktionaryZ, it quickly becomes apparent that the
many partnerships which are possible there -- from the European Union
to the United Nations to US federal educational and scientific
institutions -- cannot be managed through complex bureaucratic
processes. Yet they _need_ an organizational framework: You cannot
establish a partnership with the EU as "Erik Möller, Freelance
Developer".

One of the Board's roles, in my view, is to recognize those projects
which deserve our focus and attention, and to drive community and
organization towards them. The organization needs to be (re-)built in
such a way that individuals working towards particular projects can
pursue new collaborations with outside organizations and companies
effectively and efficiently to meet our needs.

With all due respect to the current Board members, at the moment there
is very little explicit vision and strategic leadership from the top
aside from the expression of broad, highly ambitious goals. In part,
this is because just keeping things running smoothly has been a
challenge given limited volunteer resources: Anthere and Angela are at
their limits as unpaid volunteers. In part, this is because our Board
is exceptionally small, especially for a non-profit of our scope. We
have 5 Board members. Creative Commons, which is _not_ in the role of
operating the largest encyclopedia in history, has 11. We have no
Executive Committee that makes day-to-day decisions to drive our
visions and our projects forward. There is no technologist or
researcher involved in such decisions -- and that for an
Internet-based project that only exists _because_ of its technology.

In short, what I think we need to focus on now that our corporate
structure is beginning to stabilize a bit, is to actually match the
ambition that the Wikimedia Foundation was founded upon with strategic
leadership and an increased effort to involve volunteers in open
processes that are part of the organizational structure. And I believe
an expanded Board (with the addition of a non-voting Advisory Board,
and/or an Executive Committee) is needed to provide such strategic
leadership.

Jimmy Wales has created something extraordinary by building a
non-profit dedicated to bringing free knowledge to the world. Instead
of taking Wikipedia down the for-profit route, he made sure that its
content remains permanently available by choosing a free license, and
that it is part of a broader charitable mission. He has been diligent
in keeping us focused on creating _free content_, even when the
community has sometimes pushed in the opposite direction. In short,
much of his leadership has been unquestionably good.

This is what he deserves huge credit for -- not the silly dispute
about who had the idea for creating a wiki-based encyclopedia first.
Criticizing Jimmy for setting up the organization the way he did is
legitimate, but repeating that criticism endlessly is  petty and
cheap.

But as important and crucial as Jimmy's leadership has been and
continues to be, to a certain extent Wikimedia needs to grow up. It
needs to pack its things and move out of Daddy's place. There's a
whole world out there to see, and we can only discover and explore --
and _create_ -- that world as an independent, open, free entity.
Within that new world, Jimmy is one leader among many. This transition
will not come painlessly and without fights. Any system is inclined
towards statism. Radically questioning any social structure quickly
puts you at the edge thereof. We need to, collectively, recognize that
the transition is needed if we are to manage it.

We must do these things "not because they are easy, but because they
are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the
best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we
are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which
we intend to win". We're not going to the moon, but it's a pretty wild
ride regardless.

Erik