[Foundation-l] Board restructuring and community

[Dan Rosenthal]

The advisory board has extensive experience in the management of  
organizations like the WMF, many of its members have had experienced  
board restructurings and shufflings. Their expertise should have been  
consulted on this matter.

I'm looking through the Advisory Board's expertise and I'm  
flabbergasted that they weren't consulted.

Angela- experience with the WMF Board, and dealing with the chapters.
Heather Ford - "bringing together the various 'streams' of the global  
commons movement" sounds very much like the WMF's relationship with  
Chapters
Debbie Garside- Committee work and work with ISO is extremely relevant  
to chapters.
Danny Hillis- Has experience with other boards of directors,
Mitch Kapor- Has experience with other boards of directors, including  
some that have chapter like structures.
Teemu leinonen- work with UNESCO and other organizations can be  
related to working with chapters.
Rebecca MacKinnon- Work with CNN, substitute bureaus for chapters and  
you have a similar thing.
Wayne Mackintosh- Commonwealth of Learning has a chapter-like  
organization
Benjamin Mako Hill- Has experience with other boards of directors
Erin McKean- Has experience with other boards of directors
Trevor Neilson- Has experience with other boards of directors, work  
with GBC is very chapterlike.
Clay Shirky - Bolding for emphasis- My interests relevant to Wikimedia  
are social software generally, and in particular governance problems;  
what changes in coordination costs for groups do to the economics of  
information production; and the design of federated networks.
Peter Suber- serves on several boards of directors
Raoul Weiler- other boards of directors experience, chairs a chapter  
of a different organization.


At the very least, Angela should have been consulted, along with Clay  
Shirky (in his field of expertise), possibly Raoul Weiler (regarding  
chapters), and several of the listed above members who have experience  
working on other boards, as well as chapter-like organizations.

I have no idea how you can say the advisory board has no expertise on  
this matter. This is the very definition of an issue that should be  
presented for them.

-Dan


On Apr 27, 2008, at 10:09 PM, Florence Devouard wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am not quite sure how to voice that in a diplomatic fashion.
>
> But... what is the expertise provided by the Advisory Board regarding
> the WMF 4 years relationships with the Wikimedia chapters ?
>
> Ant
>
> Nathan wrote:
>> This is curious too - the page on the Advisory Board says they will  
>> be asked
>> for advice about organizational development, among other things,  
>> but Angela
>> says that she has not (or never?) received or forwarded requests  
>> for advice.
>> Can we conclude that the Advisory Board is not necessary, or that  
>> with the
>> professionalizing effort the Advisory Board is just not as  
>> necessary as it
>> once might have been? Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but  
>> I'll admit
>> I thought that the Advisory Board was playing at least some role.
>>
>> Nathan
>>
>> On 4/27/08, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>  
>>> wrote:
>>>>  [4] is there a public place to contact our advisors?
>>>
>>> Anyone who wants to contact the advisory board is welcome to go
>>> through me for that. I can either forward messages to the whole  
>>> group,
>>> or pass on contact details for specific members who might be able to
>>> help. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Advisory_Board
>>>
>>>
>>>> if not, can someone forward this to them?
>>>
>>> I have forwarded your email to the advisory board members.  
>>> However, I
>>> should point out that they were not asked about this either and know
>>> less about it that readers of this mailing list. All I get from the
>>> board of trustees is announcements after they've made their  
>>> decisions
>>> behind closed doors, not any requests for advice.
>>>
>>>
>>> Angela
>>>
>>>
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