My two cents regarding volunteers and organizing team:
Just as others, I did spend lots of time in the organization of Wikimania,
mostly in recruitment, training and logistics of the Yellow Army, and in
many other small things helping Ivan, Carmen and the rest of the organizing
team. As we approached Wikimania I had to devote more and more time to it,
way past a regular 40 hour week, often having to sleep in someone's couch
because we wrapped things up at 4-5 AM. I also was lucky to have money to
support myself during these months[1], but it was a coincidence; if I had
to do it all again, I wouldn't be able to dedicate that much time for free.
Also, that's the easily measurable time because it was confined (mostly) to
man-hours in front of a computer or running errands. The actual time
invested is impossible to count, mostly because of two factors: 1) because
it was also spread during the ~15 months between us winning the bid and the
actual event, during weekends, in 5-minute conversations at all hours, etc;
and 2) because you have to consider investing time in experienced people
that will make things easier further down the road[2]. This needs
stressing, because these two represent time and money that are usually not
considered in budgets and preparations.
As Ivan said, many things can be avoided with good planning work and
(again) enough time. In our case, we made sure the volunteers felt part of
the Wikimedia Mexico team, not just an extension of it. They were invited
to editathons, talks, workshops and conferences before Wikimania, which
weren't part of their "official" training, but as a way of showing them
what the movement is about and that they can be part of it. Most of them
are still active in our chapter, but that's not just because of luck, we
planned for this and were explicit to them in our intent to have them as
contributors.
All of this goes to support my opinion that this should be kept "in-house"
as much as possible (at least, regarding the actual volunteer team, as I
cannot speak about the rest of the organization). It's true that events
like Wikimania often ask a lot of their volunteer team, physically,
emotionally and mentally; which opens up the risk of "scaring" people away,
quitting on you on the most critical moment and forgetting about your
cause. There's a lot of talk around lately about motivation, but every
expert seems to agree that the most important things to consider when
motivating a team are giving them a purpose, enabling self-direction and
fostering a sense of mastery. Once you have at least the seedling of this
environment, volunteers seem to give their metaphorical 110% for a cause
they believe in, confident that their individual effort does make a
difference. That's how we managed 72 hours of continuous editing in June :D
***
[1] The company I was working at had to close due to a terrible financial
situation. My original plan was to either ask for extended vacation time,
to negotiate a sabbatical month or two or to quit. Ultimately the decision
was made for me, but the fact is that I was trying to figure out a way to
work 24/7 on Wikimania one month before the actual event. In hindsight, I
underestimated how much work it meant, as my full-time involvement was a
full 10, maybe 12 weeks before Wikimania started.
[2] For instance, the 3rd volunteer meetup was planned and budgeted in a
little over 2 hours, but that's because I've worked with that team since I
was 16 making similar activities and, just like that story going around
about Picasso, it took us 10 years to plan a picnic like that in such short
time. Our recruitment/training process considered that the Wikipedia name
may attract enthusiastic people with little to no experience, which is good
to grow in numbers, but will use time in training certain skills. Finding
people with previous volunteering experiences takes more time, but pays off
in the long run. These two should be balanced according to every event's
needs.
On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 6:12 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak <darekj(a)alk.edu.pl>
wrote:
hi Ivan,
On Sun, Jul 10, 2016 at 6:42 PM, Ivan Martínez <galaver(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Darius, I think that "motivations criris
afterward" must also be
considered in the planning and prior call for Wikimanía volunteers and can
be avoided. In Mexico we always tell to people that we did not want them
just for giving the best of themselves for three days around, but we wanted
to keep them with Wikimedia mission. A month ago we broke a Guinness record
and 60% of attendees were Wikimania volunteers. It is a matter of long
preplanning, I think.
this is awesome! I think we also lack the ability to transfer such good
practices and paths to success across the movement, but this is really
impressive!
dj
--
__________________________
prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak
kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego
i grupy badawczej NeRDS
Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego
http://n <http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl/>wrds.kozminski.edu.pl
członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii "Common Knowledge? An
Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego
autorstwa
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010
Recenzje
Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
Pacific Standard:
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/
Motherboard:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia
The Wikipedian:
http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge
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--
"Imagina un mundo en donde cada persona del planeta pueda tener acceso
libre a la suma total de todo el conocimiento humano. Eso es lo que estamos
haciendo."—Jimmy Wales <https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Wales>.
Socio de Wikimedia México
<https://mx.wikimedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1gina_principal>.
[image: Andrés C y C on about.me]
Andrés Cruz y Corro
about.me/andycyca
<http://about.me/andycyca>