Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Updates/2 February 2017 - Update 5 on Wikimedia movement strategy process

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Feedback on Team Tracks[edit]

Experts and readers audience tracks (C and D)[edit]

It would be worth considering separately the knowledge production communities/industries, e.g.

EdSaperia (talk) 15:50, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

+1, also GLAM and copyright communities. Referring to these as 'markets' isn't right, and they should probably be considered separately from 'readers' as they have different viewpoints, challenges and contributions relating to Wikimedia that it is worth gaining insights into distinctly through this process. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Ed and Mike, Why would you want to consider them "separately?" I have read Mike's point but the phrasing seems to suggest that whoever we talk to in any of the tracks will have some kind of monolithic viewpoint, which I am not sure I can reconcile with my own understanding of those conversations. So I'm curious what added value you'd see in those communities having their own track and more importantly, what other communities you'd see in Track C. Thank you. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 10:25, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The stated aim of the different tracks is to match "the unique needs of those different audience". I'm not convinced that "high reach market" and "low reach market" are more different than "readers" and "GLAM", or even if there should be a significant distinction in high/low reach for any audiences (and we definitely should *not* be referring to these different audiences as markets!). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 23:04, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Mike, I still don't understand exactly what you're aiming at by +1'ing Ed's suggestion, since now you seem to be advocating that the distinction made through tracks C & D makes little sense. (I don't agree with you about the "market" bit, but that's another debate altogether ;)). Please take this as a genuine question to try and understand this better. I think that the separation in low reach/high reach (ie. where we're known and where we're not) is actually quite relevant myself, because I can imagine trends will come out of both. But I still don't see any particular added value to making knowledge production communities a separate track (I see them in ALL THE TRACKS actually, that's why I am looking for this added value proposition - more biz jargon for you :P). Delphine (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your question. I think they should be considered separately because they're significant specialist users and producers of wikimedia content and data, and have specific interfaces, both institutional and technological. By paying some attention to these interfaces and designing appropriately, I think we can massively improve engagement with these communities. Also, this is a user research exercise more than a marketing exercise, so a more appropriate word than "market" would be the term "user group" - However, the strategy process should also consider how to market the wikimedia projects to these user groups. EdSaperia (talk) 12:36, 9 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I actually just noticed the sentence "We will also talk with like-minded organizations and experts knowledge, communities, and technology associated with the movement now, and those outside the movement.", so I guess that covers it. EdSaperia (talk) 00:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My worry is that this approach lumps what I would view as the 'inputs' and 'outputs' of Wikipedia into one group, by combining both the readers (the output/audience/market) and co-traveller/partner organisations (the input/knowledge holders). The two will probably need quite different strategies - for example, what gains more readers in an area is not the same as what convinces more institutions there to freely license content - and hence quite different solicitation approaches. Plus you risk alienating partners if you refer to them as a market (is, e.g., the British Museum a 'high-reach market' / a set of readers?). There are some cases where they do overlap (e.g., Wikipedia Zero, funding opportunities), but they are a minority of partner organisations. I'd recommend splitting these in two - have a 'Track E/F' or 'Track C1/C2 & D1/D2' to tailor the approaches to the two distinct groups. (Also @Katherine (WMF) for awareness of this discussion). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for explaining, Mike. Your thinking seems to be similar to what has happened organically as we've been discussing Track C. We're soon going to announce the track lead(s) and, without scooping Katherine, you'll see that the joint leadership of Track C reflects your point about those audiences having different needs and deserving different kinds of attention.
On the more general point about who to talk to, the plan is to post a preliminary list here on Meta and to invite interested contributors to help expand and prioritize the list. This will probably happen in the next couple of weeks. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 17:14, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds good, thanks @Guillaume (WMF)! Mike Peel (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there Mike, thanks for the ping to give me a heads up. In fairness, we struggled a lot with how best to describe any of this. The original model in my head was to should group institutions and partners together, similarly to how you and Ed have described them, as one track, and consider readers as a separate track, with a subtrack for understanding the needs of readers in low-awareness and high-awareness areas (or for lack of a better term, the dreaded "market"). Others felt differently, and we ended up with a quadrant diagram that we spun around a bit, and ultimately tipped in favor of the current alignment. I still believe that we should be approaching educational, cultural, and other knowledge creation institutions with the intent of a unique cohort, while acknowledging the needs of a national museum in Morocco is likely different than one in Germany. As Guillaume alludes, I do think that the folks coming together around this will be able to bring these perspectives to bear.
Ultimately my hope is that the intent of engaging these different perspectives is what truly comes through - the emphasis on going beyond our individual anecdotal observations as movement members, to more thoroughly survey and understand the interests of our institutional allies, the emergent trends in the sectors we touch (e.g., education, cultural institutions, library sciences, technology), and what market research tells us about the way people use us - or don't - in the world. I am genuinely looking forward to what we learn, and how it might inform our ultimate findings. But do keep me honest, it's much appreciated. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 18:58, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Katherine (WMF)! I quite like your original model here, and it would be great if some of the main perspectives/threads of the private discussions that changed your thinking could be shared (this would help me - and hopefully also others - understand this approach a bit better!). We definitely need to quantify things, rather than relying on anecdotes, and I hope that can be done during this strategy process - but this is also a much wider research subject that needs more work in the long term. It will be great if the strategy process can stay flexible throughout and adapt to the incoming information! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Mike Peel, ultimately I believe we clustered this way because more people felt more strongly than I did. Jokes aside, if I'm not mistaken, it was also informed by the expertise of folks working on planning the consultation. Adele Vrana and the global reach team are those with the most familiarity with low-awareness regions, including readers, institutions, and partners, and had articulated a compelling proposal for how to reach and engage both of these groups. A better answer would be to show you the visual we finally agreed upon, which shows how cross-cutting we see these groups as being. Pinging @Guillaume (WMF) who may know if that's been uploaded yet, and could likely also add perspective on why one approach to clustering won out over another. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Katherine (WMF): To be honest, I think this is where you're running the risk of local-bubble thinking. I can't tell who the "more people" are, but I suspect they are people located in San Francisco or otherwise employed by the WMF. The people with the most familiarity of "low-awareness regions" aren't the global reach team (as much as I respect them and their work), but the people/editors and organisations/affiliates working in those areas. It would be great if the visual can be shared (not just with me - send it around to the community as part of one of your excellent weekly updates please!), but I hope that you're not finalising things like this just yet until there has been wider consultation. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: Although usually I would agree entirely about the SF-bias, the Global Reach team working on track D is quite global, as you know, and are based in and working with the respective communities we're discussing. But as you rightly observed in your last comment, the intent is to evolve and be flexible throughout, and I believe the C&D track teams plan to be open about planning as those efforts get underway. I feel I am beginning to tread outside my familiarity with the specifics, so my suggestion is we both pause here until the folks leading those teams can share their thinking - hopefully quite soon. What do you think? Katherine (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Katherine (WMF): Pausing makes sense - the more people involved in the discussion, the better. :-) . I've seen the names of the people working on track D (via [1]), but I don't know their locations so I can't comment on their globalness. I am loving your updates on wikimedia-l, though - they are fantastic! :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:40, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Peel: Thanks! We'll keep them up. I get great help from GVarnum-WMF and Jbarbara (WMF). As for the global reach team, they're from/based in India, Jordan, Colombia, and Brazil! Can't wait until they join the discussion. Katherine (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

@Mike Peel: The intent has always been to involve the individual contributors and organized groups working in the considered areas (both thematic and geographic). The document that Katherine mentioned hasn't been posted on the wiki yet. I know that Shannon and Suzie from the core team have taken extensive notes of all our meetings which should provide some background for what was discussed. They're in the process of posting them (with help from Karen Brown) but they have a bit of a backlog; I can offer my understanding in the meantime.
If I remember correctly, the decision to go with geography-based tracks instead of topic-based tracks for C and D was ultimately based on the argument that it was considered easier and more cost-effective to reach out to those groups and organize the logistics by focusing on regions. For example, if we want to do phone surveys with readers, meetings with OER partners, and market research in Japan, Brazil, and France, it's easier to organize and execute the surveys, meetings, and research in Japan, then repeat in Brazil and France, than to try and coordinate phone surveys in three countries and three languages, then coordinate OER meetings in three countries and three languages, etc. This is particularly true for regions where we don't have a strong presence and we need to find a local partner to make those connections. Focusing on regions also allows for parallelization of those streams of work by running some of those concurrently so that they inform each other.
With that said, the people involved in tracks C and D are closely coordinating their efforts, for example on the questionnaires and research plans they're developing. The core team and Katherine have also started discussing how to better bridge the gaps between tracks, possibly by setting up thematic working groups as part of the second cycle of discussions. This would help bring together not just the people in tracks C and D researching OER partners, for example, but also organized groups and individual contributors from tracks A and B who are interested in this topic.
I hope this answers your questions. More information and working documents will be posted for all tracks shortly. I'm a bit busy this week with the development of the briefing, but let me know if I missed anything and I'll do my best to respond. Guillaume (WMF) (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Typo? one bullet[edit]

It reads here at the second bullet; * The results of preliminary discussions at... At what does it mean? Could you kindly indicate the location/whatever that is, please. ----Omotecho (talk) 09:20, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Omotecho: That was a random bullet point formatting typo. Apologies for that error, but the setup should now be fixed. --Gregory Varnum (WMF) (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@GVarnum-WMF: Fixed and thank you for the crisp response! ----Omotecho (talk) 15:58, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Omotecho: Excellent - thank you for pointing it out! :) --Gregory Varnum (WMF) (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Metrics meeting video[edit]

Shouldn't we point people to the [youtu.be/Y1i7NG_Ydo8 metrics meeting video with improved audio edit]? Chico Venancio (WMF) (talk) 15:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/2_February_2017_-_Update_5_on_Wikimedia_movement_strategy_process&oldid=16626348"