Grants talk:PEG/WM DE/Wikimedia Conference 2015/PEC Report

Report accepted

Hi Cornelius, thank you for putting together such a thoughtful and thorough analysis of your work as PEC and the outcomes of this experiment. We are pleased to accept the report and look forward to learning more as the role continues to iterate. Below are a few comments and questions to think about as your plan for WMCON2016.

Hello Kacie, thank you for accepting the report and your questions. You can find my answer below in-line:

• The report notes that there was much confusion within the movement over what the role entailed. It would make sense to write a concise summary or re-introduction of the PEC role in an e-mail on Wikimedia-l rather as many people do not read reports.

Nicole and me, we are preparing a blog post for the international Wikimedia movement blog, which will give a compact and concise summary of the PEC’s concept and role as well as past and future tasks.

• It was interesting to see that 44 conference attendees and 38 people who did not attend WMCON2015 participated in follow up activities. You note that this might call into question whether affiliates selected the right representatives to attend the conference - alternately it could indicate that improved documentation leads to wider engagement.

Yes, you are right, that’s definitely an interesting fact! As we have written in our grant proposal for the Wikimedia Conference 2016+, we will publish the call to select affiliates’ representatives including an organizational briefing “How to choose the right representative?”. We hope that helps the affiliates to select those representatives who can contribute to and benefit from WMCON most and are predestined to transfer their learnings home.

Regarding the results of an improved documentation: We totally agree with you. As we have written in the report, a good documentation is key, as [...] “it is the starting point to further engage them and also to show the Movement what actually happened at the Wikimedia Conference”. As part of the 2016 process, we will further work on improving the documentation together with the facilitators and speakers.

• What, if any, changes will you make to the PEC workflow or responsibilities in the coming year?

Generally, we will focus on the improvement of the participatory processes before, at and after the Wikimedia Conference. A first step is the better involvement of the conference participants in creating the program. You can find a draft of the program design process here.

The PEC’s role was and is designed as a facilitator and supporter of the follow-up process of the Wikimedia Conference. In the course of the process, we often had to balance how far (and deep) the concrete support for the thematic ambassadors could go. Generally, the goal is to support and enable thematic ambassadors and their initiatives as far as to create a momentum among their groups and create examples for other people to follow-up. My focus next year will shift more to enabling ambassadors and participants rather than operatively supporting them.

• Would it make sense to identify some ambassadors prior to the conference to ensure they have time to take on the responsibility or to achieve more geographic diversity?

In 2015, it wasn't possible to identify thematic ambassadors before the Wikimedia Conference due to my late entry. For 2016, we will continue to work with the current ambassadors, as their work, outcomes and input is valuable for the next program design process. Identifying further ambassadors before the conference wouldn’t be really useful, as the personal contact and the momentum at the conference is important for motivational reasons.

Additionally, we are talking with the WMF L&E team about the idea of preparing and discussing certain thematic questions with the participants before the conference in an online environment.. Creating a common understanding of the main questions is key for creating a climax of engagement at the Wikimedia Conference.

• What strategies will you use to engage WMCON participants post-conference in 2016?

As outlined in the report (and the new proposal) the areas of action for engaging WMCON participants are the improvement of the documentation of the Conference, the continuous work with the thematic ambassadors (see also the point below) and building thematic bridges to other movement events. Updating the movement more regularly about the outcomes and a generally better communication are areas for improvement in 2016.

• What kind of additional concrete support can be offered to ambassadors with a .1 increase in FTE? How will you manage expectations differently?

As pointed out above, the PEC’s main tasks are enabling the participants and facilitating the follow-up process among them. We ask for an increase in FTE to provide a better methodological support (in terms of tools, methods, ways of support) for the ambassadors to advise them how to engage their interested people. In fact, direct support of the ambassadors is often easier (and faster) but might be less impactful than enabling, explaining and motivating and – especially – with a weaker scaling effect.

Thank you again for the work you put into this thoughtful analysis and for your efforts to ensure that important ideas from WMCON are shared and carried forward. Cheers, --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:47, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. Cheers, --Cornelius Kibelka (WMDE) (talk) 10:39, 29 October 2015 (UTC)