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Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia

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sgardner at wikimedia

Sep 16, 2009, 9:35 PM

Post #1 of 10 (923 views)
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Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia

Hi folks,

I'm sorry to tell you that as of September 18, Jennifer Riggs will be
leaving the Wikimedia Foundation.

Since joining us last April, Jennifer has helped the Wikimedia
Foundation to improve in some important ways. She has helped Frank,
Cary and Jay better structure their work, and she supported the
staging of the NIH Wikipedia Academy in Bethesda, managed the chapters
grants process, and represented Wikimedia at the GLAM-Wiki conference
in Australia. That was all good work, and I thank her for it.

However, Jennifer and I have agreed that despite those contributions,
she ultimately will not be a good fit for the Chief Program Officer
role. That doesn't mean her path will never cross ours again, and
it's not a decision intended to reflect badly on her skills or
abilities. Obviously we both wish things had played out differently.

As you know, the Wikimedia Foundation has never had a Chief Program
Officer - it's a completely new position and there's no obvious career
path to prepare someone for it. It's sad this first attempt to fill
the role hasn't worked out, but it is perhaps, in retrospect, not that
surprising. Over the next month or so, we'll be revisiting the role
and its responsibilities to ensure the conditions are in place to
enable a new Chief Program Officer to succeed: I am looking forward to
beginning that process. I expect it will take at least three months,
and possibly more, to place a new person in the role: I'll keep you
aware of our progress. You can expect that at some point the position
will be posted on the Wikimedia Foundation website, and we'll announce
that here when it happens.

I recognize that Jennifer's departure may leave you with questions
about what happened, or what will happen next. I know you'll
understand that some information will be confidential, but I'll be
happy to tell you whatever I can.

I want to thank Jennifer for her contributions to Wikimedia during her
time with us, and for her professionalism. Please join me in wishing
her all the best in future.

Thanks,
Sue

--
Sue Gardner
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation

415 839 6885 office
415 816 9967 cell

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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thomas.dalton at gmail

Sep 17, 2009, 8:44 AM

Post #2 of 10 (878 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

2009/9/17 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
> However, Jennifer and I have agreed that despite those contributions,
> she ultimately will not be a good fit for the Chief Program Officer
> role. That doesn't mean her path will never cross ours again, and
> it's not a decision intended to reflect badly on her skills or
> abilities. Obviously we both wish things had played out differently.

I'm sorry to hear that. I wish Jennifer the best of luck with her
future career and you the best of luck finding a replacement.

It sounds like there will be several months between CPOs - who will
take over Jennifer's duties in the interim?

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susanpgardner at gmail

Sep 17, 2009, 9:05 AM

Post #3 of 10 (874 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Thanks Thomas; we're sorry about it too.

The real problem won't be so much "who will take over the work" -- Jennifer had only been on the job about five months, so she was mostly in building/thinking/planning mode rather than executing mode. So the real problem will be a hit to our ability to plan and think deeply about program work in general. (What I mean by that is our thinking will be stalled, and won't advance as quickly as it would have with a CPO in place. And some long-wanted, hoped-for work will be on hold, or will proceed more slowly than it otherwise would have.)

Here's an example: As you know, we have long wanted to create a program making grants to volunteers -- both to chapters and individual Wikimedians. Erik and I launched the chapters grantmaking process prior to Jennifer's arrival, but by ourselves we didn't have capacity to put much time into it. When she arrived, Jennifer picked it up and successfully made grants to 21 chapters. We had wanted to expand the program to include grants to individuals, which Jennifer would have done. With her leaving, three things will happen. 1) The existing chapters grants still need to be managed. 2) The launch of individual grants will be delayed. And 3) Our longer-term, big-picture thinking about grantmaking will be slower to evolve, because it won't benefit from having a person whose primary job is thinking about that kind of work.

So --in my example above-- there's an immediate problem, which is who will manage existing grants. (The answer to that isn't determined, but it will probably be Erik. He has lots of other work to do, but happily he also has enormous capacity for throughput.) But the bigger problem is that our overall capacity to get smarter and more thoughtful about grantmaking in general, and to expand the existing program, will happen more slowly than it would have with a CPO in place.

I don't mean to dismiss your question: it's a good one, and the answer is essentially that different people will pick up different bits of work -- essentially, we revert to the world before we had a CPO, in which some combination of me, Erik, Frank, Jay and Cary handle it.

If anyone needs a particular contact for work they'd been doing with Jennifer, please let me know, offlist or on, and I'll find or create an answer for you.

Thanks,
Sue

------Original Message------
From: Thomas Dalton
Sender: foundation-l-bounces [at] lists
To: foundation-l [at] lists
ReplyTo: foundation-l [at] lists
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia
Sent: 17 Sep 2009 8:44 AM

2009/9/17 Sue Gardner <sgardner [at] wikimedia>:
> However, Jennifer and I have agreed that despite those contributions,
> she ultimately will not be a good fit for the Chief Program Officer
> role. �That doesn't mean her path will never cross ours again, and
> it's not a decision intended to reflect badly on her skills or
> abilities. �Obviously we both wish things had played out differently.

I'm sorry to hear that. I wish Jennifer the best of luck with her
future career and you the best of luck finding a replacement.

It sounds like there will be several months between CPOs - who will
take over Jennifer's duties in the interim?

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nawrich at gmail

Sep 17, 2009, 9:34 AM

Post #4 of 10 (875 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Thanks Sue. You mention a sort of re-envisioning process for the Chief
Program Officer role - can you give us an idea of the challenges that
you and Jennifer encountered with the current concept of a CPO, and
what types of changes you might consider making?

Nathan

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meta.sj at gmail

Sep 17, 2009, 4:09 PM

Post #5 of 10 (862 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Thank you for this announcement, though I am sorry to hear it.

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:05 PM, Sue Gardner <susanpgardner [at] gmail> wrote:
> Here's an example: As you know, we have long wanted to create a
> program making grants to volunteers -- both to chapters and individual
> Wikimedians. �Erik and I launched the chapters grantmaking process prior
> to Jennifer's arrival, but by ourselves we didn't have capacity to put much
> time into it. �When she arrived, Jennifer picked it up and successfully made
> grants to 21 chapters. �We had wanted to expand the program to include
> grants to individuals, which Jennifer would have done. With her leaving,
> three things will happen. 1) The existing chapters grants still need to be
> managed. 2) The launch of individual grants will be delayed. And 3) Our
> longer-term, big-picture thinking about grantmaking will be slower to
> evolve, because it won't benefit from having a person whose primary job
> is thinking about that kind of work.

To this example: are there other ways for long-term big-picture
thinking to evolve? Not only does this seem like one of many topics
suitable for brainstorming during the strategy planning of the coming
9 months, but Jennifer has recently been discussing on Meta ways to
tap into community interest in being part of grant-finding and
grantmaking. There is a certain tradition of the latter -- the
community organized the first technology grant for essential technical
work six years ago.

I expect there are community members with their own ideas and
background in thinking and writing about such work - given the good
example of the early chapters grants model, those interested could
propose a variation suitable for individual grants, for example.

SJ

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stvrtg at gmail

Sep 20, 2009, 11:19 PM

Post #6 of 10 (824 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Sue Gardner <susanpgardner [at] gmail> wrote:
> The real problem won't be so much "who will take over the work" -- Jennifer had
> only been on the job about five months, so she was mostly in building/thinking
> /planning mode rather than executing mode.

Keep in mind that the "Wiki" way of doing things was never about
putting responsibility on just one or few shoulders. I simply mean
that if it's a matter of brainstorming, organizing, qualitative
prioritizing, and executing ideas, the disembodied gentry of the
Wikimedia community are always at your disposal.

It also occurs to me that it may also be quite relevant for others to
know exactly what Jennifer thought about her job. She's no doubt
intimately acquainted with each of her planned and proposed tasks, and
thus has a certain point of view and insight that others might regard
as relevant how they conceptualize and understand these particular
objectives and how to achieve them. If she would she be interested in
commenting on such matters, Wikimedians may find these useful.

Regards,
-Stevertigo

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meta.sj at gmail

Sep 20, 2009, 11:32 PM

Post #7 of 10 (823 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Hi Steve,

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 2:19 AM, stevertigo <stvrtg [at] gmail> wrote:
>
> Keep in mind that the "Wiki" way of doing things was never about
> putting responsibility on just one or few shoulders.

That's a good point.

> I simply mean
> that if it's a matter of brainstorming, organizing, qualitative
> prioritizing, and executing ideas, the disembodied gentry of the
> Wikimedia community are always at your disposal.

We could all use more qualitative prioritizing --
-What of our many activities are best furthering our [capital] Goals?
-Which of our side projects could really help our core 'project' work?
-What are the major needs shared by all parts of the community?
-What communities never learn how to contribute in the first place?
-- of these, which ones should we welcome first into the fold?

I would personally love to see the subjective priority lists (say, a
top-20 list) of What to Fix and what to do next, from many different
Projects, WikiProjects, dev clusters and other community groups.
Maybe we'll get to that in the Strategy Project -- but many people
find that too abstract to contribute to at the moment.

> It also occurs to me that it may also be quite relevant for others to
> know exactly what Jennifer thought about her job. She's no doubt
> intimately acquainted with each of her planned and proposed tasks,

I don't know if she's reading this list, but you can discuss with her
more directly. Expressing personal interest is often a good way to
learn what others think.

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jennifer_Riggs
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jennifer_Riggs

SJ

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stvrtg at gmail

Sep 21, 2009, 12:10 AM

Post #8 of 10 (820 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

Hi Sam,

Samuel Klein <meta.sj [at] gmail> wrote:

> We could all use more qualitative prioritizing --
> �-What of our many activities are best furthering our [capital] Goals?
> �-Which of our side projects could really help our core 'project' work?
> �-What are the major needs shared by all parts of the community?
> �-What communities never learn how to contribute in the first place?
> �-- of these, which ones should we welcome first into the fold?

Among the major points I think we need to remember here is that we can
try to do and be too much. I know very well that you are the ambitious
type, just as you know very well that I am not. The issue thus seems a
lot about finding synergy or tensegrity between virtual people and
real people. With regard to economies and economic influence, there is
a variance between what

For example there is a variance between Wikimedia's spending power,
and the the average Wikipedian's spending power. Likewise there is
variance between Wikipedia's worth and Wikimedia's.

> I would personally love to see the subjective priority lists (say, a
> top-20 list) of What to Fix and what to do next, from many different
> Projects, WikiProjects, dev clusters and other community groups.
> Maybe we'll get to that in the Strategy Project -- but many people
> find that too abstract to contribute to at the moment.

This goes to the "more light than heat" issue, and the fact that we
are all here largely due to how "wiki technology" to some degree has
helped this ratio. Naturally, we are discussing the matter with
regards to our meta discussion forums, such as this list, and how to
solve these issues via increasingly more scrutinous means, if the
technological means continue to be inadequate.

> I don't know if she's reading this list, but you can discuss with her
> more directly. �Expressing personal interest is often a good way to
> learn what others think.

Looks like she was quite busy before she left. I emailed her about
this thread, so I imagine she might chime in if she feels up to it.

-Stevertigo

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stvrtg at gmail

Sep 21, 2009, 12:14 AM

Post #9 of 10 (816 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

stevertigo <stvrtg [at] gmail> wrote:
> Samuel Klein <meta.sj [at] gmail> wrote:

> With regard to economies and economic influence, there is
> a variance between what

The line "different people have and thus can do." should have been in
my previous post.

-Stevertigo

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eekim at blueoxen

Sep 21, 2009, 1:35 PM

Post #10 of 10 (817 views)
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Re: Announcement: Jennifer Riggs leaves Wikimedia [In reply to]

On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 11:19 PM, stevertigo <stvrtg [at] gmail> wrote:
> It also occurs to me that it may also be quite relevant for others to
> know exactly what Jennifer thought about her job. She's no doubt
> intimately acquainted with each of her planned and proposed tasks, and
> thus has a certain point of view and insight that others might regard
> as relevant how they conceptualize and understand these particular
> objectives and how to achieve them. �If she would she be interested in
> commenting on such matters, Wikimedians may find these useful.

Jennifer posted one proposal on the strategy wiki, and she's drafting
some other stuff as well:

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Volunteer_Management_practices_to_Expand_Participation

You can probably interact with her directly on her user page as well
as possibly this list.

=Eugene

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Eugene Eric Kim ................................ http://xri.net/=eekim
Blue Oxen Associates ........................ http://www.blueoxen.com/
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