Wikimedia fellow, Liam Wyatt

Following in quick succession from the recent announcements of fellowships for both Achal Prabhala and Lennart Guldbransson I am pleased to announce our sixth fellow, Liam Wyatt, based in Sydney. During this one year project Liam will be working to build the capacity of the Wikimedia community to undertake partnerships with cultural institutions – known as GLAMs [Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums] a term he popularized.

Liam has been a board member of the Australian Wikimedia chapter and was a longtime panelist on the Wikipedia Weekly podcast. He is a Wikipedia historian, having won the university medal for his 2008 thesis ‘the academic lineage of Wikipedia.’ The focus of his Wikipedia work for the last two years has been the GLAM sector – he was the convener of the GLAM-WIKI conferences in Canberra and London and last July became the world’s first “Wikipedian in Residence” at the British Museum (previous blog entry).

Several different types of collaboration with the cultural sector have been successfully run with institutions across the world over the last few years – including multimedia content donations, “backstage pass” tours, residencies, and editing and photography events. These collaborations increase the quality and reliability of Wikipedia and also meet the goals of the GLAM institutions: to share their expertise with a wide audience – especially for those that do not have a web presences of their own.

The priorities for Liam’s fellowship include building communication channels so the existing community of Wikimedians working with GLAMs can better share their knowledge; applying learnings from the university “campus ambassador” system to create a global network of Wikimedia GLAM ambassadors; creating clear how-to documentation for common GLAM project with real-world case studies to match; and improving the metrics tools available to measure the usage of GLAM content.

If you would like to join in any aspect of the cultural partnerships initiative please visit the project pages at glamwiki.org. If you represent a cultural institution and want to engage in a project please write to glam@wikimedia.org.

Daniel Phelps, Human Resources

At Wikimedia we are always looking to innovate – to try new things and see how they work. For instance, right now we’re re-thinking how we fill open positions in our newly formed Community Department. Rather than focus on traditional resources for hiring new talent, we have decided to put out a call to the broad, global audience that visits our projects. We’re focused on casting our net widely – in many languages and countries. Our goal is to find interesting people; people who have unique experience and skills and are interested in working with us.

In order to do this we’re going to try out a few different things, including the addition of a banner to our projects inviting people to Work at Wikimedia/Wikipedia. Keep an eye out for the banners.  If you’d prefer to not see them, just click “hide” and it will disappear into the background. If you’re interested though, click through and you’ll find a form with the opportunity to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Here is some information from the Community Department outlining what they are looking to do with this call for submissions:

This year, the Community Department will be hiring for a series of important senior and entry level positions. All positions will involve collaborating and communicating with Wikimedia project contributors and users intensively and publicly, grappling with problems that no one has ever solved before, navigating technological and social challenges and opportunities, and dealing with a high level of complexity and uncertainty. Candidates should have extremely high levels of skill and comfort in communication (especially writing), qualitative and quantitative analysis, management and self-management. Candidates who are not already deeply immersed in online collaborative communities will have to show an aptitude for quickly gaining a deep understanding of our communities’ technologies, practices, traditions and culture — and to become trusted and productive members of the Wikimedia community and movement.

We are especially looking for:

Current Wikimedia community contributors, readers and leaders,

Insightful observers of Wikimedia and other collaborative communities,

People with specialty skill sets (e.g. statistics, ethnography, and probably a lot other things we’ve never thought of),

People belonging to language communities of new and growing Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects,

People with insight into reaching groups currently underrepresented in Wikimedia contributor communities.

Ideal candidates for positions at Wikimedia Foundation’s Community Department:

Have a passion for online communities, self-organizing systems, open and collaborative enterprises, democratic and consensus based societies, and emergent and participatory governance structures — and desperately want to see them succeed and prove the cynics wrong.

Have thought enough about this stuff to have their own opinions and theories on various problems and opportunities facing Wikimedia and other online communities.

Are equally strong dealing with qualitative and quantitative knowledge and research.

Are self-directed, self-motivated, efficient, upbeat, optimistic, and extremely good with people. Wikimedia Foundation staff face intense pressures in highly-demanding roles. While the Wikimedia Foundation team strives to be mutually supportive, it only works when each individual is self-driven to overcome the challenges they face.

Are knowledgeable about software development processes and with database and web technologies.

Are creative non-linear thinkers who will sometimes fight for seemingly crazy ideas by backing them up with logical argument and data.

Are systems-thinkers who love to think about workflow and technology systems inside organizations.

Are multilingual, especially in major world languages and languages with large or growing Wikipedias.

Have insights and experience reaching groups currently underrepresented in Wikimedia communities.

If you are interested in submitting your information for consideration for our Community Department please visit this page and fill out the form.

Thanks for your interest!

-Daniel Phelps, Human Resources & Philippe Beaudette, Community Department

With more than 100,000 active contributors globally, Wikipedia is one of the world’s most successful experiments in peer production. Volunteers have always made a collective effort to recruit new contributors, by welcoming new users, developing tutorials and help pages, creating promotional materials, meeting face-to-face, and so on. The Public Outreach department of the Wikimedia Foundation works in collaboration with volunteers and with the Foundation’s 20+ worldwide chapters to determine and foster the most effective approaches to public outreach.

With our recently announced Public Policy Initiative, we are developing a flexible model for reaching out to one specific target group: subject matter experts. Professors and students of U.S. public policy will be solicited to participate in writing and improving articles on the English language Wikipedia, and actively supported in their efforts throughout the the 2010–2011 academic year. We will thoroughly evaluate and document the initiative, providing a template for our volunteers to replicate its approach in other disciplines and other geographic areas.

Please visit the job openings page to read more about these and other employment opportunities at Wikimedia today.

Daniel Phelps, Human Resources

We’re currently looking for a Head of Office Administration.

The Wikimedia Foundation has experienced, and will continue to experience, growth and organizational change over the next several years.  The Head of Office Administration will be a senior administrative position based at our headquarters in San Francisco and will play a key role during this exciting period of change.  This position will be responsible for managing, planning, and coordinating various administrative business operations geared toward achieving internal operational excellence in support of the organization’s staff allowing them in return to focus on the success of our projects.

This is your chance to play a central role in the success of one of the most important knowledge projects in history.

Please visit the job openings page to read more about this opportunity and learn what it takes to be considered!

Daniel Phelps, Human Resources