Wikimedia Conference 2014/Programme team

The process of coming up with the goals and topics are led by a programme team, supported by the facilitators (involve them as early as possible!) and probably staff/contractor. Together, they facilitate a brainstorming process on-wiki to collect the topics that need to be discussed according to the overall goals (October-November). Input is actively collected from all involved parties, then the team comes up with the conference themes. As soon as these themes are available, the organisations decide upon which delegates they will send: This gives them the chance to pick experts in certain fields on the conference agenda and does not force them to just send the same people year after year – just because they don’t know which topics will be covered before they start making their travel arrangements. This means that the conference themes must be fixed before the end of the year.

Team members

Happy to be on the team. Nicole Ebber (WMDE) (talk) 13:08, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Love to be on the team too. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 19:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Me2 --Vince (talk) 20:57, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. Particularly interested in knowledge-sharing and capacity building for organisations. Chris Keating (The Land) (talk) 08:58, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to help! --PierreSelim (talk) 12:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to help, too. :-) Training of board members, for example. Ziko (talk) 12:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure! I've attended two Wikimedia Conferences (2011 and 2012) and would like the opportunity to help out with the 2014 edition. Craig Franklin (talk) 13:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Happy to help, where help & effort is needed. --Jcornelius (talk) 21:57, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have attended two conferences (2012 and 2013), and coordinated the recent Iberoconf Mexico City. I think I can contribute with opinions and experiences. --ProtoplasmaKid (WM-MX) (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Attended 2009 and 2010 as a volunteer board member of WMIL, 2011-2013 as WMF staffer. Interested in making this event as productive and well-utilized as possible. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 19:00, 18 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Interested in long-term strategic planning. harej (talk) 19:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Facilitators

The programme team is supported by a facilitator who guides them through the whole process (agenda design, content design, format design, conference and documentation). A second facilitator will be hired to work together with us during the weeks before the event and during the conference.

Anna Lena Schiller

Anna Lena is a freelance facilitator who has been working with groups and teams since studying leadership and social innovation at the KaosPilots in Denmark. She has worked with a broad number of non-profit and volunteer organizations on national and international level and frequently uses visuals to support her facilitation and make insights more visible. Anna Lena lives in Hamburg, Germany and will join the Conference in Berlin for the third time as a facilitator.

Andreas Karsten

Andreas migrates between research, journalism and facilitation in his work with non-profit organisations and civil society movements on organisational change, conflict mediation, knowledge management and common sense. He manages the team of Youth Policy Labs, a young think tank in Berlin, Germany, and will join the Conference in Berlin for the first time as a facilitator.

Time-line and process

This is a suggestion for the time-line for the programme team. Please add to it here or comment on the talk page.

October 2013: content design; collect burning questions and hot topics OK
November 2013: content design; assign specific responsibilities to each member of the programme team, collect burning questions and hot topics, cluster burning questions and hot topics OK
December 2013: content design; define goals and desired outcomes, define conference themes OK
January 2014: agenda design; make a very rough agenda OK
February 2014: agenda design, format design; start designing session formats Done
March 2014: format design, conference preparation; brief speakers and participants Done
April 2014: conference; have a blast
May 2014: documentation; ensure that all documentation is shared
June 2014: sustain & carry on; follow-up
July 2014: sustain & carry on; prepare Wikimania sessions according to conference outcomes
August 2014: sustain & carry on; Wikimania
after: sustain & carry on; follow-up

A more detailed draft including goals and success factors is available as a spreadsheet and can be freely edited.

Additional information

Please add your thoughts and ideas here or comment on them on the talk page.

The programme team is not only responsible for coming up with a programme for 2014, but also ensures a decent documentation and follow-up to keep the dialogue active.
The programme team will work together with an external facilitator who guides them through all phases and ensures that the process stays alive and on-time.
Based on the conference themes, the programme team will make a recommendation regarding the number and type (board, staff) of representatives per affiliation. This includes a consultation with the AffCom to come up with a recommendation in regards to inviting thematic organisations and user groups.
Registration will only open after the conference themes are defined. This helps the affiliations to decide which representatives and experts to send to the conference.
...

Collect burning questions and hot topics

What are the burning questions and hot topics to cover during Wikimedia Conference 2014? Please share your thoughts on the programme page. All stakeholders are invited to give their input.

Review of previous conferences

Besides collecting burning questions and hot topics, please review the previous conference processes.

Updates

November 11: We just had our first conference call. Minutes and next steps have been collected here.
November 25: Members of the team are reaching out to all entities to get input for the collection of hot topics. If you have not been contacted yet, please get in touch with one of the team members or add your thoughts on the Meta page.
December 3: Second conference call (minutes); we have clustered the topics and are now voting them up or down. The selection of themes will be presented within the next two weeks. After that, we will define goals for each theme.
Januar 23: Programme team published the conference themes, including goals and possible formats.
March 16: Programme team published an update of the programme details as well as a preliminary version of the schedule.

Contact

We are in strong favour of having all discussions on wiki, but have set up an internal mailing list for coordinating matters within the team. Non-members who feel more comfortable with expressing their wishes off wiki can reach out to us via wmcon-prog lists.wikimedia.de.