Wikimedia Conference 2018/Documentation/Movement Strategy track/Annexes/Partnerships
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Working Group Input Document: Partnerships
editExtracted May 1st from Etherpads
Partnerships
editPARTICIPANTS
editContact person: Chuck Roslof - croslof@wikimedia.org
WHAT?
editQUESTIONS
edit- What areas should we explore for partnerships?
- What kind of partners do we really need?
- Working at different levels—global, regional, national, local
- different partners will be appropriate at different levels—if we're partnering with Google, we might want to be thinking globally
- Working at different levels—global, regional, national, local
- What are the core principles that we will apply in considering partnerships?
- What are our hard lines? Who will we never consider partnering with? What will we ever consider doing in a partnership?
- look for overlap in values
- requires defining what our values are
- Define principles; define ground rules
- Partnerships only work if there is a value exchange. What is the value we can provide?
- Good PR to help Wikipedia
- We can't provide much data about users
- What are we willing to give?
- How do we determine that the partnership is worth what we are giving?
- How do we evaluate the potential risk to the Wikimedia/Wikipedia brand from a potential partnership (especially if it goes badly)?
- How do the Foundation and affiliates work from a shared global partnership strategy?
- There may be a strategy in development? And other current policies?
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Partnerships_%26_Resource_Development
- How do we identify partnership opportunities within the movement, among different entities?
- How do internal partnerships differ from external ones?
- Think of it as a dual track—internal and external partnerships will have different considerations.
- For example, internal partnerships will not have as many PR considerations.
- How do internal partnerships differ from external ones?
- Where do the resources for partnerships come from?
- At what level should decisions be made, and what form should those decisions take?
- Are geographic groups threatened by thematic ones?
- Do we have a scarcity mindset which stops us from collaborating more?
- Do we have fewer partnerships because we feel the need to own the partnerships that we form?
- A lot of current affiliate entities emerged as a way of running partnerships—maybe we can follow this more.
- How much value alignment do we need to form partnerships?
- As an example: The Wikipedia Library, where we partner with non-Open Access publishers and platforms to get editors access to research materials.
- Is it even clear that we want partners?
- When it comes to technology, at least, we have tended to want to build something ourselves instead of partner with someone who has already built something.
- How can we centrally organized partnerships, so we know what partnerships have existed in the movement?
- What process can we use to ensure that a potential partner is connecting with the appropriate movement entity/entities?
- What are some case studies we can refer to to help us understand what does and doesn't work in partnerships?
- What structure should partnerships take? What sorts of partnerships documents (contracts, MOUs, etc.) should we use in what cases—how do we make that decision?
- How do we capture our feedback about the effectiveness of partnerships in a transparent way without alienating past, existing, and potential partners?
- Might not want to say publicly that a partnership didn't go well or isn't going well…
- How do we bring aboard people who have already worked on and thought about partnerships in the Wikimedia movement?
- What is our partnerships philosophy? What is our general approach to partnerships?
- What do we want to get out of partnerships? What are our partnership goals?
- How do we decide how Wikimedia is represented in a partnership?
- Is the partnership with Wikipedia? With a particular affiliate? With "the Wikimedia community"?
- How do we amplify what is happening at a particular level and share that more widely?
- How do we spread and replicate successful partnerships?
- What is required of Wikimedia groups in order to be able to form external partnerships?
- Do they need to be incorporated, or otherwise have some sort of "official" status or legal entity?
- How do we ensure that groups have what they need? What are the risks in doing so?
- What checks are there on partnerships? Who has veto power over a partnership?
- What does the veto look like? Who can exercise them? How are they held accountable?
- What are the different tiers of partnerships?
- informal partnerships that are about collaboration versus formal partnerships
- How do we talk about partnerships at different tiers ("we have partnered with Wikimedia" versus "we are collaborating with Wikimedia" versus "Wikimedia contributed to this", etc.)
- collaboration versus partnership versus alliance
- There are some commonly understood levels like this in the GLAM world—contributory, collaborative, co-creative
- How does the working group communicate out what they discuss, and hear from folks outside the Working Group?
- How do we distinguish between a commercial relationship (paying for a company/organization/individual's services) from a partnership?
- Can something that would be a commercial relationship become a partnership by Wikimedia receiving the services for free in exchange for something else?
- How can the decision to form one partnership and not form another be explained to the community in a satisfactory?
- How difficult is it currently to connect with "Wikipedia"? Do we need to make it easier? If so, how?
DATA FROM STRATEGY TRACK
edit- Partnership IT-COMP
- for example, use Google for oral input to text (or Mozilla/DeepSpeech or Mycroft) [1]
- Service input available for third party app [1]
- a partnerships task force that will come up with the framework and key ground rules for engaging with third parties [1-C,E,F,H,K]
- Have a welcoming culture, and highlight the benefits of partnerships in order for us to grow in areas we didn't know existed [3-B,G,I,K]
- Wikimedia must partner with political organization(s) to fight censorship
- Commission multimedia content on "how to" for use in multilingual context [5-A,C,K]
- Ask the consumers of our content what change they want to see [1-J,K]
- Speech-to-text capabilities to cater for non-Latin alphabet languages and make content input way easier
- partner—see Mycroft & Mozilla [1]
WHO?
editIt's hard to make these decisions without first having a list of all the actual people who could be involved in the Working Group. Then, from that list, it's possible to sort people into different roles and categories.
MEMBERS
edit- Partnerships can have implications in a lot of areas. The group should have people who can speak to those areas. Some areas include:
- financial/fundraising
- legal
- technical
- PR/brand
- community
- health and safety
- diversity and inclusion
- people primarily from other social movements
- people from the business/corporate world
- valuable partnerships experience, with different partnership models
- can offer insight on partnering with for-profit organizations
- including how they work in practice
- Wikimedians who can bring knowledge from the Working Group back to their communities
- capacity-building aspect to the Working Group
- geographic diversity/people coming from different cultural contexts
- what partnerships look like and what is expected of them can be very different in different parts of the world
- representatives from affiliates, and Wikimedia communities that don't have affiliates
- should have a range of amount of experience—longtime community members, newer community members, etc.
- people who we have partnered with in the past, who can bring those experiences
- Creative Commons
- Mozilla
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- people from organizations that we want to partner with
- maybe some people should be in an advisory group that is lower-commitment, rather than being in the group itself
- people from universities
- people from governments
- people from GLAM institutions
- people with experience/knowledge of large tech companies
How can we ensure continuity, innovation, and disruption?
- separate advisory group will help with continuity (avoiding burnout)
- How static is the group in general? How do people join and leaves
- applies to all Working Groups
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS
edit- Consulted?
- other Working Groups
OTHER COMMENTS
editLook at what others have done—what has worked, what hasn't.
- There may be some lessons from the Wikimedia Foundation's process in deciding how to sign onto amicus briefs.
- World Vision went through a process of thinking about partnerships recently
Can/should also do interviews and consultations with all sorts of people—past partners, existing partners, potential partners, experts
There could be in-person events/meetings/conferences
What outcomes are possible in the next 12 months?
- Identifying and staffing the Working Group
- A report summarizing best practices/lessons from other organizations
- A report on possibilities and insights with potential partners
- and where we are now with partnerships
- Draft set of partnership guidelines, or at least review and update existing policies and guidelines.
- Including partnership philosophy and goals
- Including a clear explanation of why partnerships are valuable to Wikimedia
- Including a partnership assessment checklist/questionnaire
- Conduct a first round of interviews with stakeholders, experts, partners (potential, current, and past)
Value exchange to maintain/advance the knowledge commons.
This is not an area where we have existing structures that aren't working well that we need to break apart; it's an area where we need to build those structures in the first place.