Making proposals easier to find / organize / work on

I want to make two points. First, I disagree with Brya that strategy is inherently something that must be implemented top-down. That is what often happens, because most organizations are top-down, and frankly, most organizations implement strategy poorly. Did you know that on average, only 5 percent of employees know their company's strategy? How can you expect people to row in the same direction if they don't know where they're supposed to be rowing?

The opportunity we have here is to align the movement around a common set of strategic priorities. If five percent of Wikimedians know our priorities, than we're already doing better than most companies. Imagine if 50 percent understood and agreed with our priorities.

Here's my favorite thought experiment: Suppose you had a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces, and you had a thousand people who were supposed to solve it. What's the best process for doing so? My answer: Project a picture of the final solution on a wall. If there's alignment on the direction, then people will figure out the best way to contribute. No top down control is necessary.

Which brings me to Randomran's very legitimate skepticism. How can we best empower individuals to make change? The Wikimedia Foundation must absolutely play a role, but I don't think it's necessary the role of authority. I think people at the Wikimedia Foundation must engage in community conversation and show leadership by encouraging people to act.

As Erik stated, there are examples of big changes that have occurred with the projects that have been driven by the community. However, as Randomran has stated, that may be more the exception than the rule, and either way, it can be a frustrating experience.

My challenge to all of you is to go over the Proposals we have right now, and identify the ones that you think might be low-hanging fruit. What can be implemented without a huge consensus process? Keep in mind that one way around project bureaucracy is to implement things on small projects first. We've done a lot of that here on strategy wiki, and there are many projects that have been excellent at innovation. English Wikinews is a great example of this.

Finally, I want to point out my favorite example du jour of an empowered volunteer. Look at the incredible work that User:Witty lama has been doing as the British Museum's first Wikipedian in Residence. None of his work is officially sanctioned by anyone, but it has the potential to make a huge impact.

I remain skeptical. :) If the Wikimedia Foundation wanted consensus on everything, we wouldn't even have the drive the improve the interface. For such a non-controversial idea, there are a ton of "ain't broke don't fix it" comments, plus a bunch of "if they can't figure Wikipedia out, they're too dumb to make good contributions" comments. That's actually an example where the foundation had to step in and say "we're doing this -- give us feedback and criticism but we're doing this".

I'm willing to give it a shot. I'll scan through the proposals in the next week or two. But I suspect anything uncontroversial enough to work without consensus will be very small, and have virtually no impact on the big strategic picture.

We don't need authority, but we certainly need leadership.

Just to make sure we're on the same page: The Wikimedia Foundation doesn't want consensus on everything. It wants to encourage action. I think we all want to encourage action; that's how I'm interpreting from your messages, Randomran.

And I think it's very fair for you to say that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to show leadership. To me, leadership means several things. One way to show leadership is to create a space that facilitates action -- in other words, empowering others.

Another way is to lead by doing. The Foundation is certainly doing that, and volunteers have an opportunity to do this as well.

A third way is to engage. We've seen some of that on strategy from Foundation staff; I hope much more of it happens in the future.

Finally, I forgot to mention something. I leave the project in a few weeks, and I will no longer have any official status. I'd love to stay involved, and I'd love you in particular to stay involved. This is an open invitation, but it's targeted especially at you, Randomran. Find an interesting proposal, let's agree to lead by doing, and let's see what a few volunteers can accomplish together. :-)

Thanks Eekim... I left a message on your userpage.