Putting the “Open” in Wikimedia’s Open Community Strategy

Over cocktails recently, I spoke with a reader of Wikipedia (one of the 300 million). We discussed the fact that, as a nonprofit, the Wikimedia Foundation runs on a very small budget. She asked me “why doesn’t Wikipedia run ads? I know I wouldn’t mind the ads and National Public Radio runs ads, so why not?” After all, wouldn’t the money open up many new avenues for achieving the Wikimedia vision?

Shortly before this conversation, one of my Bridgespan team members interviewed a Chinese Internet entrepreneur. They discussed how to expand Wikipedia in China. To paraphrase, he basically argued that Wikipedia should not grow in China, but should license its content to one of the local competitors and let them grow. After all, won’t a domestic Chinese organization do a better job of reaching the billion Chinese people than an offshore Wikimedia?

What’s interesting about these two stories? They are from people who could be described as part of the “outer” Wikipedian circle. Not insiders, but still part of the community — with enough passion for Wikipedia to offer perspectives on strategic issues. They also offer answers that are unlikely to be recommended by the “insider” circle of Wikipedians. I make no judgment on the merits of these answers (for now, although we will need to have an answer for the sustainable revenue model and growth in China at some stage), but it gives me pause that the question of advertising is near-taboo among the inner Wikipedia community and that an internally generated decision to partner outside (or “fork”) a Wikipedia language seems antithetical to a community that has spawned 200+ language sites.

Given Wikimedia’s open community strategy process, it is interesting to me that “open” and “community” do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Might communities face the same trouble as any strategy team to being truly open to more radical strategic options that might advance the vision, when those options conflict with deeply held community norms?

Since the hypothesis in the Wikimedia project is that deep, community involvement will get us to a better strategy than traditional approaches, it seems we need to figure out the “open” part — both how we’re “open” to voices from the “outer” reaches of the community and how we’re “open”-minded to revising norms that may limit impact potential.

We would love to hear your stories or examples of ways you have seen organizations or communities really “open” up their strategy work. Please let us know in the comments.

Barry Newstead is a partner at The Bridgespan Group currently supporting Wikimedia’s open strategy process.