CHANTÉ: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Greater Than Code, Episode 208. This is Chanté Thurmond, and I'm here today with my friend, Jamey Hampton.

JAMEY: Thanks, Chanté.  And I'm here also with my friend, Rein Henrichs. 

REIN: Thanks, Jamey. Oh, this is really exciting because I am here with our guest Janeen Uzzell who is the Chief Operating Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation. So Janeen works there to evolve the organization's operations to match the growing needs and goals of the organization. She's done a lot of stuff, and I don't have time to read all of it. So I'm just going to pick out some highlights. 

Originally, she's from Newark, New Jersey. She joined the Foundation in early 2019. And prior to that, she was the head of Women in Technology at General Electric (GE), where she worked with the company’s global CEOs to improve and cultivate a culture across their workforce of 300,000 employees which accelerated the number of women in technical roles. Prior to that, she was the company’s Global Director of External Affairs and Technology Programs, and before that, she spent five years as Director of Healthcare Programs for GE Africa based in Accra, Ghana. 

Okay. So you've done a lot of stuff. And we're really excited to have you here to talk about Wikimedia Foundation and your experience as a woman leader in tech and a bunch of stuff. This is great. Thank you so much for being here. Hi. 

JANEEN: Hi there. Thank you for having me. I hear that we're going to have a conversation today, so I'm really excited to do that. 

REIN: Well, you know where we're going to start, which is the question we always ask which is, what is your superpower, and how did you acquire it?

JANEEN: I would say that my superpower is storytelling. And how did I acquire that? Well, I could tell you a story about it. But I think I have to say I get it from my dad. He is deceased. But I grew up with him and spent my whole life with him. I had him until I was well into my adult years, and he was a great storyteller. I'm learning now that most of them were made up, but they sounded great at the time. And I believed them. I think that my love for family, and legacy, and history is a big part of my storytelling experience. 

And then in terms of my career, I've been able to, as an engineer and a techie, shape or connect technology and its impact to stories of how technology works and how it influences. I hope that is a way to help people feel more included to create diversity of thought and a community of leaders in technology that will continue to do great work that changes lives, communities in the world. That's what I want to do. 

REIN: Storytelling has come up a lot recently for me personally. I'm wondering why do you think storytelling is so important?

JANEEN: One, I think storytelling is important and then I think who tells you a story is even more important. So storytelling is the way that you link experiences, and cultures, and knowledge, and information. It's the way that you can find pride in yourself and where you've come from. It's the way that you understand and perceive people or practices by the way people tell stories or by the way information is shared. It is critically important because it's how our world is shaped even more now that we're all sitting in our wonderful homes and spaces and don't have the opportunity to go out and experience the world for ourselves as much. The way that people tell stories, the way that they share information is going to be how you can perceive and experience someone or something. 

The reason I say that who tells it is even more important is because one person or one group of people cannot tell someone else's story. My mom has several children. I have a number of siblings, and we're all different. But we all come from the same woman. And we all have different stories to tell. And we could tell the exact same story about the exact same house, the exact same childhood, and it'd come out different for every one of us because my siblings were so uniquely different. So the way that the world learns about one another, information, and knowledge, which is what Wikipedia is all about and how those stories are told is so important. And I want to tell you about Wikipedia as we continue this conversation. But that's why I think that storytelling is so important. 

REIN: Yeah, we are absolutely going to get there but if I could just stick on this topic for one moment.

JANEEN: Okay. No problem.

REIN: I was just thinking about how Sidney Dekker says that the sort of traditional view of accountability is holding people to account. But his view of accountability is who gets to, who is allowed to give their accounts, who is allowed to tell their story. I was just thinking about that when you were talking about who tells the story. 

JANEEN: I would agree with the professor. And, again, it's my opinion. But I've seen the goodness of this play out and the authenticity of it and again, the way that people are informed. Someone could say something about a group of people from Newark, New Jersey. That's where I'm from. "Everybody from Newark grew up in the projects and is a low-income African-American that doesn't get beyond Broad Street." And that's not true because my entire family is from Newark, and we've all done very different things. Some of those were beyond the streets of Newark and some of them right on those same streets and in those same houses where we grew up. If that was one person's perception of that experience, it wouldn't be accurate. Generalizations are harmful. They're harmful and even more so to diverse communities of people. 

JAMEY: I have a question about the concept of the person telling the story being so important. Do you think that that means that you have a responsibility to tell certain stories and maybe a responsibility to not tell other ones? 

JANEEN: Responsibility. That's the word that I'm holding in my hand as you said that because I feel like stories can also be very personal and private. And so to say that it's a responsibility, it's a tough one for me to hold to. There's legacy, and there's pride, and history tied to stories. In my opinion, I consider it my responsibility to ensure that I inform different people particularly those in my family or in places where I go about stories that will change their perception in a way that is positive. And so, yes, I do consider that, but I also want to respect others that want to hold their stories and keep them as private experiences. But again, especially working on the platform of Wikipedia where knowledge is open and free and we have an opportunity to share experiences with the world, I think it's our responsibility and all of the editors and the volunteers that are so impactful to the influence that Wikipedia has on the world. Yes, I do consider it a responsibility of those people who choose to participate on our platform to share stories in a way that is diverse and accurate, and we assume good faith and things like that. 

REIN: I think maybe one way to think about this and this might also be a good segue is who has the - and I'll use the word responsibility again because I like thinking about that word - who has the responsibility to make sure that a culture, a system, an organization that it's safe for people to tell their stories there?

REIN: I love that. So before I answer that, let me give our listeners just a little bit about the Wikimedia Foundation. If you're questioning saying, you know, not sure, but there's a little bit of a word in there that I'm familiar with - the Wiki part. We are the Foundation, the global non-profit, that supports Wikipedia and other online free knowledge projects. So I'm going to presume that much of the audience has used Wikipedia if not today, someday. And if you haven't, check us out and you've probably used this even inadvertently when you Google things and use Siri and Alexa. 

Wikipedia has more than 53 million articles across roughly 300 languages and is viewed more than 1.5 billion times. That's how many impressions we get on the Wikipedia platform every single month, 1.5 billion unique devices. That's a lot of devices seeking a lot of information, 6000 times every second more than 50 million media files on the Commons where that's a freely licensed repository of media images and then more than 250,000 or so editors, people that are actually contributing on Wikipedia and sharing that content and those stories. 

So if you take all of that I just shared and then you tie it back to the conversation we're having here around responsibility, and safe spaces, and the movement itself, whose responsibility is that? One, it is again, a responsibility, in my opinion, of an editor to be open not only to the truth of the story but the diverse perspective of it. And then as an organization, it is our responsibility at the foundation and partnership with our affiliates in the movement to ensure that we have a thriving movement, which includes trust and safety mandates, and codes of conduct to ensure that anyone that wants to participate in the movement of free knowledge feels welcome, feels accepted, feels that they have the ability to share their perspective, backed up by citations and proof points. So it's not just a random perspective but an accurate storytelling. This is something that we manage closely at the Foundation. We have a trust and safety team that's a part of our legal department. 

I am an executive sponsor over a cross-departmental team of leaders that work on something called a Thriving Movement. And that's where we ensure, again, that our product can be used in multiple languages that you have diverse experiences whether you're editing Wikipedia on your computer or on your phone. So our product experience, our technology, all of that buttons up and ties together to link the Foundation and the work that we lead to our movement and what our editors do. There's a bridge there. We're all pushing for the same outcome and the same goal, which is the impact of free knowledge and its influence on the world. I'd like to say that we have a shared responsibility in how we do that and how we welcome people.

CHANTÉ: Janeen, that's such a good point. And I think when you were describing all of that, the first thing that sort of popped in my mind as you were explaining that -- for example, for people of color, specifically Black and Brown communities who don't always have the resources and even the know-how to necessarily go on and contribute to Wikipedia, how are you actively, tactically going about empowering the community to tell their own stories? Because when I hear about citations being a requirement, I feel like that's almost in some ways White Supremacy culture. And I'm not saying that Wikipedia is necessarily doing that intentionally. But I've been really exploring as a person who's in diversity, equity, and inclusion myself, just how am I upholding that? How am I reinforcing this supremacy culture of there has to be explicitly or come from a credible source? Well, who's credible? You have to ask that question.

JANEEN: There's so many parts to that, and I'm going to try and pick them apart piece by piece. So, first of all, I want to talk a bit about citation, and then let's talk about why they're necessary. Then I want to talk a little bit about our community and a little bit about how those stories are told. Hopefully, we'll link it all together. So we like to say if it happens in the world, it happens on Wikipedia,. We're an information source and citations -- There's two ways to this, what you said around White Supremacy. I want to use that in a different way and say I don't see citations as being meant to be used as a way of hindering content but instead of as a way of validating and ensuring that the use of Wikipedia as a resource for information is respected and valued and inherently used by more and more people all of the time. And the way that that is done is when we can validate and add citations and information that supports the content. It's a way to ensure that -- we don't take down stories. So we're not going to have someone say, "That's true about me, but I don't want it said. Take it down." Truth is the power of who we are as a knowledge platform the citations add validity to that. 

So I was speaking with two members of our community yesterday. We were talking interestingly enough about citations and how someone will win a Nobel prize or get a big award and then it's like, "Oh, well, why doesn't that person have a Wikipedia page?" And it's because most of the references in support of the greatness of that person are maybe self-publications or writings that they've done themselves and not broader news-related citations. So the other side of that is we need the news and the media to do a better job about writing about the stories of people that are doing great work that may not be considered the sexy, social television media news. Why aren't they writing enough about people of color in technology, the diversity of technology, women in technology, women in science? I'm going to stick on the tech because that's where I am. But there are other stories that we should hold media outlets accountable to if they were writing more of those stories and telling more of those stories and exposing more of that information that goes back to what we talked about with responsibility. I think it is their responsibility. Then we would have more content that we could link to citations and tell that story. So while I do think that we have a diversity gap that we have to close on Wikipedia, I actually don't think it's with the citations on our end. I want to push the media to do that better. 

CHANTÉ: What I would then ask is how can Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and others who are part of this ecosystem how can we do that? How can we push back? Because I feel that they're taking too long and if I go online -- And right now I'm reading all these stories it's so dominated by white, able-bodied, hetero culture by the normative culture. And I'm like look, we don't have time to waste. Every single day, for example, our president publishes things and uses all facets but mostly Twitter as his media. And then people pick up these stories from his tweets. So then it's interesting to me how a news outlet would pick up tweets that he says are inflammatory for example, then somehow get weighted as being valid and credible because a news source picked it up and therefore, it can be linked back to his Wikipedia page, but somebody who's not as well-known cannot do that. And I'm only entering that into the conversation because I'm hoping that whoever is listening is like, "Yes, let's find a way to work around that." That's what I would like for folks to pay more attention to. And it's we got to get more eyeballs, ears, and attention on these other stories that are so much more important and give them more weight and validity whenever possible. 

JANEEN: I definitely want to dig into this call to action for sure. It's a big part of the platform that I am using on Twitter for who tells your story. And I want to talk a little bit about -- Your first part of your question was what can we do? What can Wikipedia do? How can we do that? We need more editors. We need more diverse editors. We need more women editors, we need more people of color, more people that are willing to write about diverse content or to edit diverse content. So we need that. And there are lots of groups that are a part of our movement folks like Wiki Women in Red, AfroCrowd, Black Lunch Table. These groups are specifically hosting edit-a-thons and events, and they focus their editing expertise on those types of stories, women in tech, Black people, and things like that. That's what we need. Who tells your story for me is about helping to give a call to action and help people interested build some grassroots groups that will write about that. 

I went to HBCU and one of the things that I'm working on now is maybe like an HBCU edit-a-thon and getting students that are at HBCUs to write about the cities and the states where these schools are and the historical legends and with hopes that they'll pass that on to other students and it will begin to grow. So we need groups like that to be a part of the movement. We need the power of diversity in Wikipedia so that we can continue to support the current communities that edit Wikipedia and teach them about the diversity gaps. I learned in a conversation with members of our community who are not people of color that much of our community doesn't even have the mindset to understand that diversity is a challenge on our platform. 

And so I happen to also lead the data team at the organization in my role as the COO. One of the things that our core data team does, it's a global data insights team. They have done an affiliate survey. Affiliates are the larger groups that are funded by the foundation and do some big work on our platform and then they also do a community insight survey. And we're learning more about our community. We're learning a lot about our diversity. This is the first time we really put a strong equity lens on our community to learn so that we can then use that information to go back and say, "This is what our affiliates look like in terms of gender, sexuality, color, location in the world, geographically, things like that." How does this align with what we're proposing a Thriving Movement can and should look like? And so that's something that we are doing in the foundation. That's actually a part of our job. 

We have OKRs around that and OKRs are the way that we run our organization with outcomes and key results. So we have OKRs built around this and that's how we're tracking and growing this. It's something new. It's something that we just started in the past -- I've been at the Foundation less than two years. So it's a little less than two years that we've been working on this. 

And then what about the folks that may never write a Wikipedia page? I still believe there's a place for all of those folks in the movement of storytelling because the more that we're able to share and gather information, whether you're an external media outlet beyond Wikipedia or other storytelling or information gathering outlets, you could be a part of ensuring that that information is shared. Podcasts like this are very important to the information that we're talking about because some of your listeners are going to learn this and maybe use it in a different way that's positive. 

CHANTÉ: You actually led right into what I was going to ask, which is if someone wanted to learn how to make a Wikipedia page both from a technical but I guess more what I mean is from a philosophical and theoretical standpoint, can you recommend some resources that they could go to kind of get into that?

JANEEN: Sure. The one thing that I would say is if you're on Twitter or other social media outlets, you can literally do a search for Wiki. And then a lot of our groups will start to show up and it'll be like, Wiki Loves Fashion, Wiki Italy. It just starts to show up in the thread. And then there's usually a link to their websites or their Wiki pages. Or if you follow them, you'll start to see some of the edit-a-thons and events that they are hosting. When you have an opportunity to join an edit-a-thon, there are users there that are teaching you how to edit on Wikipedia, how to show you things about the encyclopedic writing model because there is a certain way that you should write to be a part of Wikipedia. It's an encyclopedia. It's not a self-promoting news source. And so sometimes there are people that are like, "Hey. I wrote a Wikipedia article. It wasn't accepted." But there's certain ways that you need to write. And those groups can offer training sessions on how to edit. They offer different sharing platforms to learn how to do it. And I think that it's important because you want to be able to be a part of a community to teach you because it's not just about creating content, it's creating content that will be a part of the platform. And that's what we want. So I would say start there. 

I think you could also go on to the Foundation's website which is wikimedia.org. And there's a lot of information just about who we are, and how we work and how our community works. You can give a self-personal plug. You can follow me on Twitter @janeenuzzell. And I'm happy to direct you in different places as well. So we can start there.

CHANTÉ: The other thing that often comes to my mind is when we're thinking about all of these things, I constantly want to go back to younger people. The sooner we can introduce these things to folks, the better because it becomes part of the way that you do things. So what's Wikimedia's approach or strategy in engaging our youth and young people across the world to make this a part of their everyday experience? How can we prepare them sooner than later to get involved in this movement?

JANEEN: Well, a big part of how Wikipedia works is usually, when you come into Wikipedia -- We have this thing we call it a flywheel when we're talking about our process internally. When you come in as a user, a reader, someone that absorbs content, at that point, we can sometimes transition you to be an editor. Sometimes you'll see something and read it and say, "Hey, I want to help edit that." The more editors, the way our content grows.  Ensuring that Wikipedia remains relevant to the younger generation is something that we're looking at in our data marketing team and understanding what about our product experience needs to be adjusted or different so that it relates to the diverse age groups. 

We turn 20 years old in January of 2021. And so it's a really exciting time for Wikipedia. We have some people like my niece and nephews that don't know a world without Wikipedia. And then we have a new generation of folks. And so one of the things that -- We have a lot of cool things that we're going to be launching and releasing with our platform, and so watch out for us in January of 2021. Throughout the year, we'll be celebrating -- We're coming up with some unique ways to do that because of COVID. So I hope that you'll even follow us on Twitter and on social media because you're going to see that. And I can't give away all the spoilers but just know that we've been at work behind the scenes thinking about what our platform means from an age perspective, from a gender perspective. Everything that you're talking about there's a part of what the Thriving Movement is all about and the adjustments that we need to make or the enhancements I want to say so that we can keep those communities involved. Another thing though is that --

CHANTÉ: Can I stop and just celebrate that right now? 

JANEEN: Sure. [Claps]

CHANTÉ: Thank you. This is amazing. That's music to my ears, and I'm sure to the group here because I think we can't do that enough. And I just want to say if there's an opportunity for you to share how you arrived at that as an organization and how that's translating into your products and services that you're offering. Somebody has to be there internally pushing that. So I'm just wondering is that you? Is that your job to push it? 

JANEEN: Well, I want to say it's the entire organization. My colleagues that work on the C executive team, this is something that we are all talking about with our CEO when we think about the strategy of the movement as we lead into 2030. So we've been setting our goals and our work towards a 2030 growth goal. Of course, our Chief Product Officer and our Chief Technology Officer are really leading the effort here. And so that's really something that I want to acknowledge. Just like we're a free open-source platform and everyone in the world can be a part of it, it's just like that inside the organization. So I dare not say I'm alone in this. 

But I will say that when we think about the new ways that we can do this, one thing that I'm reminded of is even our mobile editing. There's a sub-team on our product team that is led by an African woman based in Kenya. So I love that she's in Africa understanding the way that various mobile phones are used on the continent and in other cultures that don't use their mobile phones the way that we do. And they're designing ways to edit Wikipedia on that platform. And it's such a cool model even in the way that languages are outlined on the phone. So those are some of the cool things that we're working on and that that team is leading. 

And listen, we still have a long way to go. But the reason I work at Wikipedia and the reason that I've chosen to put myself in the space of equity in our movement is because I believe that we're committed to being a product that is sustainable and is going beyond a tech startup that turns 20 and then it starts to fizzle out because it can't keep up. But we're looking to rise to the challenge. And I want to be a part of ensuring that that challenge is equitable and is meeting the things that we say that we wanted to do. That's why I put my feet on the ground every day and do this work. 

REIN: It sounds like it's really important for you to stay connected to what it's like for the people in your organization who are doing the work.

JANEEN: Absolutely. So ultimately, my job as the COO, operationally, I lead a number of enterprise experiences in our organization "my job"  is to ensure that we work efficiently, that we are focused on not only doing our best work but doing the right work to set up accountability measures fiscally in partnership with our CFO to create a budgeting process. I do some fundraising with our CEO. And when I think about the staff of what will be a little over 500 of us at the end of this year, what I'm committed to is ensuring that the experience that each of them have as an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation that that experience for them each and every day is matching the gifts that they give to the world and the experience of Wikipedia. And so I'm committed to ensuring that they have a safe and secure workspace, that they're feeling supported, that they're feeling that they have a growth model, and a trajectory, and an experience as an employee. 

And I always look at our staff and I say, "I'm never looking to coach or guide them for the job that they have today but for the leader that I know they could be in the future." Because for me, whether they spend many years at the foundation or they move into other organizations, I want it to be said both within themselves and in the organizations where they work that a staff member that came through the Foundation is a leader that works with integrity and excellence and expertise, and can be valued and bring strength to the organizations and the teams that they lead.

REIN: I just realized that I just implied that what you do isn't work. And I want to apologize for that. That's not what I meant.

JANEEN: No, I didn't take it that way at all. I mean, maybe some days I do work and maybe other days, I don't know, wear cool t-shirts I think. I think I do work.

REIN: It sounds like what you want to do is to cultivate the impact that these people can have more broadly than just at the company you work at.

JANEEN: Well, as a leader, I’m just committed and one of my general goals is to develop people into greatness. And so that's just something that I do wherever I work. And so right now I'm doing it as a leader at the Foundation. I do it in some of the organizations where I volunteer as a board member or in other spaces. And so, yes, for me, if you work at the Foundation, we want you to be great here, we want you to be great in the movement. And we want you to be great wherever you choose to go. And I believe in cultivating a leadership experience. I come from a very large organization. I spent almost two decades at General Electric, and they cultivate great leadership and I learned so much there. And I want to bring the things that I've learned there to the Foundation. 

CHANTÉ: That's what I was going to ask. I was like, "Wow." Because I know that leadership like this is intentional and you're talking about equity, and diversity, and inclusion. And that takes a lot of work. First of all, I just want to say if there's ever an opportunity for me to work with you directly, sign me up because you are amazing.

JANEEN: Oh, thank you.

CHANTÉ: I'm a stan right now. I'm just really loving it. But one of the things I've learned over the years is that you have to have people who believe in you and who are mentoring you and sponsoring you. Who was that for you, Janeen?

JANEEN: Wow. There are a few people that have been really important to my career. And I've had pivotal defining moments in my career because of them. First and foremost, my parents believed and were committed to educating their children. My parents spent all of the money they did have on educating their children. I learned after my dad passed away that the high school that I went to which was a boarding school that my parents paid my tuition weekly even throughout the summer because that was the only way they could actually afford. So they were on a payment plan for me to be at the school. I know that even though I had an opportunity to attend college at no cost, I had a scholarship and was very fortunate that they never incurred debt in that space. My parents were very committed to all of their children, and we're all first-generation graduates. My nieces and nephews are now second-generation graduates of secondary degrees. And so that's a great legacy that I know my dad would be very proud of.

In my career, I had some really great experiences. The job I had to take out of college -- I had to get a job, I had to pay the bills and get my life going. Then there's the jobs that I got that completely changed my career and then the jobs that I grew into. And in each one of those, I had a mentor that's been powerfully amazing. One of them was a black woman. Her name is Paula Madison. She led the organization when GE owned NBC at the time. She was head of our news practice there, and she's been a critical part of my career. But the reason I mentioned her out of all of them and I could talk about Jay Ireland who's the CEO of GE Africa, Mike Barber who was my boss who actually got me involved in the work I did in healthcare in the emerging markets and sent me all around the world to build something.  But Paula, as a black woman, taught me many, many different things. Rarely did we talk about my actual career and the work I was doing. But she taught me how to show up, how to kind of own the room, and position myself particularly as a woman in tech where many times I was maybe the only woman in the room or the first woman in the room or something. So she taught me how to own my confidence, how to own my personal strategy. What do you want to get out of this role? Even the roles that I didn't want she was like, "There's something for you to grow into here. You need to figure out what it is, make that your why, and then you need to live into it every day." So she's really a person that pushed my head up and made me -- Paula has this look where she just gives you the eye, and she's reading right through you. And she's either giving me the heck yeah! Or the you got to be kidding me. And that look I can picture it in my head right now. You got to have folks like that on your team. To this day, she's someone that I call even for the work that I do here now. And I know that I'm a better leader because of her. Super grateful. Shout out to Paula Madison. 

CHANTÉ: I was going to say, "Shout out to Paula Madison." She sounds amazing. 

JANEEN: She is.

CHANTÉ: What does she do now? Are people going to be hitting her up? Is she going to be inundated and overwhelmed? 

JANEEN: Maybe so. You can follow her on the gram. She's currently -- So Paula is retired. So she's living her best life. She's written a book where she's followed her legacy. She's Chinese-Jamaican. So she's written this amazing book called "Finding Samuel Lowe", her Chinese grandfather. That's picking up a lot. It's out, and it's a great, amazing read. And she's also heavily involved in Instagram storytelling with her daughter, Dr. Imani who has a huge following and is on a TV show called "Married to Medicine". And so you can't go wrong. You got to follow her and check her out and catch some of her shade because she does throw it. 

CHANTÉ: I'm going to try to capture all of that. We'll make sure we put it in those show notes. I'm just really blown away, and this conversation is going so well. I want to know more. You said that there's some things on the horizon you can't necessarily tell us. What else can you share about Wikimedia? And I'm specifically interested in for example, in the future of work. How are you reimagining or reconsidering? How have things changed for you all? We now are in the middle of this pandemic and people are forced to work separately with more intention. 

JANEEN: I'll start with the fact that we were about 70% remote even before the pandemic. We're a global organization, 36 countries. We have staff everywhere around the world. And so we were already remote before COVID. I'm an office junkie, so I am struggling being outside of the office. Some of us we're a part of our office set up which is in San Francisco. I also -- I live here in Washington D.C. We have an office here. Our offices are currently closed. We are staying committed to flattening the curve and staying home, and we'll re-evaluate in 2021. So what I would say is in terms of adapting, we were pretty much there. People like me had to get used to it and figure out how to work from home. But we do have staff that wants to be in the office. And so this isn't an easy time for any of us. 

What I will say is we are adapting. Well, our staff is so brave and resilient and they have done well. We've been modeling some flexibility practices to keep people able to manage working from home managing their children, homeschooling. So we've been working through all of that. Our talent and culture department has done great hosting different town meetings and continually keeping our managers informed, and educated, and trained. We operate by Slack. We also use email, but Slack's our main communication tool. And we went over the top Slack with COVID because we have everything from our general and very distinct channels that are talking about communications, and operations, and finance, and things like that. And then we have the dog channel where you can post pictures of your dog every day. We have this channel that I think I like the very least, which is the push-up channel. And so here's the rule with the push-up channel - If you join it and someone types the word go, you have to stop and do 10 push-ups. I hate it because who wants to do 10 push-ups all the time? But different channels to keep us distant socially while still having a great time. So we've done that.

But I also want to talk about our community because COVID has impacted our community tremendously. We started talking about edit-a-thons. And this is a gathering of communities coming together to be able to write and share ideas and thoughts. And now they're unable to do that. And so we have taken some of this downtime as a way to do a refresh on our events, refining our practices, creating a model where you're able to complete a survey once different parts of the world are able to meet in person so that we can have certain guidelines that you'll need to have approved in order for you to meet in person. And we shifted to an online editing model. 

And again, in this conversation I was having with a member of the community yesterday, she said that we're going great. She's like, "It's becoming our new normal, and we're finding a way to make it work, and we're having fun with it." And she was sharing with me some of the ways that they're hosting these events and the different groups and communities. And so I would say that Wikipedia is as resilient as the world that we live in. And we're doing our very best to ensure that we continue to bring a product to you and to the world that stays strong. 

CHANTÉ: I think that's the crux of a lot of the things we've been talking about is this idea of participation. And it can be really hard to get people to make this decision to participate in something rather than just passively consuming something. We're seeing this a lot lately in the political process. But I think that Wikipedia is a great example of that too. And that it's easy to just consume Wikipedia. But if you really want to engage with it, you have to actively participate in that process. And so the question is how do you get people to do that? Or maybe the better question is how do you get people to want to do that? 

JANEEN: If free knowledge and information and open-source is something that you're passionate about, then you're going to be drawn to Wikipedia and you're going to want to edit and participate. You're going to read something and say, "Hmm, that's not completely accurate. I want to add to that." Or "I have a citation that I know can make that a stronger, more impactful story." For folks that don't do that, -- I was a user of Wikipedia before I worked for the Foundation, but I'd never edited before. It's something that I've become interested in now that I see the need for the diversity of voice. And so I think that if we can do a good job from an equity perspective of getting user groups in place at universities and in schools, like some of our community members are professors and librarians, and they're a part of this practice. And so they are advocates and ambassadors for Wikipedia. And I think if we can continue to build that community of people, we'll always find ways to draw editors into our community. We also have to continue to do great work and better work at ensuring that people feel welcome and that they're able to participate, whether they edit once or a thousand times a day that every edit matters. And that's something that we have to keep working on. What I want to see and help be a part of my influence in the community is to build these ambassadors and to get folks talking about it so that we can continue to create a Wikipedia that is both a product that is consumed and a product that people can build.

JAMEY: I like the way you answered both in the abstract. You also kind of answered how it happened for you when you said that you didn't edit until you saw how important it was to have this equity. So I think letting other people [Inaudible] and that is a big step of the process, which you're doing right now. So thank you. 

JANEEN: And I'm still learning that because I don't know -- One, I'm still learning editing all the time. But I don't always know how to find things to edit that need a diverse lens. And so I reach out to members in the community and I'm like, "What can I work on?" And I was doing that yesterday with Dr. Jess who is a member of our community. And she set out to write an article about women in tech once a day, every day, I think three years ago. And to date, she's written probably close to a thousand articles about women in tech. And I was meeting with her yesterday and she's helping me generate a list of things that I can write about. And she is a great example of a Wikipedian that is not Black but diversity is so important to her and so she keeps me aware of it. "Janeen, this is important. You should read this. So there's not enough information on this article." And she's helping us even design what some of our other diverse projects can look like. So I very much appreciate her. 

CHANTÉ: I know that you've talked about this, but are there any other calls to action that we can empower people to join in terms of this editing? Because I guess that's kind of like the aha moment for me where I can understand that this is super important. And I just want to make it crystal clear and make it very accessible for folks who are listening and who can click around. If you have anything else, I'd love to add it to the show notes so that folks can get busy editing and participating in this open process. 

JANEEN: So I think one of the things I want to mention is one, remember anywhere you are in the world you can be a part of this movement. So this isn't just for the United States. This is global. Whether you sit in the U.S. or other places, or you're traveling other places, if you don't edit, if you actually don't want to click your keyboard and write, we talked about the Commons. So if you can capture images and you load them into the Commons, we need images. That's something that Dr. Wade was telling me yesterday. She's like, "A lot of the articles, particularly the diverse articles, they don't have the imagery. They don't have photos or pictures or images of these people." So maybe you can join the movement in that space. And as long as you're willing to share your images, then we can use them and you're a part of this movement.

If you're a part of a group of people and Wikipedia isn't something that's used deliberately, continue to encourage people to use it and talk about the platform. Use it, not just through Google but use Wikipedia, download the app onto your phone and use the app and get access to our content through the app. Learn about our edit-a-thon. Tag me on Twitter - I use that more than anything. Help us direct you to these edit-a-thons. That's the key place where you're going to get involved in terms of editing. And the cool thing is if you think about a major holiday or event or something happening, there's usually going to be an edit-a-thon on tied to it whether it's Indigenous People Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Valentine's day, I don't know, you name it. Usually, there's something that an editor might tie an edit-a-thon to and you can find a way to write about it. And let's say you're a Latin American and you're living in America;  it's Hispanic History Month and you want to write about that, there's something going on on Wikipedia about that right now, and you can find your way to editing that. That's what we want to be able to have people be a part of.

CHANTÉ: Thank you. Can I ask a question that people might be thinking? What's an edit-a-thon? And can you give them an example of what an experience would look like or feel like or be like?

JANEEN: I can because I've participated in an edit-a-thon, and they're awesome. And maybe we can slide the Wikipedia page for edit-a-thons in there. But I'll read it straight from Wikipedia. An edit-a-thon is an event where editors of online communities such as Wikipedia edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typically include basic editing, training for new editors can also be combined and sometimes there's a social meetup where you can gather and do work. 

My very first edit-a-thon was a hip hop edit-a-thon during Black History Month. So fun because I love old school hip hop. And so I got a chance to go. It was held in a museum. And so that was the meetup. And there were about 35 people there, and we had food, and they had a DJ, and they had someone talking about hip hop, and they had a trainer, and they taught us how to edit. I had been learning from members of our staff, but they taught us specifically how to edit. They even listed here are some of the pages that need some editing. If you know something about these specific groups, you could write about them. I worked in partnership with someone to edit a few pages for some hip hop groups and just learned a lot about the process itself, but that's how edit-a-thons work. Usually, there's some pre-work involved by the host where they're setting up the information that they need you to focus on in editing particularly if there's a theme about it. Edit-a-thons are great ways for our community to gather; they're great ways for our community to share information and ideas; they are ways to enhance Wikipedia, and they're also just a ton of fun. 

CHANTÉ: Thank you. That does sound like a lot of fun. We're overdue for one. I have to participate and find one. Hopefully, there's some locally in Chicago.

JANEEN: Oh, definitely. 

CHANTÉ: Okay. I will settle for virtual this time. 

JANEEN: We've got folks in Chicago. You could meet up as soon as it's safe to do so, but yes, for sure. 

CHANTÉ: Yay.

REIN: So the question is you recently left GE, and it seems to me that you could have stayed there, continue to grow your influence, being pretty comfortable in the position that you're very familiar with. But you decided not to do that. And you must have had a good reason. So my question is what is that reason? 

CHANTÉ: Yes. I spent almost 20 years at GE, had an amazing career. Some of it was really hard. Some of it was a ton of fun and some of it was difficult. I think they say, "You live life forward, but you experience it backwards." So like now I look back on it and I'm like, "Oh. I needed to go through that for sure. I'm a better leader because of it." And being an expat and having a chance to live and work globally was life-changing for me. And yes, fortunately, I could have stayed. I left on great terms. Leaving GE was probably one of the toughest things I'd ever done from a leadership perspective because yeah, I was doing well there and even when it was a different company or under different leadership, it was a place where I was enjoying my space. 

But I knew that it was time for me to transition particularly after coming back from living overseas. I was a different leader, and it was a different company. And I was trying to find my way. I was able to do that a little when I was leading Women in Tech. And then a lot of times, when leadership shifts and changes, sometimes you decide whether you can continue to be a part of the space or not. I decided that I wanted to take a little bit of time off. I'd been overseas, I had lost my dad, had experienced some other challenges in our family with losing my father, his brother. It was a really difficult time, and I hadn't taken the proper time to grieve and just strengthen myself and be with my family. So I had some time off and decided during that time that I wasn't sure that I wanted to go back. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do at all, to be honest with you. But I just wasn't sure that my next phase was going to be at GE. I was still just dealing with a lot personally. 

And right about the time I was preparing to go back, I think it was in September -- Prior to that, I had received a call to start talking to Wikimedia, and I entertained it because of the brand and the product. And somewhere in between there, I realized that I had an opportunity to take so many things that I had learned at GE and use them in an organization that was going to be growing and that it would end up being the polar opposite to anything I'd ever experienced in GE 300,000 people at the time, maybe 400, you know, living in New York. I moved to Oakland, California for the first year I was at Wiki. Dealing with a very regimented and extremely rigorous practice at GE to building that or trying to build and put legs around a brand that took off and needed to now, in order to be sustained and to continue to grow, needed to have some arms put around it so that we could really put some practice and leadership strategies in place to be very impactful and effective. I was very drawn to that. It was very attractive to me. 

And I had a conversation with one of my other mentors who I worked with at the time I was at GE. His name was Jay Ireland who's the CEO of GE Africa. And he and I were talking. At the time, he was retiring. So I was just thanking him for such a great leadership experience. And I remember clearly I said to him, "Jay, thanks for taking a bet on me." And he said, "Best bet I ever took." He was like, "It was a no-brainer." He was like, "Janeen, a lot of people bet on you. You should bet on yourself." And when he said that to me, I knew that I couldn't go back to GE that I needed to take a bet on myself and try something different. And I needed to trust that I could do something great in a different space. And I had to prove that to myself and that's what I'm doing now. And it's been well worth it. So we'll see how it goes. 

REIN: I think this is a good time to lead into reflections. 

CHANTÉ: So I think the reflection -- well, for one, like I said, I'm a Janeen stan now. Oh my gosh, I must meet you one day in person. Absolutely. That is a thing. I love your energy - it's vibrant, and it's so genuine. And what I'm learning through this conversation is that we can really make differences one editor at a time. And so I'm super inspired now to go and do something and get -- I didn't know that that would be the thing I'd walk away with today. But I'm like, yeah, you're right. We have to start getting in there and participating and you can't wait always to be invited. So there's lots of opportunities. And I'm so glad that you were able to share all these amazing resources and opportunities for folks like me specifically to get involved because I'm really interested in telling stories of Black, Brown, indigenous people of color.

JAMEY: I also wanted to use my reflection to kind of talk about how Janeen is really amazing, which I also noticed from talking to her for the past hour or so. But one thing that's on my mind after this conversation is the importance of mentorship as something that's empowering. The story you just told about betting on yourself I've found very inspiring. And then when you were talking earlier about mentorship and how it's not necessarily about things about your job - It's about how to be in front of a room and do these things. I think that's really important and obviously, it empowered you to do some really amazing things and just be really amazing and come off that way to other people. And so that's the kind of thing that's important and also gets passed on from person to person as it kind of works. And I think that's really special. 

REIN: I was thinking about Janeen when you were talking about the impact you're trying to have on your organization. And there is a thing that Gerald Weinberg says which is "It's much easier for a cucumber to become pickled than brine to become cucumbered."

JANEEN: Awesome.

REIN: And what he means by that is that when a small system interacts with a much larger system, it's very hard to change the larger system without being transformed yourself. And I think Janeen what you are demonstrating is that the way that you do that is -- So let me use another analogy. It's like floating down a river and you're trying to not just swim up forever but change the course of the river, and that's a massive feat of engineering. And engineering, to use Vincente's definition is deliberate, intentional, iterative, evidence-based attempt to change the properties of a system. And so that's what you're doing is you're engineering the system you want to see at Wikimedia for the people who work there, for the people who contribute there, for the larger culture that Wikimedia is a part of. And that means pushing back against the prevailing cultural norms. Chanté was talking about White Supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, all of these things to have that sort of an impact and it is hard work. And I'm just really impressed with the way you're going about doing it. 

JANEEN: Rein, thank you for that. My reflection is that when Nate and I were talking yesterday just to prepare my time and to talk about the conversation on Greater Than Code, we did not know exactly what we were stepping into. But I was drawn to the fact that you all said it was just a conversation, which I love because I think I started with saying storytelling was one of my superpowers but connecting and communicating I think is one of my other ones. And so I want to thank you all for being open to a discussion with me, for allowing me to be myself and just who I am and what I do, and for just being open and sharing just all of the goodness of today. This was just a really great discussion. 

And in the midst of so many other things that are not going great in the world, it's really awesome to have a conversation like this. And I appreciate you all and the work that you all are doing. And I'm wishing you continued success and the very best in all that you do. I hope we stay in touch.

CHANTÉ: Thank you so much for coming on.

JAMEY: Absolutely.

REIN: We're going to invite you to our Slack. And I would really like to talk to you there. 

JANEEN: I would love it. 

CHANTÉ: Yes, you are amazing. Thank you so much. This was such a fresh breath of air for me, and I'm really inspired. Seriously. Let's please have you back to the show because you are awesome. 

JANEEN: Thank you. I'd love that.