Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
A friend asked for help in thinking about job titles and job descriptions, and said she was specifically interested in how to think about them and whether they matter at all. I gave her some …
I did open source community management for MediaWiki for about three years. At first, in 2011, I was an individual contributor (see my February 2012 post "What Does A Volunteer Development Coordinator Do?"). After several …
I'm noodling around, thinking about vision, perspectives, and leadership. In a 2012 interview with MIT Technology Review (in their compilation Twelve Tomorrows), Neal Stephenson spoke about science fiction's role in innovation (pp. 5-6): ... a …
What do you know about pipe organs? Several years ago, all I knew about organs I'd learned from a few pages in Cryptonomicon comparing them to vacuum-tube computers. And I liked their sound. I was …
I recently came across Lauren Bacon's "The Accidental Boss: Making Peace with Power" again, and it reminded me: We don't talk enough about power. We don't talk enough about how hard it is to transition …
I decided to transcribe the speech in which newly reelected US President Barack Obama thanks his campaign staff and reflects on his own experience as a community organizer. I hope this helps nonnative English speakers …
Leonard is listening to the History of Rome podcast and tells me the best bits. Lessons include: An emperor is a single point of failure. Be proactive about answering your mail (paging Caracalla). If the …
You know you're traveling too much when you completely stop updating the "where I'm going to be" feeds (example). Regardless: I'll be in San Francisco starting late today, and then in Portland on Monday the …
Wikimedia Foundation is hiring a leader for volunteer software testing. I have ideas on what this person should do and how to do it* -- indeed, this position reports to me -- but more than …
By the way, I got promoted. It's quite an honor. Wikimedia Foundation's new Engineering Community Team, which I lead, is a renaming of the TL;DR group. We've written a draft summary of our goals for …