open organizations

See the following -

11 Steps To Running An Online Community Meeting

Open organizations explicitly invite participation from external communities, because these organizations know their products and programs are world class only if they include a variety of perspectives at all phases of development. Liaising with and assisting those communities is critical. And community calls are my favorite method for interacting with stakeholders both inside and outside an organization. In this article, I'll share best practices for community calls and talk a little about how they can spur growth...

A Guide to Building Trust in Teams and Organizations

My travels globally have given me a feeling for how best to work in many different contexts—like Latin America, West Africa, North Africa, and Southeast Asia, to name a few. And I've found that I can more easily adapt my work style in these countries if I focus on something that plays a role in all of them: trust. In The Open Organization, Jim Whitehurst mentions that accountability and meritocracy are both central components of open organizations. Trust is linked to both of those concepts. But the truth, I've found, is that many people don't have the information they need to determine whether they can trust a person or not. They need data, along with a system to evaluate that data and make decisions...

A New Perspective on Meritocracy

Meritocracy is a common element of open organizations: They prosper by fostering a less-hierarchical culture where "the best ideas win." But what does meritocracy really mean for open organizations, and why does it matter? And how do open organizations make meritocracy work in practice? Some research and thinking I've done over the last six months have convinced me such questions are less simple—and perhaps more important—than may first meet the eye...

Addressing Open Source's Free Rider Problem

Nadia Eghbal, in her major report on the state of our digital infrastructure, and Jonathan Lister, in his response describing our digital ecosystem, both point to a tragedy of the commons in open source software. While some projects are sustainable, many still struggle with "a free rider problem." As Nadia puts it: "Resources are offered for free, and everybody (whether individual developer or large software company) uses them, so nobody is incentivized to contribute back, figuring that somebody else will step in"...

Developer Opportunities to Code for Good

As I was searching for open source projects that help learners with disabilities, such as blindness or dyslexia, I came across Bookshare. That led me to Bookshare's parent company, Benetech, a technology nonprofit based in Palo Alto, CA which focuses on empowering communities in need. Read more about Benetech in our interview with CEO Jim Fruchterman: Open source product development most effective when social. I reached out and spoke with Anh Bui, Vice President of Benetech Labs, Benetech's new product development arm that explores areas of social need by engaging with communities in the United States and beyond...

History Shows that Openness Is a Key to Innovation

Innovations come from humble places, Ridley's argues, and large, bureaucratic corporations were not particularly good at developing innovative products. Instead, small, loosely assembled communities (open organizations with front line teams) have been more innovative throughout history. They have been far more capable of exploring new concepts, particularly if they have a wide base of contributions to work with. Let me review two historical examples of this, drawn from Ridley's work (one brief, one lengthier).

Open Education Is About Improving Lives, Not Taking Tests

While recently reading The Innovator's Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent and Lead, by George Couros, I was struck by the parallels between the author's thinking and that of Jim Whitehurst in The Open Organization: Igniting Passion and Performance. "Sometimes it scares me to think that we have taken the most human profession, teaching, and have reduced it to simply letters and numbers," Couros says early in the book. "We place such an emphasis on these scores, because of political mandates and the way teachers and schools are evaluated today, that it seems we've forgotten why our profession exists: to change—improve—lives." In other words education has lost it's "Why?"—and that is central to its mission...

Proof that Openness Scales

Recently I've had the immense pleasure of discovering Slalom Consulting, and I was fascinated to learn how they do open. Aaron Atkins and Shannon Heydt, both working in talent acquisition for Slalom, sat down with me to share challenges related to scalability—and explain how recruiting and talent management play a strong part in shaping company growth. Slalom's case is rich and illustrative. But to understand it, we must first understand scabaility. Scalability is the ability of something to adapt to increasing demands. Meeting your business demands starts with your people and frameworks far before you fulfill a service or product...

When the Hacker Ethic Meets Old Ideas About Brand

Open organizations apply principles from open source software development more broadly. Existing organizations find the open approach appealing because it promises gains in productivity and efficiency—but openness may have farther-reaching consequences than we anticipate or intend. One influential set of open principles comes from Steven Levy's book about the early history of the computing revolution, Hackers. Levy lays out what he calls "the Hacker Ethic," and it begins with "the Hands-On Imperative"...

Why Your Teams May Be Failing at the Collaboration Game

When we think about skills needed to build open structures and establish open mindsets, collaboration jumps to mind immediately. In order to collaborate effectively, communication—or rather, clear communication—is imperative to making it all work. Communication can be defined as a transfer of information from one space or person to another—but it can look like dialogue, conflict resolution, listening skills, or even a knowledge commons. In open organizations, we look for timely transfers of information to all members so that they may do their jobs effectively and efficiently...