Open source givers and takers - O'Reilly Radar

Open source givers and takers

Taking without giving isn't the problem. We need better open source contribution metrics.

by Mike Loukides | @mikeloukides | comments: 9

Dana Blankenhorn's recent ZDNet blog points to Accenture's "hockey stick for open source" and notes that while 69 percent of the companies Accenture surveyed plan to increase their open source investment in the next year, only 29 percent plan to contribute back to the open source community. That sounds very plausible. But is it a problem? I'm not so sure.

via radar.oreilly.com

The author's commentary makes sense to me. Even if only 1/3 of companies plan to give back to the community - and do so with energy, commitment and imagination, that gives considerable oomph to the 29%. It's always motivating to be connected with the people that 'do', vs. the people that 'don't'. And, focusing on the metrics that make sense, while doing the work.

Posted via email from WikiRandy

Use Cases for Collaborative Networks

rather than focusing on socialization, one-to-one interactions and individual enrichment, businesses must be concerned with creating an information fabric within their organizations. An information fabric is a federation of content (and behavior) from the multiplicity of data and application silos within the enterprise; such as, ERP, CRM, file servers, email, databases, web-services infrastructures, etc.

By making this information fabric easily editable across groups in a dynamic, secure, auditable, governed and real-time manner individuals can access and organize data into actionable formats that enable decision making, collaboration and reuse.

I foresee these Collaborative Networks being used across entire organizations, but also for specific use cases.

via cmswire.com

Now, if there were a way, or a place to gather these use cases, and have some dialogue about them - that would be most helpful.

Posted via email from WikiRandy

The Importance of Context: Why Enterprise 2.0 Still Fails to Deliver Value

Enterprise 2.0 adoption is being driven by the need to accelerate how we collaborate, by reducing the friction between our systems, applications and human assets. But most vendors have focused almost entirely on improving human to human collaboration with short term fixes, by merely adding more application silos — silos that entirely lack context for the end-user, the business and the stated goals of a given deployment.

via cmswire.com

Ahh, silos - if there's not enough in the workplace, add the Enterprise 2.0 component, and create more of them electronically! So, under the guise of greater communication, the 'solution' is often one of misalignment and miscommunication.

The author goes on to point out that there's a move towards "Collaborative Networks" to solve this problem -. http://ostatic.com/blog/the-future-of-collaborative-networks

Posted via email from WikiRandy

Artbound: New nonprofit initiative launches to create sustainable change through the arts | Markets | CNW GROUP | Canadian Business Online

Artbound: New nonprofit initiative launches to create sustainable change through the arts

via canadianbusiness.com

Creating a new school is great, but hopefully they'll be developing content that is free and open, so that it can be used and repurposed in other locations - my pet OER project WikiEducator.org comes to mind. Also, why limit it to developing countries....how about depressed regions of inner cities in developed countries - and how about sharing practices that work in one area or more, to strengthen and build the whole!....

Posted via email from WikiRandy

Not alone, even in the Alps

via bbc.co.uk

Here's an interesting story, about our connection to the world, and to each other. Even in the far reaches of the Alps, this artist has chosen to insert people-sculptures, to create an even more interesting picture, memorable too!

Posted via email from WikiRandy