Business

To be successful and truly collaborative, knowledge-sharing systems require intuitive tools that connect people, reward participation, and align well with existing work and communication patterns. After IDEO's two-year internal development effort to create and implement "the Tube," their enterprise-wide intranet system, we gained new understanding and experience in balancing technology possibilities with behavior realities. The unique success of the Tube comes from the insight that effective knowledge sharing is a social activity that is enabled by technology, rather than a technological solution bolted onto an existing work culture. Now IDEO's Knowledge Sharing Team shares a set of design principles for building online collaboration systems that really work. » Read more

What leader today doesn't want more innovation? Yet, producing more (of anything) inside an organization generally leads to more process, which smothers individual creativity and all-too-often kills organizational innovation.

Innovation isn't about structuring a process to lead to an outcome so much as it's about creating space--both elbow room, the space to roam free of bureaucratic rules and red tape, and head room, the freedom to see differently, think wildly, and aim higher. The leaders who generate more creative energy and innovation are always wrestling with the question: How do we design in more slack? Or, how do we cultivate an environment and support work that enlists people as drivers of their own destiny and inventors of the company's future? » Read more

Black Duck Software and North Bridge Venture Partners, working with 451 Research, are conducting the sixth annual Future of Open Source Survey. I took the survey, but one question caused me concern, considering what I do for a living. Question 11 states, "OSS [Open source software] forges and foundations have played an important role in the past few years. How will OSS forges and foundations evolve over the next 2-3 years?" Answers range from growing or decreasing equally in terms of adoption, one growing at the expense of the other, or staying the same. I’m troubled because forges and foundations serve open source project communities in radically different ways. » Read more

You've been thinking about starting an open source company. Or maybe you've got an idea but don't know how to take it to the next level. You need something to accelerate your idea. Maybe you need to pitch it to investors? Perhaps you're looking for a co-founder with skills that compliment yours? Startup Weekend could be the event that gets you moving.

We caught up with some of the organizers from a local Start-up Weekend in the Research Triangle, North Carolina. We wanted to find out what Start-up Weekend is looking to accomplish. And while we were investigating, something unique caught our attention—a track specifically designed for open source. » Read more