Business

Recipe for a successful business: One part openness, two parts trust

There's one major advantage to openness in business. Like the Billy Joel song says, it's just a matter of trust. 

Harvard Business Review's Peter Merholz recently highlighted several successful businesses modeled on trust—and, though he doesn't note it, openness. » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 7 May 2010 by Rebecca Fernandez (Red Hat)

Announcing the Open Your World Forum

The opensource.com team is excited to announce our first-ever live event, the Open Your World Forum. The forum, held via webinar on Thursday, May 27, 2010, will feature presentations by leading open source thinkers in the fields of business, education, law, government, healthcare, and music. The event is free and entirely online--so join us for the whole day or any part that interests you, from your desk, your sofa, or anywhere you like.

Who will be presenting? » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 4 May 2010 by John Adams (Red Hat)

Toyota gives customer-driven design the green light

A few weeks ago, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst wrote an article for BusinessWeek suggesting that Toyota might benefit from doing things the open source way when it comes to building the software inside its automobiles.

From Jim's article: » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 3 May 2010 by Chris Grams

BusinessWeek turns an eye to open source beyond technology

Here at opensource.com, we aspire to take principles the open source software movement has applied to building better software faster and find more uses for them in business, education, government, the law, and generally in our lives. » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 28 Apr 2010 by Chris Grams

Drupal founder, Dries Buytaert, on passion, believing, and the open source way

While attending DrupalCon San Francisco 2010 last week, I got a chance to catch up with Dries Buytaert, founder and project lead of Drupal as well as co-founder and CTO of Acquia. Dries is a very humble guy. I first met him in December 2009 in New Orleans at a Do It With Drupal event. He's an icon in the Drupal world, but I wanted to get some insight beyond the bits and bytes. I sat down with Dries, and we talked about the open source way and some of the things he's learned over the past 10 years. What's intriguing to me is how for him, this seems like an accident, but he's navigated the waters of open source to accomplish some amazing things. » Read more

1 CommentPosted 26 Apr 2010 by Jason Hibbets (Red Hat)

Jim Whitehurst: Don’t build a better mousetrap. Change the business model.

Companies that are creating massive value typically aren’t building a better mousetrap. They’re not improving on existing technologies or simply adding new features. Instead, they’re changing the business model. This was the message behind Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst’s keynote at today’s CED Venture 2010 Conference.  » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 22 Apr 2010 by Jonathan Opp

Is the word "community" losing its meaning?

Poor words. As they get more popular, as we give them more love, we also keep trying to shove in new meaning to see if they can take it.

In the technology industry, this happens over and over. Take "cloud computing," which used to mean something pretty specific and now means essentially "on the Internet" as far as I can tell. Outside the technology industry, take "news," which also used to mean something, and now is a muddy mess of news/editorial/advertising. » Read more

6 CommentsPosted 21 Apr 2010 by Chris Grams

Which is better: efficient markets or efficient communities?

In my post last week, I talked about what I see as inefficiencies in the system design of many crowdsourcing projects. Today, I thought I'd stick with the inefficiency theme after reading a blog by Umair Haque entitled The Efficient Community Hypothesis (thanks to Rebecca Fernandez for pointing it out). » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 19 Apr 2010 by Chris Grams

Don't let FUD kill your business goals

If there's one thing business leaders can learn from open source developers, it's when you begin disrupting the comfortable ways that people do business, you'll experience the power of FUD—Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. And your ideas, in all their brilliant, open-minded glory, will be the target. » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 19 Apr 2010 by Rebecca Fernandez (Red Hat)

The Differentiated MBA

Next month, business schools around the world will graduate another crop of freshly minted MBAs, ready and eager to enter the business world and shape the future of management. In this rapidly changing business world, one has to wonder... has traditional business education been able to keep up? And have today's MBA graduates been prepared to lead in tomorrow's open world? » Read more

5 CommentsPosted 16 Apr 2010 by John Adams (Red Hat)