culture - Page number 3

Open source, giving freely, and self-awareness

In a July 2010 post on opensource.com, Jonathan Opp wrote about the nature of giving and participating in a gift culture/economy. One point that he mentions is the benefit of giving freely, without strings attached. I’d like to expand on that, since I think there’s a lot we can learn from recognizing the hidden strings that we sometimes attach to our gifts. » Read more

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Interview: Jeremy Gutsche, innovation expert and founder of TrendHunter.com

Jeremy Gutsche is an innovation expert, host of Trend Hunter TV, and the founder of TrendHunter.com, the world’s largest network for trend spotting and innovation. He has been described as “a new breed of trend spotter” by The Guardian, “an eagle eye” by Global TV, and “on the forefront of cool” by MTV. In 2009, he published a book, Exploiting Chaos: Spark Innovation During Times of Change, about taking advantage of trends and change to benefit your business. » Read more

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Who will be the new face of openness at Google?

Last week, Google Senior Vice President of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg resigned after almost 10 years at the firm. While the comings and goings of tech industry executives aren’t typically that interesting to me, I found this news fascinating for a couple of reasons. » Read more

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Take the Ada Initiative census

Have you taken the Ada Initiative Census? Nearly 2,000 people have taken part so far to help measure women's participation and representation in open technology and culture. “We want to know what women are working on and how each community’s culture affects women,” said Ada Initiative co-founder Valerie Aurora. “We also want to know where to direct our work in helping women in the community.” » Read more

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A better way to win: Profiting from purpose

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." —Oliver Wendell Holmes

When it comes to managing their costs, most companies operate with a simple model. They start by trying to maximize their gross margins so that they have a high cushion for spending in areas where they feel they need to spend heavily in order to compete, such as advertising and promotions. But a growing number of high-performing companies are showing that there is a better way to manage spending and improve performance. These companies live and operate on the other side of complexity.

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User-led innovation can't create breakthroughs. Really?

Earlier this week, Fast Company posted an article by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen (thanks to Gunnar Hellekson for sending it my way) that may be of interest to folks seeing success with their open source and open innovation efforts.

The article is entitled "User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and IKEA" and here's how it starts: » Read more

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Six ways to build a solid community

Recently, fellow opensource.com writer Chris Grams remarked that our collection of articles and tips on community-building was getting rather large. Perhaps we had the material to write a set of best practices for building communities. So here’s my stab at it. » Read more

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Facebook's developer-focused (and open?) culture

Usually when Facebook comes up at opensource.com, it's because they've done something that's very much the opposite of open. But a blog post on FrameThink this week showed Facebook's more open side. » Read more

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Copyrights vs. human rights

I wrote last week about the "Typhoid Mary" of internet restriction laws, observing how Wikileaks has confirmed that a wing of the US Government - the US Trade representative (USTR) - has been systematically bullying European and other world governments. » Read more

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Theft! A History of Music —Part 3: If I could turn forward time...

Imagine a 20-year-old musician publishing his work today. Let's pretend he's living the fast and reckless life of a rock star and will die young at 45. Because the copyright term has been ratcheted up to life of the author plus 70 years (or 95 years from publication for corporate works), you won't be able to sample his work without permission (for your heartfelt tribute song, of course), until 2105. But since you're not living his rock star lifestyle, maybe you can hang on another 95 years to grab your chance. » Read more

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