Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Ecosystems are not about design or control

Marnie Webb always triggers a good thought or two:

It’s about turning over part of yourself. In two essays (1, 2) Peter Merholz argues that it’s not about the technology. He writes: “Web 2.0 is primarily interesting from a philosophical standpoint. It’s about relinquishing control, it’s about openness, it’s about trust and authenticity. APIs, Tags, Ajax, mashups, and all that are symptoms, outputs, results of this philosophical bent.”
In a Social Source Ecosystem, openness, trust and authenticity are cultural norms. The actual code and behavior of actors are just "symptoms, outputs and results of this philisophical bent."

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

A Social Source Ecosystem: Catalysis

Catalysis-- an action or reaction among actors that is triggered by an outside agent--a very small amount of catalytic agent can facilitate a very large scale reaction.

Open source software becomes a catalytic agent that brings new actors into the social source ecosystem. Recently an online petition application was released using the CiviCRM API to store data. An entirely new community of users that care about online petitions will now be exposed to CiviCRM and potentially join our community and leverage our software.

One of the key factors for a successful catalyst is an environment conducive to broad cooperation across organizations, markets, commercial products, and human activities. In the software world, this means standards. TCP/IP, HTML and XML provide the basic technical standards, but for a Social Source Ecosystem, standard representations of actions, online donations, contact records, etc. Become just as important.

In the end, group forming networks are probably the most relevant mechanism for large catalytic impacts in the Social Source Ecosystem.







The implication is that the Social Source Foundation cannot be a central clearing house, but instead focuses on the basic rules and tools that allow any individual or group to immediately use CiviCRM for their purposes, creating a new group around their specific needs.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Social Source Socialist?

Oh, how I love it when corporations make arguements that can be applied in different ways. In the fundraising software space, there is a debate about people filing business process patents for specific online fundraising methods. The most noise comes from software vendors that will lose business if a single vendor is the only one able to offer a specific business process.

One arguement against business process patents is:

Shouldn't technology enable us to do more and to do it more effectively? Restricting our use of fundraising tools limits the number of people we can engage, the volume of donations we will receive, and ultimately, the universe of people we can help.
So I gotta do it:

Shouldn't technology enable nonprofits to do more and to do it more effectively? Restricting nonprofit use of fundraising tools (through expensive proprietary software licenses) limits the number of people nonprofits can engage, the volume of donations nonprofits will receive, and ultimately, the universe of people nonprofits can help.

This is not an arguement to make things free (the social source ecosystem depends on customer revenue), just an arguement to radically reduce barriers to adoption. ;)

Saturday, July 16, 2005

A Social Source Ecosystem: Group Selection

In one of my early presentations on the potential of open source software for nonprofits, I had a slide called “Sounds like Socialism.” The slide tried to address a perception that a utopian view of sharing software and innovations simply couldn’t work. In our market-driven capitalist society, if you don't buy it, it can't be valuable.

The concept of group selection injects a decidedly cut-throat capitalism aspect into the concept of Social Source. The Institute for the Future notes,

“…groups work best when their members provide benefits to one another, but many of these prosocial behaviors do no survive through natural selection.” Individuals who effectively compete with other individuals succeed in evolution; those that cooperate are less successful.

How then do we conceive of a Social Source ecosystem? If it’s not one group of individuals and organizations sharing software in a utopian collaboration of nonprofits, what is it?

Group selection is the concept that individuals are not the only ones subject to natural selection—natural selection also operates at the group level—groups of individuals. Cooperation within a group can be a very important asset when competing against other groups.

This has implication for the Social Source ecosystem competing with the commercial software ecosystem, but also for the internal organization of the Social Source ecosystem.

Applying this to the Social Source ecosystem suggests there is no monolithic groups or single leader. Instead, some core principles (open source licenses) simply guide the entire system. Conflict and competition at a wider scale in the Social Source ecosystem will encourage local cooperation in order to compete in the wider group.

In the case of technology like CiviCRM, there is a strong incentive to support the creation of multiple donor database solutions, multiple volunteer management solutions, etc. The competition among those solutions will actually make those solutions stronger.

This leads both to competition among groups sharing volunteer management code for their specific solution, but also supports much broader cooperation as multiple volunteer management solutions share innovations at the CiviCRM level.

Things are getting curiouser and curiouser as I think through how a Social Source ecosystem might work.

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Social Source Symbiosis

The Institute for the Future's second concept for a new literacy of cooperation is symbiosis.

"...a mutually beneficial relationship that can evolve between different organism's in a system."
Symbiosis is not an instant thing, one doesn't issue a press release and announce a symbiotic relationship with customers, partners or vendors. Over time, reciprocal actions build relationships, yet reciprocity is a hard problem.

In a Social Source world, symbiosis is created with the winning strategy for a game of "tit for tat."
  1. Be nice - don't defect at the first opportunity.
  2. Retaliate - defect if others do.
  3. Forgive - switch to cooperation when your opponent does.
  4. Be clear - always react in the same way to your opponent's behavior.
In a Social Source world, you create open source software and share it with the world (be nice). If vendors and consultants choose to use the software without contributing back to the community, you withhold engineering support, priority bug fixes, and custom feature implementation (retaliate). When a vendor or consultant changes their minds and starts contributing back to the community, actively support their success (forgive). And all the while, communicate what a Social Source value system and ecosystem look like for others can behave as is expected (be clear).

Already, CiviCRM is becoming both endosymbiotic and exosymbiotic in the Social Source ecosystem. Endosymbiotic means one organism is literally inside of another. This is the relationship between CivicSpace and CiviCRM with CivicSpace's 0.8.2 release. Neither piece of software is entirely "whole" without the other.

CiviCRM is also exosymbiotic with content management systems like Drupal and Mambo. The pieces of software reciprocate (track a common set of users), but are seemingly distinct and can operate entirely separately. Ultimately, as CiviCRM becomes the basis for donor management, advocacy, and case management applications, a network of symbiotic relationships will evolve.

One interesting lesson from biology is that parasitism drives rapid evolution. In a Social Source ecosystem, not everyone needs to or even should cooperate and collaborate. Individuals and organizations that adopt software by "defecting" in the game of tit for tat by not contributing code and innovations back into to the community.

Friday, July 1, 2005

Social Source Sync



Synchrony: the process by which patterned behavior is created among many individuals without conscious control.
In a Social Source ecosystem there are a lot of actors: developers (building software), hosters (providing software as a service to customers), integrators (modifying software for customer needs), customers (using the software), etc.

Traditional proprietary software vendor models try to coordinate those actors under a single vendor. Developers have to use the SDK (software development kit) approved by the intellectual property owner. Hosters have to pay the intellectual property owner royalties. Integrators are only available from "partner programs" organized by the intellectual property owner. At least some portion of the customer spend to use the software goes to the intellectual property owner.

Even in the nonprofit sector this command and control model is prevalent.

The rational for this command and control model is that the resulting system has rules, standards and is predictable... if no one is in control, that would be too risky.

The concept of Synchrony challenges this analysis. If you have a system of actors that is communicating and engaging in some type of rhythmic give and take, those actors will, over time sync up with one another.

In a Social Source world, software developers, integrators, hosters and customers all communicate with one another, ask one another to meet their need, and contribute innovations back and forth. Over time, this rhythmic give and take yields coordinated cooperative action.
...the combination of strong and weak links can create unexpected and spontaneous outbreaks of coordinated behavior across decentralized networks.
The partnership between the Social Source Foundation and CivicSpace labs to build and deploy CiviCRM is a good example of strong links in the network. Each organization also has many weaker links in the nonprofit technology sphere, the political sphere and the open source community.

This emergent Social Source ecosystem has already begun rhythmic oscillation... PicNet and CivicActions are starting to use the technology for customers and are increasingly communicating with the partners with the strong links (CivicSpace Labs and Social Source Foundation). Over time, if enough actors join the system, communicate and exchange innovations, unexpected coordinated behavior should start breaking out across the network.

We believe these yet to be discovered opportunities for coordination will create major positive changes in the field of social purpose technology for non-profits and NGOs.

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Small pieces loosely joined part II

In my previous post I talked about how venture capitalists see the next generation of technology investments. Others share a common view of the future:

"Connective and pervasive technologies are enabling new forms of human and machine interactions and relationships; they will present business [& nonprofit] institutions with a host of new possibilities for organizing people, processes, relationships and knowledge." (Institute for the Future)
In a Social Source world, the participants (vendors, consultants, customers) define new possibilities for organizing people, processes, relationships and knowledge with the goal or improving their own organization, and as a by-product, make their innovations available to a broader community, accelerating the adoption of their innovation. This is a function of open source licenses and open, modular architectures based on standards.

The key here is that organizations pursue their own interests. The Social Source ecosystem and licensing structure, which enable organizations to pursue their own interests better, faster, cheaper, makes it easy and automatic to share innovations with no action on the part of the "customer." The customer just needs to pursue their own interests.

The second notable issue is the critical nature of CRM to this vision of a new world-- organizing people, processes, relationships and knowledge.

This is why our fist piece of software is CiviCRM, a constituent relationship management engine. It is all about providing a common, open framework for organizing people and relationships. We fully expect other software will use CiviCRM as a common CRM repository.

Ultimately, this makes interoperation and compatibility between a CiviCRM-based knowledge management system and perhaps a CiviCRM-based donor database easier and more powerful.

Monday, June 27, 2005

The Big Idea

The Institute for the Future observes that we are in the middle of a collision of different forces:

  1. "Companies in emerging high-tech industries have learned that working with competitors can build markets and help avoid costly standards wars."
  2. "The open source movement has shown that world-class software can be built without corporate oversight or market incentives."
  3. "Outsourcing has turned competitors into common customers of design firms and contract manufacturers."
Put these ideas together and you begin to see how far behind the curve the nonprofit technology sector is. Sure, where NPO technology and the broader technology market intersect, we see these themes -- computers, operating systems, groupware -- but in the nonprofit-specific technology sector, we see a market lagging behind. I'm talking about things like donor databases, advocacy platforms, membership management, etc.

Leading firms don't work with one another to build markets, but focus on building proprietary software platforms that seek to be all things to all people (Kintera and Blackbaud illustrate this point) or focus on a small little niche (membership management & case management software). Nonprofits still see open source as "iffy,"built by volunteers and not a viable option compared with proprietary commercial solutions. And finally, the nonprofit technology market makes little use of contract manufacturers/ design firms, instead vendors tend to follow a vertical integration strategy, providing customers with all the services related to their market -- installation, training, support, customization, etc.

A Social Source world actively embraces these themes and put them to work for the customer.

Social Source encourages competitors to work together and build standards that enable customers to switch from vendor to vendor without barriers. Imagine buying advocacy software from Kintera and deciding that you would prefer a consultant and technology support staff based in your city so you can get face to face treatment. Perhaps GetActive has staff in your city. Could you imagine switching from Kintera to GetActive with little pain and trouble? This starts to become possible if the two companies used the same open source technologies & software and agreed to the same standards. If both companies used the open source CiviCRM constituent relationship management core, the migration of basic CRM data would be relatively simple.

In a Social Source world, the software options are not created by a nonprofit staffer with little time and no formal software engineering training. Instead, very robust core software is built by qualified software engineers with the support of a broad open source community. Intermediaries like the Social Source Foundation and Aspiration provide governance, guidance and community building for the open source community.

Social Source means that when customers hire vendors, the project contributes to the whole community through the magic of open source. Competing vendors have an incentive to share innovations and employ the same software engineering organizations to create solutions to their customer needs. Doing so, they can deliver the functionality customers need at a low cost to the vendor.

But this Social Source vision requires a new ecosystem of integrators, hosters and developers to evolve. It requires customers and consultants and intermediaries to start understanding the dynamics that shape the new, new economy. And it requires imaginative and inventive people, funders and intermediaries to take the lead.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

"Apps on top of apps on top of apps": small pieces loosely joined

From the pages of Business 2.0

Fred Wilson was a VS at Flatiron Partners during the bubble. He has recently started Union Square Ventures after asking the hard question, "Is profitable VC investment in technology innovation dead?"

His answer: "The reality is that core technology investing- everything from chips to enterprise software to communications equipment, all the stuff that big companies buy- has been on the wane for five to 10 years. So what's the next wave? The next wave is what we're calling applied technology. The Internet is a computing platform built on top of the core technology. Applied technology is what gets built on top of that: It's Web services."

CiviCRM is a great example of this. It is both built on top of core technologies (Internet, PHP, MySQL, Apache), but it is designed for others to build on top of it. Apps on top of apps on top of apps.

While the commercial world tries to figure out how to extract maximum profits at each layer, the Social Source approach is to build the core layers and let nonprofits pay consultant to fill in the blanks. As those blanks are filled in with contributed software, the entire sector gets better, more efficient and more affordable tools.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Effective, affordable and ubiquitous nonprofit technology

Social Source is a vision and practice of software development that specifically meets customer needs. Social Source changes the institutional and systemic incentives that govern the behavior of actors within nonprofit software development.

It starts with a simple idea:
Software customers need effective, affordable and easy solutions.

Commercial vendors in the proprietary world say they provide effective, affordable and easy solutions, but their definitions of those terms may not match the customers'.

**Effective**
Vendors tend to provide effective solutions for the problem that drives the purchasing decision. I buy effective fundraising software today, but in five years my needs have expanded and when it hasn't been upgraded because the vendor needs to maintain their profit margins and cannot afford to expand R&D, it might no longer be so effective.

Social Source uses open source development methodology to deliver effective solutions across the life cycle. CiviCRM, the Social Source Foundation's new nonprofit-centric contact and relationship management solution, can remain effective over the entire software life-cycle IF an social source community of volunteer and paid developers, consultants, vendors and users embrace the platform.

Commercial vendors only provide an effective solution if it is profitable. Blackbaud's Raiser's Edge was recently criticized by the transgender community because their demographic profile only included male and female. With an open source solution like CiviCRM, if the maintainers of the software won't change their software, you can hire someone or do it yourself without violating licensing agreements.

**Affordable**
Affordable to a vendor means the highest possible price that the market will bear. We call this in economics profit maximization. Customers clearly get value... they are willing to pay for it.

With open source software, there is a natural competion among vendors. You can only buy Kintera Sphere from Kintera corporation. With an open source solution like CiviCRM, you can buy the solution from any developer/integrator/consultant that understands how the software works.

The dual upside/downside is that this provides a large variation in vendor quality from college students on summer break to major corporate systems integrators. The customer will need to choose the best providers, but they can choose from a wide variety of price points and service levels so that the customer's specific needs are met. If you want Kintera Sphere, you pretty much only get Kintera Sphere at Kintera's price point and service level.

We call this the ecosystem around a piece of social source software.

**Easy**
Proprietary vendors tend to make using software easy. Getting, installing, modifying, customizing, understanding, etc. are all too often difficult in order to generate additional fee income that supports profit margins.

Social Source vendors have incentives to deliver "easy" in all aspects of their services. As they compete in the marketplace, they can't afford make any stage of the process difficult... the competition will acquire customers by making what was once hard, easy.

So how does this Social Source idea work all this magic? We'll take a deeper look in the next few days.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Building a Social Source Paper

Seems like all good ideas have a white paper... Network Centric Advocacy, Movement as a Network, Three Pillars of Social Source.

But I don't have that kind of attention span. So I thought I'd try to build a white paper from component ideas. A blog seems like a reasonable tool.

Have you ever read something that resonated so deeply with your own ideas it gave you new energy? The paper "Toword a New Literacy of Cooperation in Business" from the Institute for the Future, did it for me.

Plus it provides an organizing principal for my Social Source white paper.

Now every white paper needs a title, so here are some I came up with:

Social Source: An opportunity for nonprofits to be on the cutting edge of global change.
Social Source: Visioning a new model of nonprofit technology.
Social Source: Catalyzing a new model of social purpose technology.

I'll tell you what the paper is about tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Open Source and "White Label" Applications

Long ago I made the arguement that all these nonprofits that build custom applications really need to get together and form a consortia to lower the costs of application development. Yes, there are many logistical hurdles, but two nonprofits with the same needs can get a custom application by commissioning the work as a consortia than each building a seperate custom application.

As CiviCRM begins to take shape (we released 0.1 and are working on 0.2), it is becoming easier and easier for nonprofits to band together and build "white label" applications on top of CiviCRM. Mark Sherman at the Progressive Technology Project has a problem... his members, grassroots organizing groups, have a common database need which they have all solved in different ways. By banding together they can commission a grassroots organizing platform that will serve their collective needs?

This works really well when the underlying technology is open source. No one owns the technology and everyone owns the technology. As a practical matter, it means a group of nonprofits is not locked into a single vendor and can be assured that they have the rights to do whatever they want with the technology that is produced.

What other unbuilt applications are out there that NPOs could collaborate on?

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Both/And - Open Source and Commercial Worlds

Sonny Cloward takes me to task (nicely) for my tendency to create a black and white distinction between open source and commercial/proprietary models in the nonprofit sector.

And to be honest, I am in a continuous struggle between marketing speak (simple statements that get core ideas across) and a more sophisticated discussion. The black/white stuff is more marketing speak than anything else-- the real world is more complicated.

So let me try to lay out some core principles:
(1) Amortization. The cost of software should be amortized across as many possible users of that software. If I have 1,000 customers, they each pay 1/1000th of the development costs.
(2) Affordability. Technology should be available and affordable to the broadest range of the nonprofit sector as possible.
(3) Customer Control. Decisions about software functionality should be as close to the customer as practical. If I need the thing to do "A", I or a consultant I hire can make it do "A".

Some more general core principles include those from the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology:

  • Technology Transparency
  • Open Systems
  • Fair Exchange
  • Fair Compensation
OK, so leading with the principles, it is important to realize "open source" meets only one of the principles- open systems. By itself, it probably creates more problems than it solves.

The current implementation of Salesforce.com for nonprofits meets a whole lot more of these principles than open source alone. In fact, it was for that reason that Paul Hagen and I went to Suzanne DiBianca, the ED of the Salesforce.com Foundation, a couple years back to accelerate its deployment and suitability for NPOs.

The thing I call Social Source brings all these principles together into an ecosystem that serves customer, rather than vendor needs. It is the ecosystem of consultants, integrators, developers, and customers that create the benefit for the nonprofit sector. I can certainly do this in a proprietary model if I can convince the community to give up their intellectual property rights.

Open source is the foundation of the social source approach because it puts everyone developers, integrators, hosters and customers in an equal power position. Everyone controls the technology and no one controls the technology. Innovations are automatically shared (primarily through the community, but reinforced by the license).

If tomorrow Oracle made a hostile bid for Salesforce.com, the likelihood of them maintaining their services for nonprofits would be in serious doubt. This is not a reflection on the good hearted people at the company, it is simply the reality of U.S. corporation owning intellectual property--when ownership changes, the new owner calls the shots.

Again, let me be clear, if I were advising a client today I would encourage them to go to a trustworthy vendor (and there are lots of them out there) and purchase a solution. It will work for them and there are currently no good alternatives.

If I'm talking to a Foundation about how to improve the way the nonprofit sector uses technology, I'm going to make the case that we need a new model- social source.

Open source is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for this new model. We still need vendors, economic transactions, NTAPs, collaboration, educated customers, support and training options. But when you build your model on open source, control devolves to the folks with the need...the customer. This is not such a bad thing.

Further reading on Social Source:
Jonathan Peizer
Gideon Rosenblatt

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Death of Mission-based Software Developers?

Groundspring's announcement that they are getting out of the software development business marks a sad day nonprofit technology. Combined with the recent firing of Microedge's CEO, there are some interesting cracks appearing in the proprietary commercial model of nonprofit technology. Lucy Bernholz makes a great observation:


"Looking over the landscape of markets, vendors and products, I can tell you what I think will happen next. And it won't involve the customers (read: foundations, nonprofits, donors) getting what they want or need UNLESS they act faster than they've ever acted, in ways they haven't before, and with an eye to the motivations of market forces that are virtually foreign to them."

She's still stuck in the paradigm of proprietary commercial software vendors, but she well articulates the need for mission-based software developers to serve the desires and needs of nonprofits. The commercial world hasn't and probably won't be able to meet those needs.

We think the future is a network of commercial and nonprofit entities that drive an open source community that develops software. We think nonprofits need to:

  1. Act faster than they have ever acted before in adopting alien technologies and business models (open source).
  2. Act in ways they have yet to understand (partners in open source communities that develop software).
  3. Keep an eye on market and social forces that are foreign to them (open source ecosystems).
It's a radical thought, but one with significant potential to meet nonprofit technology needs in an affordable, ubiquitous, effective,and understandable (to nonprofits) way.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Where Have The Values Gone?

I think I sat through the seminal NTC experience-- the introduction to fundraising session with Cheryl Gipson (Groundspring), Allan Pressel (CharityFinders), and Cathy Packard (Ctr for Nonprofit Magmt, Dallas).

You had someone whose mission is to help nonprofits with technology (Cheryl), someone whose mission is to sell nonprofits technology (Alan), and someone whose mission is to provide effective consulting (Cathy). Basically, in any session where a guys says "I'm not here to give a sales pitch" and then proceeds to demo their product, you are pretty safe in assuming his primary purpose for being in the room is to generate sales leads.

So why is NTEN hellbent on making NTC a tradeshow rather than a national Nonprofit Technology Conference? It is great for vendors, since they can mask their product demos under good titles like "Introduction to online Fundraising". Its not so good for a nonprofit seeking vendor neutral information on nonprofit technology issues.

Why aren't the vendors locked in the exhibition hall? Why do we call it a science fair instead of an exhibition hall?

Tooo many questions. For me the answer comes down to history.

When the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network (NTEN) was conceived, this was the vision (quoted from the National Strategy for Nonprofit Technology-NSNT).

While our original commitment was to analyze and map needs and opportunities, this process has taught us that effecting a solution requires a fundamental breakthrough that represents a collective change in behavior for the entire sector. We need a "big bang" to change fundamental assumptions about how the sector moves forward a new way of thinking and of working together that shatters old assumptions and creates a new sense of possibility. There are four core principles we believe can fuel this "big bang": Technology Transparency, Open Systems, Fair Exchange, and Fair Compensation.

  • Technology Transparency is the idea that information technology should be a tool whose suitability, benefit, and ease of use makes it employment second nature (like the telephone).
  • Open Systems is an approach to technology innovation that emphasizes continuous contribution by many authors, with the results owned by no one, and by everyone.
  • Fair Exchange is the principle that those who receive the benefit of another’s technology should in some fashion reciprocate, propelling still more forward movement.
  • Fair Compensation is the idea that those who bring their time and talents to the cause of empowering nonprofits with technology deserve due recognition, financial and otherwise.
We believe that if all players commit to these principles and to working with those who also commit to the principles nonprofits will realize the vision to use technology well, funders will have the confidence to support such work, and technology assistance providers will be most effective and creative.

It is telling to me that NTEN has chosen to move away from these core principles, this vision for a healthy nonprofit sector, and to a corporate model of vendors, customers, sponsorships and "schwag".

Perhaps that is part of the reason that nonprofits have yet to use technology well, funders don't support the work, and technology assistance providers have been transformed into vendors.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

NTEN without a voice

OK, how silly is it to get to a conference for a little evangelism on CiviCRM and lose your voice? I had a sore throat on Wed and spent just a little too much time talking. I think, perhaps, that the universe is giving me a message-- talk less, listen more. So when you see me at the NTEN NTC, please feel free to carry the conversation ;)

Monday, March 14, 2005

Vision, Action and Inclusion

So I like to talk about a Social Source Ecosystem. The idea that there can be lots of developers, consultants, intermediaries, customers, and users all centered upon some mission-focused, nonprofit-specific software.

For an ecosystem to work their needs to be nourishment and symbiotic relationships among the different players. Since we live in capitalism, money often becomes the logical nourishment. But capitalism is not so good at creating non-monetary symbiotic relationships. These are the keys to making real social source ecosystems work. Relationships between players where no money changes hands, but enough value changes hands that those players become inextricably linked to one another's successes and even failures.

The ecosystem comes about because their is a vision of what can be and an evangelism that shows the different players that there is value in participating. The ecosystem must also be accessible to all-- be inclusive of all the players.

So once you all the players out there and they are all start taking action, conflict arises.
To gain nourishment in the ecosystem, players have to begin taking action. They sometimes overwhelm other players in the ecosystem, they sometimes cooperate with others in the ecosystem, but eventually the system finds a balance.

So the conflict becomes:
Vision requires collaboration to help others see what you see
Inclusion is best supported in collaborative cooperative environments
Action often requires autonomy
and the general nature of an Ecosystem is that there are winners and losers.

Now put that all together and it becomes very difficult for a single person, a single organization or a single entity to catalyze a Social Source Ecosystem.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Real Partnerships

Most of the ideas around Social Source revolve around open, cooperative partnerships with key players in the nonprofit technology space. These partnerships are very much along the lines of the very simple kindergarten lesson: "Share".

Institutionally, it is critical (in a very practical way) that there be common, concrete interests. I like to think that if both organizations were going to independently invest their own resources in in doing a project, then that project is a good practical candidate for collaboration. But if you are a real go-getter, the fact you are willing to invest your own resources from the start tends to mean it is more efficient to do the project yourself rather than incur the overhead of a partnership.

How do you surmount this catch-22 and make close collaboration part of your organization DNA?

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

The Values of Openness

Sometimes I feel like the people get confused between the value of openness and the values of openness.

In this day of Venture Capitalists investing in Open Source "plays" (Draper Fisher Juvetson investing $2m in SugarCRM), there is perceived value in openness. John Roberts, the CEO of SugarCRM has a great quote: "We're going to destroy a $6 billion [CRM software] market and turn into a $1 billion market." Left unsaid is 'Us getting a slice of a $1 billion dollar market is a lot better than not getting anything in a $6 billion dollar market.'

SugarCRM recognizes the value of openness. The monetary value.

Now a little outfit called TigerCRM comes along and in the grand tradition of open source software, forks the SugarCRM code per the terms of the SugarCRM license. They take a copy of the code and run with it.

An engineer at SugarCRM got angry because their work was essentially copied and used.

Somewhere along the line, they didn't understand the values of openness.

To me, the values of openness are pretty straight forward:

  • Share. Because in Kindergarten they taught me I would have a lot more fun with my toys if I played with them with others. I think they were right.
  • Collaborate. Two heads are better than one. Very true in software development.
  • Focus. Do what you do. Don't worry about what others do.
If you are in Open Source for the customers, for the business model, or for the money, you're probably stuck on the value of openness.

Take a step back, breath, and decide if you also believe in the values of openness.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Trains, Stations and Communication

I like to compare CiviCRM to a train leaving the station.

It has mass, it has momentum, it is on a track and its basic direction is set.

But even among trains, there are significant differences. When you travel on a TGV out of Paris, if you're not on the train when it leaves the station, your not going to get to your destination. Period.

If you travel on the stereo-typical India National Railways local, it looks something like this:



That is kind of how we envision CiviCRM. It moves slowly, people jump on and off, as long as you don't mind riding on the roof for awhile, you are welcome to join us.

http://objectledge.org/confluence/display/CRM/How+to+Participate

Lest people mistake the intent of my last post, we have no intention of leaving anybody behind. But the train is moving.