I'm feeding the feed

Two posts from http://mimasummit2.blogspot.com/ caught my eye. I’m going to respond to both at the same time. Here are the posts….

Topic #1: Keynote presenter, Ze Frank says, “You have a paradigm shift coming around. There is so much that happens as soon as you release anything — you get all this feedback…you get unexpected usage patterns, you get requests for new things, you get crises.” So, whose job is it to respond to all of these feedback, and how should they go about doing it?Topic #2: Speaker Leah Buley asks, “What’s the process for creative brainstorming at your company? Who gets involved with creative exploration, and how do they do it?

Conversely, the first group that cracks this problem has the potential to leapfrog the others in assuming the role of global powerhouse. Given the speed with which technology and organizational models are evolving, we can’t assume it will be a state. Corporations seemed poised to take on that role in the 1990s; non-governmental groups are the lead candidates today. It’s entirely possible that the kind of social organization that will become the next hegemonic force has yet to be invented. One thing is clear: the next superpower, whoever or whatever it is, will be the actor that finally figures out the new meaning of power.

Despite the end of the utility of conventional force, the lack of certainty as to what the next wave of global compellence power will look like will inevitably lead to strategic mistakes. As we look ahead, it’s clear that if another state — say, China — decides to take America’s place as the leading hegemonic power on the planet by emulating the current American model of extreme emphasis on conventional force projection, that state has already become another Lost Hegemon. The system has changed, and the meaning of power has changed.

Thinking about Brave New War, I grabbed a copy of Innovation Happens Elsewhere from my shelf and looked for the secret of why open source works. I guess it is not a secret because right on page 60 they tell you…

Open source works when a group of people all embrace a shared set of goals and establish a community based on mutual trust. All three factors – enough interested people, shared goals and trust – are required; if any one is missing, the project will fail.

Open source in people working on things for the public good in the commons. In software, the commons is the source code. The business model around the commons, then, must support the code. The free market tells us that businesses will be created in the halo of the code.

Over at Global Guerillas, Robb reprints an article from Defense News about the IED Marketplace in Iraq. He compares IED production with self-organizing open-source software networks.

Small, highly skilled IED cells often operate as a package and hire themselves out to the more well-known insurgent groups, such as Amman Al Zarqawi’s al-Qaida in Iraq or the Sunni group Ansaar al Sunna. They advertise their skills on the Internet and are temporarily contracted on a per-job basis, but otherwise remain autonomous.

It appears that reputation and trust and marketing have as much impact in the IED world as they do in the software world. In fact, flipping back through Innovation Happens Elsewhere, there is a section titled: why do they do it? Why does anyone produce open source software? To summarize:

• need for the product
• Enjoyment, fun and desire to create and improve
• Reputation and status
• Affiliation
• Identity
• Values and ideology
• Training, learning, reputation
• Hope of making things better
• Feedback

“We have entered the age of the faceless, agile enemy. From London to Madrid to Nigeria to Russia, stateless terrorist groups have emerged to score blow after blow gainst us. Driven by cultural fragmentation, schooled in the most sophisticated technologies, and fueled by transnational
crime, these groups are forcing corporations and individuals to develop new ways of defending themselves.

The end result of this struggle will be a new, more resilient approach to national security, one built not around the state but around private citizens and companies. That new system will change how we live and work—for the better, in many ways—but the road getting there may seem long at times.

The conflict in Iraq has foreshadowed the future of global security in much the same way that the Spanish civil war prefigured World War II: it’s become a testing round, a dry run for something much larger. Unlike previous insurgencies, the one in Iraq comprises seventy-five
to one hundred small, diverse, and autonomous groups of zealots, patriots, and criminals alike. These groups, of course, have access to many of the same tools we do— from satellite phones to engineering degrees—and they use them every bit as effectively. But their single most important asset is their organizational structure, an open-source community network—one that seems to me quite similar to what we see in the software industry. That’s how they’re able to continually stay one step ahead of us. It is an extremely innovative structure, sadly, and it results in decision-making cycles much shorter than those of the U.S. military. Indeed, because the insurgents in Iraq lack a recognizable center of gravity—a leadership structure or an ideology—they are nearly immune to the application of conventional military force. Like Microsoft, the software superpower, the United States hasn’t found its match in a Goliath competitor similar to itself, but in a loose, selftuning network.

Here’s why…a client with a small budget approached us because they needed a custom portal and learning community to support their 60-member VAR network. At first, their plan and budget did not appear very realistic: build a portal with content management, membership management, document management, and collaboration for less than $5300 including licenses, labor and customization.

The client wanted the VAR portal to be an interactive, easy-to-use, simple-to-manage information and education vehicle. Other application project design goals were:

• Cheap software components.
• Simple installation, configuration and training.
• Standardized components and not dependent on a specific browser.
• All administration, management, content creation and workflow control must be browser-based. No dependencies on a single vendor.
• Ability to host the application with an ISP.
• No dependencies on an application service provider.

Obviously, off-the-shelf commercial portal software was not feasible. Our solution was to use open source software. The resulting portal saved the client tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more. Within 30 days, the project went from a blank sheet of paper to a fully deployed VAR portal.

HOW WE DID IT

Our first conversation was with our ISP, XNET (www.xnet.com) to make sure they could support the project. They could. No problem.

Next, we evaluated a number of open-source Content Management Platforms such as Joomla, PostNuke and PHPNuke. We selected Joomla for the size of the developer community and the availability of a number of critical add-on applications. The final step was a simple installation and customization of graphics.

All told, a prototype of the VAR intranet was operational in five days and a final portal was launched in 30 days. For the client, the VAR portal and its underlying design features have already produced important strategic results — namely providing the entire VAR network with a single point from which they can find important documents, share expertise and schedule webinars and other events.

In later articles, I’ll talk about the process for getting people to visit and use the portal — that’s another great story.

Specific project advantages realized by the portal are:

• Reduced Development Cost: The tools were free. This kept cost low.
• Reduced Per-Seat Fees: There were no per-seat fees. This also allowed us to justify additional hours for content development.
• Reduced Computer Hardware Cost: These tools are resource efficient, hosting was inexpensive.
• No purchase approvals: Since we didn’t need to buy anything, it made it easier to get started.

In the end, it is our opinion that open source tools make sense for projects that are budget restrained and those that are not. When budgets are tight, open source tools reduce development costs and usually eliminate recurring costs as well as reduce product development cycles.