your open questions

overlap, possible duplicate of what-is-open tread?

Hey @jacovandermerwe - idea here is that our champions & speakers will post their open question here, rather than debating the meaning of open itself.

We want to use this thread to start breaking down the barriers and answering those questions that individuals and companies have when it comes to 'open' :)

Excerpt from facebook discussion: Do commons principles already exist in cities? Community gardens, or community permaculture systems? Do some suburban communities already exist in a pseudo commons state? When building a city, do you ever really start from scratch? Can new cities be built using commons structures in both tangible and intangible areas, based on currently existing and implemented forms of commons?

Above came from this question: [Michael Reynolds] Sure....one question I have is how can you use a concept like the commons in a building of a city - both the physical landscape and the social structures that should accompany????

Same question with any conventionally non open system.
what are the key elements to make it more open - governance structure, control, decision making mechanisms etc.?

Could be about empowerment of communities? Shifting the community mindset, giving permission through empowerment? Community involvement is a huge aspect in the commons structure from what I understand.

Here is one of my most basic interests and questions:

What is the proper role of outside investment, and investors, in open business?

@gregorycassel Open business == built on the ideas of transparency, stakeholder inclusion, accountability. Things like FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), Open Source, Open Content, Commons, etc. The idea of outside investment? Well the cash helps things run along, but if it's commons then that might not be needed? What if the investment was time and non-financial resources? What does the investment garner? A shareholding? Is that something that still exists in this model of Open business?

From my perspective we need to define what open business means, before we can talk about outside investment? :) Ah! Such interesting. Also, for an 'open business model' you should check out https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-values/ from Buffer - they pride themselves in being open and transparent ^{_^}

Oh my goodness @simonjarvis your customer service is immaculate! :)

I agree 100% on your opening descriptors for open business: transparency, inclusion, accountability. Thanks for the extra questions. People should IMO talk about these things all of the time, possibly even in their sleep! I'm a fan of the Buffer values.

Oh hey, is anyone gonna talk about cryptocurrencies at OS//OS?

Haha thanks @gregorycassel ! :)

Excellent, I think that from this you could form an open business model, something that involves these values. Or more to the point would this be the start of the open guide to open business investment? Do you have thoughts on this @silviazuur ?

re: crypto, not sure. We don't currently have anyone lined up for that, but then again @silviazuur will know more around this.

Another question I have been pondering for a while is how can we construct the conversation around adopting a commons based approach more easily digestible for a greater number of people?

I am so wary of the preaching to the converted syndrome these days that I am always questioning how we can break out of that?
It is public engagement/exploration?

http://www.labgov.it

Wondering if anyone has seen/delved into this??

I do agree that OS is empowering and romantic idea giving an organization huge potential to grow in N directions in no time, but you have to agree that there must be something special about the way you manage this process in order to be successful. And I mean more specific and tangible best practices.

What would you say are good practices for governing an OS project?

@dimitar1 a good set of business practises starts with stating a set of principles to which project participants should aspire... and then live up to them. Of course, review them continuously, but use them as the metric against which "success" is measured.

@simonjarvis regarding your question about "open business" and shareholding and the shape of the business: remember, most businesses are "open businesses". Most businesses provide services without proprietary stuff: builders, accountants, restaurants, cleaners, automotive garages, retail establishments, etc. etc. If they do things well, make effective use of resources, value their staff and work to provide opportunities for them to grow, then they can be successful. On that basis, shareholders invest in them... Again, the key thing is to recognise that an "open business" is no different from a closed business, except that it "walks the talk" of openness... whereas closed businesses, particularly in the tech industry, often talk without the walk. There is a cost to being open - you have to be a good citizen in the ecosystem - you need to invest in doing open well. For example, provide a reasonable level of documentation to the technical things you make available, and ensure that things are consistently available... In my experience, doing this well is the best possible marketing a business can have - it wins truly loyal customers and lots of good will. Being truly open is probably on par, cost-wise, with traditional proprietary company marketing.

@davelane I am interested exactly in these principles. For example, there is extensive academic literature on open-source software communities and they all claim that OS projects need to have a flat hierarchy. This is one principle. From your practice, have you observed any other such principles ?

One of my questions is: How can open happen fast and innovative? How can you consult and hear all voice and opinions - but still have the mandate to act?

@silviazuur FOSS is inherently a "mandate to act". The beauty of FOSS is that it provides the platform for harnessing enlightened self-interest. Nothing more or less. Innovation happens as fast as the most motivated contributor(s) make it happen. That's often ''very'' fast. Often much faster than commercial timeframes. More importantly, the question of "how will this work return a profit?" is seldom a constraining question. As a result, a lot more "blue skies" exploration happens in FOSS. Also, if people don't like something, or if it only "almost" does what they want... they have the latitude to jump in at that stage and take it in a different direction. FOSS communities are the perfect free market... the difference is that value is not determined in terms of dollars, it's in terms of capability and lines of working code. The forces of "natural selection" works far more quickly in an open source world, because everyone can jump ship to the winning solution quickly without instead focusing energy on also-ran technologies (which often happens in the proprietary world where people are under pressure by shareholders to maximise returns from sunk costs).

Hi all!

Great convo thus far :)

With my Govt.nz hat on (the hat I'll be wearing at OS//OS, heh), we're interested in how government can get more people participating in consultations - basically, how can we make consultations more open?

We (and hopefully, y'all!) believe good government decision-making is dependent on being open about what agencies are working on, what their objectives are and, importantly, getting public participation.

Govt.nz’s built a central consultation listing (at MVP level), and we want to know how to make it (and maybe consultations in general?) better, and what sorts of info people want/need.

https://www.govt.nz/consultations/

We’ll be at OS//OS and working with those interested in an open session on day 2, and super keen to hear people's thoughts in this thread and there :)