We had an interesting discussion started by Perry Manku on our ‘netLinked – London’ group on LinkedIn.  She asked whether we should consider...Applying the principles of ‘open source’ to business - Should all businesses become 'open source'?

Here’s the link to the article that Prompted Perry’s discussion

http://webdesign.opace.co.uk/blog/open-source/applying-the-principles-of-open-source-to-business.

I am a fan of ‘Open Source’ and this started me thinking how the principles of Open Source manifest themselves in what we are doing at netLinked...

So what do we do to encourage such ‘open source’ approach to business ? A fundamental aspect of netLinked philosophy is we do not have 'sector exclusivity'. So if you attend a netLinked meeting you will very likely meet others from your sector, there is no lock out. Join a netLinked group on LinkedIn and you’ll meet, and ideally, connect with others from your sector. We believe this is good, very good, this was a conscious decision and many guests to our meetings will have heard Steve and I say – ‘go talk to that competitor – you both have something unique about you and your business, you have things to share with each other – see how you can collaborate and see if you can grow your associate network’.

Just because your business may be small does not mean your business is not excellent, and networking is a tremendous vehicle for identifying associates from suppliers, customers AND competitors. Networking is not only about sales, have I mentioned networking and recruitment ... ;)

As for sharing best practice – we lead by example, all our LinkedIn training courses (operational and strategic) and LinkedIn tutorials are regularly reviewed, maintained and available free of charge to our subscribing members.

However, this is where my belief in the ‘open source’ model as the purists would define it, starts to get challenged. You will notice I say our ‘subscribing’ members get access to our training. I can’t go all the way and support the principle that ‘open source’ assets or services should be free. Putting together a high calibre product and service like netLinked (or a CRM package/Content Management System etc) takes time, effort and incurs cost. Moreover we are by necessity continually investing in the development of our products and services. And you can’t do all this for free, so netLinked members pay a subscription for access to the various benefits. I may also add that I am entirely comfortable with my expectation that my business should show a profit, that’s good too, of course we are equally driven to ensure our members get value for their money and ROI.

I am pausing for a moment to see if my heretic views get me cyber whacked by the Open Source faithful ;)

Phew - OK – I’m still typing, although... my satellite tv channels are all in Italian, the decimal point on my mortgage seems to have moved to the right and someone’s trying to deliver a ton of silage I allegedly ordered from organicsRus !!