Open Source

In my last post I had written about how innovators and entrepreneurs can work with lead customers to develop innovative products and services. Lead customers are like "early innovators" and are looking at substantial profit from using products.

Developers in open source software are more often than not lead customers. They are using these projects as inputs to their work and are actively fixing bugs and making modifications. They are adding back to the pool of common knowledge sometimes for altruistic reasons but more often than not because it makes economical sense to do so. The cost of bug fixing and maintenance is driven down by releasing code to the common pool. Companies relying on software to drive innovation should seriously learn about open source.

The other reason why open source is important because it redefines the software value proposition: the value of software lies in using it and not in owning it. This has also be the central tenet of the SaaS models which I have followed for a year.
I have read and summarized the book The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S Raymond here:

http://www.slideshare.net/sanjoysanyal/open-source-software/

The book is an important book to read in the Open Source literature – a little too high pitched to my taste and I have tried to take the emotion out and focus on the business learning.

Entrepreneurs are busy folks

I had lunch with an aspiring entrepreneur friend of mine last Thursday. He is a specialist in the consumer marketing area and has got a great idea which may click. I could see the light in his eyes and excitement in his waving hands as he explained the concept. He has a really cool idea and one that might really click. While we were walking out I asked him “what happens if you are able to raise funds right now?”. He looked at me and told me shyly “I will still carry on – I can start it anyway”. I knew that this was serious.

My friend was going to be a very busy man – starting off, getting the PowerPoints ready. And he has a job and a family like the rest of us. That’s one thing about entrepreneurs – they are really busy. So busy that they do not have time to read the great books and articles all round that is constantly adding to the body of knowledge in this field. The only way they learn is by trying it themselves – the mostly expensive method of education.

In this series of blog posts I am planning to publish summaries in the form of Slides of some of the most cutting edge management thought in our area, to help these crazy busy brave folks. This is my post with my love to this friend of mine on Valentine’s Day of course.

The first post is the slide show on User Defined Innovation. It is based on readings of Eric Von Hippel’s book “Democratizing innovation” and his video lecture in MIT’s OpenCourseWare site.

Let me know – what you feel. If there is anything that you guys want to learn and want me to work on, let me know.

Check out Slideshow at

http://www.slideshare.net/sanjoysanyal/user-defined-innovation/