This is what the enlightened people outside of the SharePoint world are starting to explore, something that Henry Chesborough (UC Berkely) coined as “Open Innovation” ; and he famously quoted: “Open Innovation is fundamentally about operating in a world of abundant knowledge… not all the smart people work for you, so you better go find them, connect to them, and build upon what they can do” The following factors of “open innovation” are taken directly from the Wikipedia article: Throughout the years several factors emerged that paved the way for open innovation paradigms: The increasing availability and mobility of skilled workers The growth of the venture capital market External options for ideas sitting on the shelf The increasing capability of external suppliers These four factors have resulted in a new market of knowledge
If most business have a single central asset, they can benefit from refining the delivery of that asset to their respective customers / interactions with business partners delegating non-core functions to experts to allow them to maintain focus on their core processes Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing excel in helping businesses, regardless of size or vertical
A developer’s necessity spurs innovation, while altruism and a desire to be recognized drives her to contribute that code to the open-source project...As a result, they are unlikely to share their innovations
What about innovation ?...The Jackrabbit project is also at the origin of the Java Content Repository API (JCR) specification, here again an innovation that came from the open source world
Cultivation of mentorship, the communication of tradition, inclusiveness, offering a range of participation options, encouraging apprenticeship, celebrating innovation: all characteristics of successful communities