Open as a competitive advantage

Description

Applying open practices increases the reach and impact of projects in the market, and the unique characteristics of working open (e.g., understandable, participatory, and extensible) provide the best platform to solve problems we face today. Abigail Cabunoc Mayes draws on her experience mentoring hundreds of open projects to discuss how and why working open gives you a competitive edge. Abigail contrasts closed and open ways of operating and discusses ways you can build value exchanges with an outside community or organization, particularly by making contextual, deliberate decisions about how and when to be open, creating structures and systems that ensure clarity and process-based management, and modeling personal leadership skills that sustain these projects and their contributors. She also demonstrates how to use open practices to gain a competitive advantage in the market, such as building better products and services, lowering development and operating costs, and increasing market share.