Open source a New Metaphor for the Real New Economy?

Metaphors are an essential part of communicating as we
react most strongly not to ideas or facts per se but to
stories.

While I am mean to Ford now as a model I admire the man
and his impact on us - for his time he did great things
and the Ford model did bring a level of prosperity to
millions. I think that it , maybe like being a teenager was an essential moment in the journey of humanity.

So here he is at the turn of the last century. Cars are
a handmade luxury item and the world is bounded, except
by train, to local communities especially for the
middle class and the poor.

Like Sam Walton, he asks himself how
can I make cars so cheap that everyone could have them?
Consider the balls of that outlook? It's like Sam asking himself how to serve a small community or Herb Kelleher asking himself how to make flying affordable, safe and fun.

So as he wonders how to do this, he sees a meat packing
plant. he sees the first ever production line and a
light goes off. Here is the process - to deskill the
work and break it all down into small pieces and connect
it all into a huge process.

Why do I tell this story? Because of another version of
the meat packing line that today can show us how to
have a new way of organizing for business - in fact for
everything including government, healthcare and
education.

The establishment of Linux by the emerging Open Source
community may be our "meat packing model" that will show
us how to have an enterprise that is truly
collaborative.

OS is all about an enterprise that re-skills work, that makes its community feel good about
themselves, that has a different type of leadership,
that takes less effort, that serves the broader
community, that is purpose driven and that does great
work and creates a much better product that the Ford
model.

I am just a newbie at looking at Open Source but in
essence my understanding is that projects form around a
kernel of code and a leader plus maybe 5-8 core folks.
Standards are set and are used from other projects and
a community of volunteers coalesces. Rewards are in
reputation, in providing service and in spin offs. OS is based on an ancient
type of economy that pervades all traditional societies
- the Gift Economy.

In our view of an economy, the point is to accumulate a
lot of stuff for me. My role is to find leverage over
others to get the stuff. the man with the most stuff
wins.

In the Gift Economy, that has been the main view
of an economy for all time before our new view, status
came to the man who provided the most for his
community. The good hunter shares his kill with the
tribe. The other aspect of it is the power of the gift
to attract good things back to you. In our view if I do
you a favor, I expect like the Godfather to call on this
as a debt and ask and expect a favor back from you.

In the gift economy, I give freely but can expect good
things to come to me not from you in direct response
but from other places. the point is that my generous
nature "attracts" good things. If this all sounds a bit
hokey - try it.

Everything in life is about energy. We
have been discussing how we feel about the day and how
this affects us. So it is with generosity. When we
FREELY GIVE it sets up a feeling about us that attracts
what we too need. The key is to give freely though.
This is not a tit for tat deal.

Men and women who make big contributions to Open Source
build the key to life - a reputation. What CV can
compete with reputation? In all of life until now,
reputation was the real capital that each of us had. The
new new economy is going back to that.
With a name, things either come or go away - we are
seeing the name of the corporate world in the mud.
Things and people will go away from it now.

When we are truly skilled and generous, we not only feel
good but we attract what we need. Not attract all
things BUT WHAT WE NEED. There is more than a subtle
difference here. When we have what we need we have
ENOUGH. We are complete, a feeling that we cannot have
in the accumulation economy - there is never enough to
fill the hole in our soul when we are not complete as a
person