Open Business
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Open business is an approach to
enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpris ...
that draws on ideas from
openness Openness is an overarching concept or philosophy that is characterized by an emphasis on transparency (behavior), transparency and decentralized decision-making, collaboration. That is, openness refers to "accessibility of knowledge, technology a ...
movements like
free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
,
open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
, open content and open tools and standards. The approach places value on transparency, stakeholder inclusion, and accountability. Open business structures make contributors and non-contributors visible so that ''business benefits are distributed accordingly''. They seek to increase personal engagement and positive outcomes by rewarding contributors in an open way.


Main ideas

Central to the concept are: * Open learning/sharing — a fundamental tenet is open collaboration at all levels in all locations * Open participation — open invitation to join the organization (similar to SourceForge, Blender community, where individual/team input within the community framework or special services, consulting, training, adaptions, courses, camps, symposiums, bookscan help to build individual income) * Individual rights — each person is supported and encouraged to identify and optimise their personal development, i.e. technical, personal, spiritual, etc. * Community focus — productivity activities are seen as part of a range of normal human activities e.g. family life, community life, religious commitments, etc. * Institution free — the organization is not based on any existing institution - state, religious or otherwise. Members can hold whatever views or affiliations they like. * Open knowledge — the free exchange of knowledge by making use -as much as possible- of open standards, open-source and open content principles. * Open member details — including open access to the contact details of all other members in a convenient form (i.e. once the range and depth of those details have been approved for release by that particular member) * Open financials — all accounting information including the compensation of others


Details


Knowledge

* All knowledge and information is free and open between members (but also to the public at large via membership) * Knowledge and information gets converted continuously from any location into a ubiquitously accessible form (via Internet Browser), converted from ** physical documents, ** individually held electronic documents, ** closed databases, etc. * Knowledge is built and cared for by the participants of the Open Business * Knowledge becomes available in statu nascendi, i.e. just when created, not as a secondary reprocessing afterthought (Co-Creating in public a book on
Wikinomics ''Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything'' is a book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, first published in December 2006. It explores how some companies in the early 21st century have used mass collaboration and open-sourc ...
br>


Financials

* Individual pay/income is based on individual social and professional competence, hours worked, performance * Net profit is split between members, depending on their transparent individual contributions Business means the state of being busy. The concept of business includes all the activities of earning money.


Management

* Management is just another (moderating and facilitating) role to optimize group processes (as primus inter pares, taking into account the varying individual skills and competencies) * Decisions rise from a continuous Open Process by consensus building and voting, available to all involved members * Management roles in projects are rotating (they come from the initiative of appropriate persons, who are selected and approved by the project members)


Focused on transparent goods

Businesses that sell consumer products can operate in open ways, for example by disclosing prices for components and publishing operating information.http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2009/01/a-business-mode.html There is an interest in the benefit of most stakeholders, whether shareholders, workers, families etc. The risk of bankruptcy of such open-movement businesses is reduced because the fruits of their work remain in the commons and therefore remain as a permanent base for recovering the open business, even in their most critical situations.


Focused on transparent services

A service orientated business can also operate in open ways. A business that documents all transactions (donations and use of donated money) real-time on their websites in public, is very open. Another example might be
Canonical Ltd. Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...
Open businesses can be more attractive to donors, especially if the ''name of the donors'' in
social networks A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
(as real names, Twitter-, Facebook- or other branded Online Ids) are made public too. So in this case even the donors participate in the charity as business and beyond by increasing their positive community karma (earning "
whuffie ''Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom'' is a 2003 science fiction book, the first novel by Canadian author and digital-rights activist Cory Doctorow. Concurrent with its publication by Tor Books, Doctorow released the entire text of the novel und ...
s") and building their reputation. The risk of bankruptcy of such transaction-oriented businesses is reduced due to the fact, that * they earn an increased trust by disclosing the cash flow to the public * get more support by "vested" visible supporters


Members

The degree of freedom to participate may vary: * Any person may be a member, regardless of their races, sex, religion or political persuasion ** either with the approval of the majority of members or ** simply by an online registration process (with certifying Identity to avoid
Identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was co ...
, like PayPal does it, or Twitter does it now in a beta project) * the degree of participation depends on social and professional competence and on self-regulating transparent business rules, constantly developed and cared for by the whole business community. * the members may determine more or less their working time and location ** from a rigid: 8-18 Monday to Friday as the expected working availability time ** to a self-determined, synchronized or more a-synchronic schedule as need be (to give more space to individual preferences reativity, qualification, family, community life, political engagement, etc..


See also

*
Corporate transparency Corporate transparency describes the extent to which a corporation's actions are observable by outsiders. This is a consequence of regulation, local norms, and the set of information, privacy, and business policies concerning corporate decision-maki ...
*
E-democracy E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy), also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is believe ...
*
Open source governance Open-source governance (also known as open governance and open politics) is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles to enable any intere ...
* Business models for open source software *
Open-source hardware Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and a ...


References


External links


The Open Company Initiative

Awesome Open Company

Open Business Model (the concept)



Open, but not as usual


* ttp://www.openp2pdesign.org/2011/open-design/business-models-for-open-hardware/ Business models for Open Hardwarebr>How to Reap the Benefits of the “Digital Revolution”? Modularity and the Commons
2019. By Vasilis Kostakis, published in ''Halduskultuur: The Estonian Journal of Administrative Culture and Digital Governance'', Vol 20(1):4–19. {{DEFAULTSORT:Open Business Business terms