Distributed........

This Financial Times article says "the sedentary art of software development and the extreme sports of kitesurfing, sailplaning and canyoning would appear to have little in common".However,"as related* by Eric von Hippell, professor of management and innovation at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, followers of extreme sports have become expert at adapting and refining the equipment they use. Sometimes, the way these informal communities work can look very similar to the way open source software developers create their elaborate products.Kitesurfers, for instance – who stand on surf boards holding kites which whisk them over breaking waves, producing acrobatic leaps and twists – have taken to using sophisticated computer modelling software to design the most efficient kites. They then share their ideas over the internet, refining their concepts before sending them to a manufacturer.Sophisticated tools that let individuals take part in the process of creation, the internet as a means to draw together communities of like-minded people, a willingness to share ideas for the common good – these are the basic ingredients of a new approach to innovation.The information technology industry has not merely created the means for these practices to take root. In the form of the open source software movement, it has also provided one of the most powerful examples yet of distributed innovation. And, thanks to the experiments in software licensing behind Linux and other open source programs, it has created a new framework for defining intellectual property rights when the brain power comes from a broader community".


[Distributed innovation]Via smartmobs