The Invisible Handshake

a Monitor Networks RAVE

February 17, 2005

We are bringing together a group of a couple dozen people from different backgrounds to really unpack the economic and sociological dynamics that have come together in the rise of “open source” as a value-creation model. We are particularly looking forward to investigating with everyone our belief that open source is actually the result of a set of economic and organizational experiments that have converged, but that also continue to evolve in new and different directions. We are calling it “The Invisible Handshake,” as a nod to the integration of new types of economic forces with the power of trust-based communities.

We are designing the event so that everyone is a participant--there will be no "attendees"--and each individual will have the opportunity to both contribute and learn. The ideas and graphic documentation will be available for everyone's use, with attribution (we may release the material under the Creative Commons license). Likewise, anything we publish will acknowledge the contributors.

We are hosting this event because we believe that innovation happens through the recombination of ideas. I think it can help start conversations in new domains about the basis of collaboration and value creation. Your perspectives on the creation of value by groups, self-organized and otherwise, would be an enormously valuable. Equally, I think you'd be interested in the things you'd hear and the people you'd meet. We're quite excited about this exchange and would love to have you participation in it.