I came back from GE headquarters the other day with my head full of thoughts. First, I’m going to mention Chris Grams, from Red Hat, who stuffed my head up almost to the top. He talked about the importance of community in the success of Red Hat, and did so in such an elegant way as to make me want to dust of my RHEL3.0 software and build servers. But you don’t have to be a nerd to appreciate what Chris does for Red Hat. I included their hip video down below.
In. That’s the powerful word. It helped Red Hat earn a billion dollars while they gave away free software for a living. Yep, Red Hat is free (most of it, anyhow). They’re a billion dollar – B-billion dollar – company who gives their product away for free, and the way they power this growth and success is by being in communities. They don’t own communities. They’re in them.
Other Words of Power
Us.
We.
Our.
But only if you mean “one of us” and “we of the ____ community” and “our community’s ideas.”
Communities do have leaders, but that’s not always you. Communities have active participants. That one, you can do.
A simple post, but ask yourself this: would the senior team at your company accept this?
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