I'm going to start with the first speaker.
See if this works.
Oh, that works.
Yeah, that turned on.
Okay, so I'm going to spell my name.
I'm doing this old school.
As you can see, I decided to not deck around.
Oh, come on.
That was supposed to get a lease of a little chuckle.
Ah.
You can find me on GitHub, Blue Sky, LinkedIn.
That's me.
So I thought I'd start with a little bit of an introduction
about who I am.
So Addy Gerard, and I am originally from Los Angeles, California.
I now live in Austin, Texas, like most of Californians.
For those of you who are familiar with that,
the tech community is moving that way.
I am a humanitarian, and I have, in my spare time,
I'm a hiker, and I love to read, Super Nerd About Data.
I also, I have a Cocker Spaniel named Kai.
He's a fluffball of super jealousy who adores my hikes.
And yes, Kai does come from Ninjago.
So any Ninjago fans out there?
The Red Ninja.
Okay.
I am a communication strategist, and I've been doing that
for about 15 years.
What that means is that I spend my time talking to executives
in companies and conveying messages.
So when you have two people talk, sometimes that doesn't
translate between them.
And I help them communicate with people who are inside their
company and also people who are outside of their company.
I position stories.
I am a ghost writer for emails,
especially when there's problems between division heads.
So I'm the person they call when things are going wrong,
when there's a crisis.
I am the person who tells them, say this, don't say that.
Look this way, don't look that way.
That's what I do.
I started my open source journey, actually pretty recently.
I'm active in the Cardano ecosystem,
as well as the Inner Source Commons ecosystem.
And I came to this because I got mentored by an incredible woman
who helped me see the value of open source and its tremendous
impact on businesses today.
And as a communications professional,
I felt that it was really important to be able to tell that
story and help executives understand exactly how valuable
open source is to them and to their business and to the
future world.
With that experience, I wanted to share today a couple of tips
that I have learned over my career about how to position the
value of open source.
I'd like to start with the state of open source.
You'll hear people say, open source is one, right?
Open source is one.
80% of organizations have increased their open source
utilization in the last year.
96% of code bases that have been scammed contain open source
code, and 76% of those code bases is open source code.
I want to invite you to consider if you have a product and 76%
of the market share is yours, you dominate.
You won. You're there.
It's incredible.
And it's amazing to me, the principles and values that people
were dedicated and fought so hard to get here,
to get the kind of adoption and utilization that we have today.
Let's look at the flip side.
It doesn't have enough support.
There's a tremendous need for more support in open source.
Not just in talent, but fiscal support to the community and the
people who are giving to this cause.
I'm going to illustrate this with a couple of stories.
I know you guys have all probably heard them.
Start with left pad.
Prolific open source contributor.
Company came along, wanted to go against the open source
principles, and what did he do?
He deleted 11 lines of code.
Do you know what the headline said?
Internet goes down.
Man breaks the internet.
For those of you who are curious about what the monetary impact of that is,
and I've debated this with actually a couple of people,
but they say that in a minute's time,
nearly a million dollars worth of commerce happens.
Which means in the first hour, 54 million dollars of business
was lost.
And in the two hours it took before he posted why,
108 million dollars of business was lost.
I guarantee you those executives did not expect that.
108 million dollars and 11 lines of code.
Let it never be said that engineers don't have power.
Another example, again one that we're probably all familiar with,
is called Colors and Faker, these projects, right?
What happened?
Now just to paint the picture, these had thousands of projects
that utilized this code, thousands, millions of downloads.
This individual should have never, ever, ever, ever been concerned with money.
What an impact he had.
Huge.
But what did he do?
He uploaded a bug that took it down.
And the reason he did that is because he needed to be paid.
The generosity of the open source community is huge.
You don't find that anywhere else, it's amazing.
You empower the globe.
But you can't just continue to give,
you have to be able to receive too, and people need to give back.
Right? And it's not just about people giving back.
It's about the organizations that profit and utilize this,
providing support to the people who are contributing.
We're at a crossroads.
Open source needs to evolve.
And it is my belief that at this point in time,
it is of critical import that executives who do not understand
and leadership of organizations who don't understand how prolific
and how important open source is to their organization,
that they understand it, that that information is conveyed to them powerfully,
and that they don't lose track of that.
They understand what that means to their business, to their future, to their product.
Let's talk about a couple of strategies that are going to help.
Now, for those of you who are not in an organization, this might not be as relevant.
But for those of you who work for companies that utilize open source,
I'm speaking to you.
And I want you to consider these strategies and these ways
that I have managed to impact and get more support for open source.
There are three steps I'm going to go through.
The first one is why.
Why will they give back?
The second one is what do they need?
And how do you find out what an executive needs?
How do you find that out?
How do you figure that out in an organization?
And last thing I'm going to go through, how?
Okay, so why?
Why will an executive listen to you?
They will listen to you because it impacts their bottom line.
I know this might, this is fundamentally when you look at the leadership of an organization,
they are responsible for the health of that organization.
And that means money.
That means you are either cutting costs so that you operate more effectively and more efficiently,
or you have done something that contributes to the revenue driving machine of that organization.
Money is how, that's the why, that's the bottom line.
That's what will get you through the door.
Let's talk about what, what they need and how you can find it.
How many of you have been to a corporate town hall?
Okay, all right, decent amount, right?
Let me go through what happens at a corporate town hall, right?
You have your executives and they come out and they're sharply dressed
and they're all lined up and they're sitting in their chairs,
and they come out and they say, this is what we are moving to, right?
We as an organization are going to do these five things in the next ten years, seven years, three years.
We're going to make our mark here and here.
We're going to do these things, there's usually, you know, three to five things that they're going to accomplish.
This is really important, this is, this is your roadmap.
And let me tell you why it's your roadmap.
It's your roadmap because those are the items that the executives are hanging their hat on.
They have now made a promise and a commitment to their stakeholders,
and it doesn't matter whether we're talking about a public or a private organization,
they have stakeholders and they are promising, we're going to make our mark here and here.
So these items are the way for you to reach it,
and what you need to do is you need to figure out where you have a common interest or a shared risk.
Where does open source have a common interest or a shared risk on that?
Let me give you some examples that you can utilize.
I would care to wager that on each and every one of those things, you have one line item that talks about HR.
We're going to enhance the culture.
We're going to get an internal platform and it's going to talk, people are going to talk.
We're going to have better recruiting.
HR is a huge cost center for organizations, huge.
Making that efficient, making that work is going to be an incredible thing and an impactful thing for your business, for the company.
I'll give you a couple of numbers.
In the United States alone, voluntary turnover costs businesses $1 trillion a year.
To replace someone costs one and a half times their salary.
How can open source make an impact there?
Let me give you an example.
In open source, because we work in the open, you can see the caliber of somebody's contributions right now.
You have an unbelievable community where you know who's out there and you know who's contributing.
Do you know what kind of impact that has to recruiters?
Think about how many hours they could save understanding that because of this, because our organization embraces this,
we're going to be more effective because we're going to know exactly where we want to go and who we want to connect with because we can see the caliber of their work.
Another thing to think about in 2030, 58% of the workforce is going to be millennials and Gen Z.
Do you know what one of the top qualities that millennials and Gen Z are looking for?
I didn't hear you.
Free time.
Well, yeah.
I wasn't always looking for free time.
I like that.
But collaboration.
They want to work in a place where it's collaborative.
Guess what open source is?
It's a collaborative community.
HR is looking to hire top talent.
They need top talent.
They need to attract top talent.
You can do that when you have the values embedded in your organization that people want to go to.
That is a shared interest that open source has with HR that will impact the bottom line of an organization.
Let's look at a risk.
Let's align a risk.
Cyber attacks.
Cyber attacks target software supply chain.
And the global economy lost $45.8 billion last year from that.
If 76% of your code base is open source, you should probably spend some time looking at that.
Investing back in that.
I don't need to draw the picture.
Everybody has seen it of the stack with the one little toothpick that's holding up all the things.
And you're one burnt out person away from watching that fall.
How does that impact an executive?
When your product goes down.
Ooh, that hurts.
You just lost market share.
On that roadmap of the things that your organization is going to achieve.
One of those things is going to be we want new market share.
We have a new product or something along those lines.
If that product utilizes open source, your executives have forecasted revenue that they're going to earn from said new product.
They expect it.
They're planning their budgets around it.
And that, if that goes down, because there wasn't adequate support, you have just now impacted the executives.
You have a case to make about how impactful that is.
I mean, there's other things you could look at.
For example, there's a 22% year over year increase in malware that has been contributed in packages to open source repos.
84% of repos have one known open source vulnerability right now.
Open source is powerful and there are cases to be made that will make executives contribute back to the community.
And it's not that they don't right now, right?
We see ausposes are on the rise.
They're increasing.
People are starting to have more auspose, which is great.
It's a dedicated team trying to help get more people involved and support the community.
But it's not enough.
There needs to be more.
All right, let's move on to how.
I'm going to talk about three things and how.
The first one is nobody gets there alone.
You all know this.
It's community effort.
But I want to encourage you to find people with diverse talent who complement your strengths because each and every one of us have a strength.
And there are people who can complement that people across your organization.
Don't stay in your department.
Build a coalition.
Build a coalition of individuals who understand the business value of open source and can convey that message powerfully.
I'm going to give a couple of examples of roles that you should probably consider.
One is someone in finance or an analyst.
And it would help if they had a platform that they could pull data from, like detergent or something, that they could pull and they could connect the monetary value, the time to make that argument.
They're vitally important.
You need data.
You need numbers.
Another thing that would be really helpful is to have someone in comms or marketing.
Executives are bombarded with information all day long.
They're not working in the business.
They're looking at the global view and the whole and looking on the business.
And they need someone who can speak at a very high, very simple, very powerful level.
Marketing and comms people do this all day long.
We position things all day long.
They're very helpful.
There is a study of informal networks done by a professor at Harvard and the University of London.
Her name is Karen Stevenson.
In fact, Malcolm Goudwell in his book The Tipping Point also referenced this.
There are three roles that you will find in the informal network within your organization.
The first role is a connector or a hub.
You all know these people.
This is the person in your office who knows everyone.
They're all connected.
They know everybody around here and there.
They know everyone.
They are connected and they are talking to people.
These are powerful people for you to talk to and help them understand the value of open source.
Because they will share your message and they will share your passion.
Another person, another role that you will find is called a pulse taker.
Pulse taker I know.
They also have connections, not as many as the connector.
Here is the difference.
The pulse taker is someone who is very strategic about their connections.
They are the person who can see basically around corners.
You probably can think of a person right now who fits that bill.
Someone who knows things two or three steps ahead.
It's like they can see around corners.
Bob over in accounting likes things this way and Sally over here likes things that way.
This person is really important because they can help you convey a message powerfully and navigate the things that are unseen.
Because they understand how the organization operates and they understand the people in it.
Because every organization has its own system and vibe.
The last one is the gatekeeper.
I know we all love this person.
We all love this person, the one who controls the information and keeps you away.
Keep you away, right?
They are the hardest person to break through and they can be your biggest advocate.
You can be your biggest advocate once you help them understand the value of open source.
Executives don't work alone.
They have advisors.
And if you can get the ear of the advisor, you can get your way through the door.
These are a little bit harder to find, but it's something to consider.
Let me move on to culture.
Number two, three.
Every organization has a culture.
Every country has a culture. People have culture.
It's an important factor and I don't have time to go through all the pieces of it, but I'm going to go through two dimensions.
There are consensus-based organizations in which harmony is paramount.
In an organization where consensus is important, you can upset the apple car.
And you need all to be with you and understand it and work with you.
Versus a top-down organization, you're looking for one.
You have a decision-maker, you are looking for one.
You can be way more strategic and have a few less people that you need to work through in order to get to that top decision-maker.
Another dimension is, is your organization egalitarian or hierarchical, right?
Is it flat?
Can I go call the CEO today and be like, hey, listen, let's talk?
Or is it something, I'll give you a personal example.
A little while ago, I read it wrong.
I read it wrong. There was a VP a little bit away from me, not too far away, but a little bit away from me.
And I thought, I'll just set up a meeting. We have some synergies.
Thirty minutes should be no big deal.
Two hours later, two executive assistants, a director and a VP later, I was informed.
That was not the right path.
There is a path to get to that person, and I had bucked the system.
That's a hierarchical organization.
Lessons learned, right?
I don't know how many of you have been there, but I see some nodding faces, so I feel like we're getting, there's some equal stories there.
Lastly, how do you position the story?
Best practices for a story contain three parts.
The first is why?
In this, you will find the characters or the people who are involved.
You will find the description of the setting.
And lastly, you will find the conflict.
And let me just say, please, if you hear nothing else today, listen to this.
The conflict in your story that will get them to listen to you is not yours.
It isn't your conflict.
They don't care.
It is their conflict.
It is open source's ability to solve their problems.
And do you remember that road map I told you about?
That's their problems.
Each and every one of those represents a problem that that organization has.
Then you move on to what the solution is.
Here's your big idea.
And lastly, how it solves it.
We're all really aware of what's happened in the last year.
Some of the license changes that have happened.
Open source is at a pivotal moment.
Because on this stage, the organizations of the world are watching.
They're watching and they're looking and they want to see what happens next.
We're going to get away with this?
What happens now?
Regulations are coming fast and furious and they're not going away.
It's going to change the way things are going to happen.
The CRA is going to change the way things are going to happen.
We're at a pivotal moment.
And I think that in this moment, it is really important that everyone be equipped to make this argument.
To take the case of open source.
To campaign for the value of open source.
To explain how powerful the collaboration and innovation that it drives is.
To showcase the value of open source.
To show what a community is about and how it makes a difference.
I hope that these strategies that I shared with you today really help you.
Because everyone can do this.
Everyone can do this.
Anybody can make this case.
Don't make it alone.
Solve their problem.
We can do this.
But now is the moment.
Now is the moment.
Thank you.
Are there any questions?
Thank you.
Thank you for the chat.
Really interesting.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to be the devil's advocate.
I'm not satisfied with this session.
No, but I learned a lot.
There are three points missing from my perspective.
From my organization.
Maybe you have a solution for it.
One, I don't see in your talk any solution for the support part.
For us to convince our executives.
We need to convince them that somehow, somewhere,
there is a way to give the proper support to that tool or open source in general.
Our executives are still very hesitant to use open source or philosophy because of that.
Number two.
Can I take them one at a time?
Because that would be helpful.
That would be helpful for me just so I don't lose track.
Because it seems like there's going to be a couple here.
So if your organization doesn't understand the power of open source,
it's because a case hasn't been made that speaks to them yet.
Bottom line.
And one way that I would recommend theoretically helping them understand the value of open source
is to demonstrate it within the organization.
There is a inner source model that's very powerful to explain and help them understand
how impactful it can be from a business perspective.
It might be one way to look at it.
I mean, they believe that there is more support in the closed source that they can rely on.
They believe that they have more support in the closed source that they can rely on,
that they can have contracts and everything in the closed source more than the open source.
So that's why they don't see it practical and sustainable to have the support of the community.
But be careful. I'm with open source to the death.
But it's just a matter of I'm trying to convince my executives.
And this is a breaking point.
This is a red flag that they always like to support.
So just, yeah.
Second thing is that most of these executives come from the user perspective
and not the developer perspective, the open source perspective.
And so far, the biggest market share is Windows and Mac for the operating system.
And for Office Suits, it's Microsoft Office as well.
So they use closed source. They use proprietary.
They use WhatsApp instead of Signal and Telegram.
They use all of these things and they're used to them and they don't have this mentality.
So from user experience, unless we get away to get more adoption rate in our society
where more people are using more open source, that will affect, in my humble opinion,
the way that the next generation executives will say,
ah, yeah, I totally understand the reason why you're using Signal and not WhatsApp, for example.
And sorry, the last point is change management.
Oh, yeah.
I think that is the biggest thing that we can work on.
Oh, it is. I'm a change management professional.
And a lot of organizations make a mistake of saying,
oh, we're going to get a new process in and they drop this new process in
and it's going to solve our problems.
And you know what? Nothing happens.
Because unless you have adoption, you've got nothing.
You may have spent $3 million to put this fabulous education piece in place,
and if people don't use it, you just flush that money.
There is not enough people support. I completely agree.
I would invite and love to talk to you about inner source
because I think that might be a really powerful thing
for them to understand the value of open source
if they're so wanting to stay behind the firewall.
Hi.
Hi. And just one thing as a company that provides support in open source work,
it's your job to go and tell the executives that there are plenty of companies
and tell them which companies they have to go to
or you bring them examples of how good that can work.
And we work exactly as a proprietary company.
They just don't know it because proprietary company told them that we are all in a garage.
I get a type of one more question.
Hi. Thank you.
So you mentioned different cultures in the organization.
I was wondering if you have some helpful tips and remarks about a US versus European kind of company
if you think this is important or not.
Just perspective on that. Thank you.
There are a lot of differences and saying Europe in general is a little problematic
because it depends where you are in Europe really fundamentally.
I can reference a couple of books that would help and there's some studies,
cultural organization, if you want to meet me after I can give you those references
because culture is a huge part of it.
And as the gentleman said, and thank you for pointing that out
because I failed to and I intended to.
Change management is going to be a critical component and it supports the cultural aspect
because it talks to the people.
Oftentimes we forget that we're talking to people.
It's very technical. It's very process.
It's very system and behind each and every one of those things is a person who has to do it.
And if you aren't connected with that person, you have nothing.
You have a stack of really cool stuff and nothing.
It's the people.
So change management and culture are going to play a huge part in that.