Open Source Membership Organization
November 29, 2007
Peter Burns gave me a call earlier this week to discuss an organization he is building called Club E. Built along the lines of YEO (EO), he and his partners have launched Club Entrepreneur to ‘encourage the free exchange of ideas and resources; inviting local entrepreneurs to join together to synergize their talents.’
Peter pitched the idea of an ‘open source’ membership organization; something I had been thinking about since we organized the first Barcamp Dallas back in early 2006. I reviewed Peter’s material and decided that in its present form I wasn’t really interested in participating, but it did get me thinking about how to create something as vibrant and compelling as EO in an open source way.
My thought is that we help create a template for us in conjunction with Barcamp ~ i.e. offer an open source membership organization ‘API’ for communities that form around Barcamp. I agreed to talk to Peter about my concept in greater detail, but my next step will be to talk with Chris Messina (the water bearer for Barcamp) to get his thoughts and interest on the subject. Of course, as with almost all ideas I have, Chris et. al. are likely already working on something as we speak.
