WorldChanging ally W. David Stephenson has an amusing and thought-provoking article up at his blog, comparing the choice made by Lego to open up the process of developing its next-generation Mindstorms kit with the choice made by the US Department of Homeland Security to keep information limited and access to decision-makers restricted. It's a mildly tongue-in-cheek post, but it makes some excellent points that map to our earlier posts about useful approaches for building worldchanging systems:
...what are the lessons for DHS from the Lego Mindstorms experience?
- Open source is more robust. [...]
- Don't think you have to keep everything secret. [...]
- Don't think you have to -- or even can -- control everything. [...]
David adds useful detail to each of these points.
Lego is an excellent example of a long-standing institution that was able to actively and consciously change its approach to working with its broad community of interested stakeholders.
