Open Source as Marketing Practice

My regular lineup of blogs I read have had some excellent postings over the past couple weeks about treating open source values as marketing practice.  One to read is Tom Murphy's post about disciples of the Cluetrain Manifesto finally gaining positions in corporate marketing departments and beginning the practices of  marketing, open source style.  It will seem quite an alien concept for 99% of marketers that they can actually benefit from giving their insights, materials, financial resources to a community and get it back in multiples.  Tom's on a well-deserved vacation this week, but I hope he continues writing on this subject. 

Whenever the indication of a trend or some movement comes into view, I immediately start looking for some anecdotal evidence of it occurring in my world.  Turns out I have seen some indications of open source marketing practices, particularly in the world of health and social marketing.  Because the government or non-profit organizations have limited resources vs. their commercial competitors (think big tobacco vs. the anti-tobacco orgs), they inherently rely on sharing information, assets, and resources with partner organizations to help get the word out.  I must admit, it's not a complete transformation to open source practices but certainly showing signs of it.

Paul Everitt of Zope Dispatches pinged me on IM this weekend with an article that led to another good intro to marketing open source, through the eyes of an open source project manager/leader.