In this article from Fast Company, we get an inside perspective of how Open Source concepts and ideals can be used in more than just software. My favorite point in the article is how Proctor and Gamble use Open Source like techniques to better their business, thus being better for the consumer by proxy.

Not so long ago, companies created departments to create innovation. But the result was often that innovation was turned into a state secret. The only people who knew what was going on — and therefore the only people who could really contribute — were the Chosen Ones inside the innovation department. Not surprisingly, this approach limits both the quantity and quality of ideas so companies have started to search for new ways of developing new ideas.

One new idea is distributed or open source innovation in which customers (or anyone else for that matter) are the co-producers of the products and services they consume.

Open source software development began when one smart individual realized that he wasn’t half as smart as all the other people he knew if he put them together. The open source movement worked in software because the original motive was altruistic — the end product was given away for free — and people thought they were on the side of David fighting a mighty Goliath (or Bill, as most people know him).

This is networked innovation made possible by the Internet. Ideas (or problems) are made freely available to anyone that cares to look at them. The result is smart software with the bugs ironed out in record time.

Recently the idea has been transferred to all manner of projects ranging from an open source encyclopedia called the Wikipedia and collaborative industrial design such as ThinkCycle to open source aeroplane design, cola recipes, film scripts, and beer. The latter was developed with the help of some self-appointed beer aficionados (found on the Internet) who created everything from the name of the beer to its packaging and advertising. Even NASA has embraced the idea by using volunteer scientists (or “clickworkers”) to identity and catalog craters on the surface of Mars.