Open Source Brand Manual

The OpenWear brand manual is at http://openwear.org//public/frontend/images/BRANDMANUAL_final_11-11-2010.pdf

Discussion

Zoe Romano:

"“In their contemporary form, brands rely heavily on consumers as co-producers. With the arrival of web 2.0 such forms of customer collaboration have advanced from the co-production of experiences and lifestyles to the co-production of content (as in the case of Facebook or YouTube) or even designs. However most brands that invite such extended processes have remained ‘closed’, that is co-producing customers have been treated as a ‘free’ resource and have, generally, neither been entitled to a share of the value produced nor given any significant influence over the production process. An open brand is a brand that recognizes the productive role of customer co-production, engages in strategies that aim at redistributing the value thus produced and seeks organizational solutions that give co-producing consumers a say in determining the overall governance of the brand. The issue of redistribution can be addressed in essentially two ways. Brands can institutionalize mechanisms of revenue sharing through which co-creating consumers can benefit from the value that they produce. Alternatively, consumers can be involved in determining the overall social values towards the brand should contribute to.” (http://openwear.org/blog/?p=1184)