Nike, Creative Commons and Best Buy Building Collaboration

Interesting post at Worldchanging details an approach by these companies to open up their sustainability innovation using Green XChange:

Combining technology and the Creative Commons licensing structure, Green Xchange provides a platform where companies are able to issue licenses to other companies, allowing them to access patented research. The patent owners determine the terms for use, creating a contract that other interested parties accept before accessing the information. Patent holders can protect sensitive information by screening which types of companies may access it, and they can also set the cost for its use. The funds generated would theoretically provide a revenue stream to fund further research.

Like it. This is the kind of thinking and practice that can make sustainability sustainable. Now we need mindsets to follow practice. As they say at Worldchanging:

The main obstacle in persuading companies to share their valuable knowledge is fear…Green Xchange challenges companies to view them as something transferable, and potentially profitable when shared. 

…If Green Xchange succeeds in changing the way we think about transferring intellectual property and benefiting from shared ideas, it could usher us into a new realm of thinking of sustainability (and potentially other fields like medicine) as a truly collaborative endeavor.

Could not agree more. An abundant world awaits.

Collaboration is where we start unlocking our potential to solve the problems we’re facing at a level higher than the thinking that got us into them. Compliance and Conformity just are not sustainable. Cooperation, though good, is not going to be enough either.

Coherence, a step beyond Collaboration, is where it all comes together-we start being the change we want to see in the world. And if we can start to act in Constellations, our unfolding present and our children’s futures may really begin to shine, brilliantly.

Tags: Best Buy, Coherence, collaboration, Compliance, Conformity, Constellation, cooperation, Creative Commons, Green XChange, innovation, intellectual property, Nike, patents, Worldchanging