Fostering Innovation in IT Businesses through Open Source Software Involvement

All IT companies depend on free and open source software to some extent. Once they reach a certain size, they spontaneously become supporters of the projects on which they base their business. This happens because of first order consequences: my business depends on it, if I help it strive, my business will benefit.
In this talk, we will address the second-order consequences of software engineers interacting with open source projects, and show why dedicating internal resources to this activity is an effective strategy for enabling the discovery of new or modified (software) entities, which is the prerequisite for innovation.
The benefits are visible for companies of any size, even if their business does not depend on a specific project to which they could contribute: compelling arguments will be presented to motivate business owners to encourage their IT staff to engage in open source activities (and to developers to convince their bosses).