Open by default

We rely upon this intense collaboration and openness in order for us to do our work. Every day we directly benefit from thousands of people who stay up late after putting their kids go to bed to publish their thoughts, ideas, code, and materials, all without expectation of financial gain or fame.

Why do this? Why give away all your knowledge, tips, tricks, resources, of your creative process? At face value, it appears those who openly share are giving away their competitive edge, but it turns out the benefits of sharing are many. Collaboration trumps pure competition.

By broadening the scope of our creative work and encouraging creative exhaust–whether its sharing a resource, writing a blog post, designing in the open, making a tutorial, answering a question on Stack Overflow, editing a Wikipedia entry, whatever–it’s never been easier to contribute to something greater than yourself.