I’ve dabbled with The GNU Project for about 6 years now not really grasping it’s potential power for many industries including our own – negotiating.  There is a fantastic documentary,  Revolution OS, that really gives a thinking person a chance to understand how some greedy players at the dawn personal computing created a spin so powerful that it’s impacted all of our lives for decades on a massive scale and most of us just thought “that is just the way it is”.

For me, ironically – I give credit to Bill Gates for my unexpected education in Open Source.  64 bit computers showed up in about 2003.  I bought and built my first 64 bit PC in 2004.  Like the average “sheepeople” I sleepwalked to my PC to go download a copy of the latest 64 bit Windows Operating System …only to discover it didn’t exist.  For you non-techies my (then) 64 bit pc was the relative equivalent of trading in my Moped for a Jaguar.  Billyboy at MS did eek out a 64-bit version of XP in 2005 but it was unsupported – no one was making any drivers for your video and audio and perhaps even your internnet connection.  It wasn’t until the dreaded Vista that there was an actual MS 64bit OS (2007).

The 32-bit computers came out in 1985 so from that time until the bloated MS Corp finally sold us a “bad” 64 bit OS – we had waited 22 years.  So, I got my fancy new computer home, built it and discovered there was no “sheepeople” OS for me to install in 2004.  That’s when I began to look at Linux.  I consider myself a “super-user” (fancy term that means I’ll try anything on a computer at least once)and in 2004 I was rather intimidated by Linux.  I assumed my geek-factor wasn’t high enough or something.  Since then I’ve realized that it wasn’t that I was too dumb to do Linux but that I had been very well trained by Microsoft on how to think about computers and computing – I had to unlearn some of my assumptions and “understanding” the MS way in order to appreciate a much broader view of the world of connected computers.

I’ve been using the very impressive Ubuntu Distro (if you don’t understand the term distro here that is just one example of how MS has limited  your thinking about computing – it took me months to “get it”)for business and personal use since 2008.  I live in the home-town of Dell and I believe they are carting some of their computers to market with Ubuntu as well.  My wife who gets cranky at a computer for the smallest of infractions migrated from XP to Ubuntu earlier this year.

I titled this post “Open Source has Arrived” as if me discovering it made it so, but that’s not true.  Open Source has been around for decades.  It is the story about how Microsoft, Amazon and Yahoo want to sue Google for providing the world with an open source solution in regards to out-of-date books that has inspired the title.  Google will be releasing a free operating system next year and appears to be joining the community of the Open Source world in some ways.  The other three named corps are crying foul because they can’t “compete” with free.  My current Negotiating Position on that is as follows: You Three big greedy corporations please step back so that the other 6+ billion of us on the planet can find some benefit in the great transformation that Google is making toward Open Source.  You CANNOT compete with Open Source because it’s principle is freedom like free speech, not lawsuits, greed and monopolies.  If your Operating System costs $400 and theirs cost $0 then that like all the other qualities of the operating system are for the consumer to decide and use or buy.  Your closed source community is not unlike long-distance phone service.  I’m sure those of us who are old enough remember a time when you had to pay for long-distance.  Perhaps we will be around to look back on a time when you had to purchase an operating system.

Afterthought: As a Negotiator I do not revile anyone making a profit.  To be a little open-sourcy about it – I also do not object to everyone making a profit.  When you ponder my passionate position on Open Source from my above blather, ask yourself this question – who determines what you can make a profit on and what you cant?  If you could do something about that to change that situation would you?  I’ve been pondering what an Open Source Negotiation might look like.

If you would like some Open Source Negotiating Training or just an Open Source Negotiating Dialog please contact me at justask@yourownbestgood.com.

I’ll see you at the Negotiating Table!

Bruce, The Negotiator!

I’ve been laying a little low but as summer cools off I’m easing back into the money-never-sleeps world wide web with some fresh content.  One thing I’ve just put into the data stream is my new portal site.  At http://bruce-burns.com you can find all the different websites that I personal host, webmaster and generate from my own personal power.

So lets get right to the Negotiator’s Secret of the Day.  I’m not sure how often I’ve shared this as a Negotiator’s Secret on the web but for my apprentices and my clients I’m constantly re-affirming a very important guideline to effective negotiations. In a negotiation there are only 4 possible positions with the negotiating dynamic and they are:

1. No One’s Position Changes
2. Your Position Changes
3. Their Position Changes
4. Both Positions Change

I know that might sound like some kind of faulty zen puzzle, but there it is plain and simple.  You might even ask yourself (or my virtual self) “This is so apparent…why mention it, why include it in the great volume of Negotiating Secrets as if saying ‘The price of gas is expensive.’ isn’t obvious enough?”

Speaking of gas – a great way to thinking about The Four Negotiating Positions is to create a simple metaphor.  Traffic…

What do you do when someone is going to slow in front of you?

Change Your Position.

The reason The Four Negotiating Positions is essential to a powerful and effective negotiation is that knowing which position the negotiation is in helps you to choose what to do next in the negotiation. Lets take something too simple and complicate it.  Have you ever dealt with someone that had no spine at all?  Every negotiation you ever had with them ended up with them acquiesing?  Sure you have.  What was your primary negotiating tactic?  I know when someone else is negotiating for me, my primary negotiating tactic is often just silence.  Let them talk themselves into whatever it is you want to talk them into.

So we review The Four Negotiating Positions and discover that the above-made-up-from-my-imagination-based-on-people-I’ve-actually-dealt-with Negotiating Compliment and discover they are changing their position.  Just as a reminder for simplicity sake we will assume for this lesson that their positions and yours are genuine and not faux-position. What do we know?  We know:

1. Our Position and..
2. they are changing their position and…
3. we haven’t changed our position therefore …
4. we maintain our position as it seems to …
5. be creating a Negotiating Gravity that they are responding too.

Going back to the beginning I remind you that we don’t just Negotiate but we Negotiate to Your Own Best Good.  That “your” can be singular or plural.  In a fulfilling negotiation there is always a transaction to your own best bood.  With few exceptions, The Negotiator wants to avoid position # 1) No one’s position changes.  It is the very change in position that identifies the transaction weather it be words, the signing of a check or the vacating of a condition that was not supportive for The Negotiator.

The study of Position and Positioning in a Negotiation is vast and could be dedicated to an entire other website and set of material.  Since you already know this website I’ll spoil you and keep it here.

If today’s Negotiating Secret has nudged your mind or inspired you to be curious or even if you have an objection (I respect those who challenge the information) then feel free to write me at justask@yourownbestgood.com I always respond to real questions and real people (not Viagra spam) and will even use your question as the source of a future blog with your permission.

Soon I’ll be expanding The Negotiator’s Newsletter and if you would like to receive it regularly please find the sign up box in the upper right portion of this page.

I’ll be watching for you to changes positions at the Negotiating Table.

Bruce Burns, The Negotiator!