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Pat  Pathade  has  built  his  career  and  two  companies  based  on  the  philosophy  of  the  open-­‐source  so7ware  movement.      Outside  of  the  mee;ngs  industry,  open-­‐source  ini;a;ves  are  huge,  programmers  are  prolific,  and  companies  are  profitable.      Inside  the  industry,  there  is  li@le  to  no  support,  and  nothing  that  could  be  characterized  as  a  movement.  Pathade  is  working  to  change  that  scenario,  one  solu;on  at  a  ;me.      

Open  Source  is  a  framework  for  programmers  to  build  so7ware  itera;vely  and  collabora;vely  with  the  understanding  that  their  code  will  be  shared.      The  resul;ng  so7ware  becomes  the  building  blocks  (Drupal  and  Linux  are  two  examples)  for  new  product  offshoots  that  can  be  brought  to  market  much  more  quickly  and  inexpensively.      Par;cipants  form  communi;es  around  their  efforts  to  support  developers,  collec;vely  solve  problems,  and  share  updates.      

There  was  a  ;me  when  open-­‐source  prac;ces  were  frowned  upon.  In  the  past,  says  Pathade,  even  Fortune-­‐500  companies  cau;oned  customers  against  using  so7ware  that  was  built  on  open-­‐source  code  because  they  believed  it  to  be  a  threat  to  their  own  proprietary  offerings  and  because  much  of  the  early  open-­‐source  products  were  unstable  and  unsupported.    

That  belief  has  largely  disappeared.      “There’s  been  a  drama;c  shi7  toward    accep;ng  open-­‐source  so7ware.  The    no;on  of  hiding  behind  proprietary  code  is  gone  and  an  industry  of  open-­‐source  service  providers  has  emerged,”  Pathade  explains.            As  a  result,  there  are  hundreds  of  companies  being  built  using  open-­‐source  code,  including  Dropbox,  Salesforce,  and  Twi@er—all  big  names  with  millions  of  users  and  strong  mone;za;on  models.    

Despite  the  poten;al  to  drive  the  cost  of  event  so7ware  down  and  push  the  envelope  on  innova;on,  the  mee;ngs  and  trade  show  industry  has  been  slow  to  embrace  open-­‐source  ini;a;ves.      There  is  no  open-­‐source  community  to  create  the  building  blocks,  support  development,  or  provide  financial  support.      Event  technology  is  s;ll  dominated  by  legacy  plaUorm  providers  in  registra;on  and  event  management,  for  example,  with  li@le  incen;ve  to  reveal  their    code  to  third-­‐party  developers.      

In  lieu  of  a  community  to  drive  open  source  within  the  mee;ngs  industry  (event  organizers  aren’t  leading  the  charge  either),  Pathade  leverages  the  communi;es  that  have  emerged  outside  the  industry.    

Through  his  companies,  he  uses  non-­‐event-­‐specific  open-­‐source  plaUorms,  such  as  Drupal  and  Salesforce,  to  address  event-­‐industry  challenges,  including  data  integra;on  across  disparate  legacy  systems,  web  site  op;miza;on,  and  most  recently,  trade  show  sales  produc;vity.    

Pathade  believes  one  huge  opportunity    that  can  be  developed  through    open-­‐source  strategies  is  in  the  data  field.      “The  industry’s  data  is  not  perfectly  organized.  [Registra;on  records,  exhibitor  profiles,  and  contact  records]  can  be  standardized  so  they  can  be  used  by  mul;ple  organiza;ons.    

Data  can  be  contributed  by  groups  and  anonymized  so  that  trends  can  be  observed  and  shared  with  everyone.  Open  Government  and  Open  City  ini;a;ves  are  two  examples  of  what  is  possible,”  he  explains.      

For  any  true  benefits  to  be  realized  in  the  event  industry,  Pathade  says,  leading  industry  organiza;ons  have  to  come  together.    

Organiza;ons  can  donate  employees’  ;me  to  work  on  projects,”  he  suggests.  Un;l  then,  he  will  con;nue  to  evangelize  open  source  and  develop  solu;ons  with  the  tools  that  are  available.  He  may  be  an  army  of  one  now,  but  every  movement  starts  somewhere.    

“Founda;ons  that  are  serious  can  put  together    a  task  force  and  sponsor  some  ac;vi;es,  such  as    an  IT  internship  in  open-­‐source  methodologies.