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A colleague of mine got an interesting question this week:  what is the benefit for business-to-business (B2B) communities if being open versus being closed?

I often preach the value of open communities in my work with customers.  In my presentation last year at the Community 2.0 Conference, I included lack of openness as one of the “warning signs” that a community effort is at risk of failure (see slide 8).  But it’s a good question - can we quantify the benefit?

First, a couple of…