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  It’s a cor­po­rate world, and one of the most vis­i­ble venues for this truth is the mod­ern use of com­put­ers for busi­ness. Every­thing from desk­top units to cal­cu­la­tors to art pro­grams and Inter­net browsers cry out the names of big-brand mega com­pa­nies with prof­its and per­son­nel in the mil­lions. This may not be a bad thing, in and of itself; after all, indus­try and the major cor­po­ra­tions lead­ing the pack are respon­si­ble for a num­ber of excit­ing and pow­er­ful inno­va­tions in our time. Yet when it comes to oper­at­ing busi­nesses and orga­ni­za­tions, the poli­cies, prices, and pri­vate nature of major com­puter pro­grams become more of a mar­vel for the pock­et­book and patience than one’s imag­i­na­tion and awe. It’s impor­tant to stay effi­cient, com­pet­i­tive, and pro­duc­tive in the mod­ern mar­ket, and often it may seem that the draw­backs of big-name pro­grams are a nec­es­sary evil to stay ahead. But this couldn’t be fur­ther from the truth. The open source com­mu­nity is the pop­u­lar answer to these prob­lems in com­put­ing, and an increas­ing num­ber of busi­ness own­ers and orga­ni­za­tion direc­tors are find­ing that the use of open source is intel­li­gent choice that truly pays off, both imme­di­ately and over the long term. But what is open source all about?
     The open source com­mu­nity revolves around two basic ideas: that pro­grams should be trans­par­ent, mean­ing their pro­gram­ming struc­ture and pre­cise code should be made avail­able for view­ing and mod­i­fy­ing by its users, and that these pro­grams should be free. In an age when the major­ity of com­puter users are accus­tomed to pri­vate, pro­pri­etary pro­grams with a bad atti­tude towards user input and a pretty hefty price tag, this may seem like a head-in-the-clouds utopia. But the com­mu­nity thrives and evolves nev­er­the­less, pro­duc­ing scores of pro­grams to per­form every­thing from basic office tasks to elab­o­rate art projects, and even includes entire oper­at­ing sys­tems. In addi­tion to this rapid and pro­lific pro­duc­tion, the open source com­mu­nity offers unbeat­able sup­port. Because devel­op­ers and users are able to mod­ify a given program’s code and con­tin­u­ally cre­ate a bet­ter prod­uct with a wider array of uses, open source sup­port tends to be gen­uinely help­ful, address­ing not only the prob­lem at hand, but tak­ing mea­sures to ensure it never arises again — for any­one — at the same time.
     The ini­tial tran­si­tion period from clas­sic pro­pri­etary pro­grams to open source appli­ca­tions can some­times be a lit­tle bumpy, but the adjust­ment is well worth it; open source appli­ca­tions tend to have more intu­itive user inter­faces, and are con­tin­u­ally updated and improved, allow­ing for cutting-edge options with­out pricey upgrade require­ments. For those anx­ious over depart­ing with their favorite pro­grams for PC, sim­ple online searches will reveal that the vast major­ity of pri­vate pro­grams have open source alter­na­tives; some of the most promi­nent exam­ples include GIMP (the open source answer to Adobe’s Pho­to­shop), OpenOf­fice (a com­plete MS Office replace­ment suite), and Opera (an open source browser Inter­net Explorer vet­er­ans will find easy to use). Stay­ing on the com­pet­i­tive edge is easy and cost-effective when you switch to open source.

Choos­ing to move into a new job or place of employ­ment often involves vary­ing degrees of fear, uncer­tainty and doubt. One of your first steps should be in depth research about a prospec­tive employer, begin­ning even before the prein­ter­view process.

Here are few red flags you should be on the look out for. If two or more of these cau­tion­ary signs are vis­i­ble, you take extra cau­tion­ary steps about seek­ing employ­ment that organization.

1. News the orga­ni­za­tion is in or soon will be begin­ning the process of merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, or there is a major restruc­tur­ing, staff cut­backs seem on the hori­zon or other major orga­ni­za­tional reck­on­ing is at hand. It pays to look into a com­pa­nies press releases, or if pos­si­ble speak with cur­rent employ­ees about the cur­rent climate.

2. Your tar­get orga­ni­za­tion may not be expe­ri­enc­ing any cur­rent prob­lems like those detailed above, but we can you learn a lot by check­ing the tem­per­a­ture of other com­pa­nies in the same indus­try. This is often a good indi­ca­tion of the pos­si­bil­ity mis­for­tune could spread to your prospec­tive orga­ni­za­tion sooner rather than later.

3. The rep­u­ta­tion of your future boss or cowork­ers pre­cedes them in a neg­a­tive way. This is some­thing you cant find out from peo­ple within your net­work or search­ing the Inter­net for sto­ries of for­mer employees.

4. Your prospec­tive super­vi­sor is new to the orga­ni­za­tion and his or her rep­u­ta­tion is a “known not known.” This can be trou­bling but don’t let wor­ries keep you from mak­ing a good impres­sion. Often new man­agers are real­ize they have work to do in team build­ing. You may be able to score some points by assist­ing in this process.

5. You respect­fully request to meet with and greet some of your prospec­tive cowork­ers and this request is denied. Is morale low enough they can’t risk you being informed? Why should they be fear­ful of what exist­ing employ­ees could say to a prospec­tive new employee?

6. A non-profit orga­ni­za­tion with a track record of prob­lems secur­ing fund­ing. In these cases, we are often encour­aged by our desire to do good with­out think­ing of out finan­cial health. How­ever think twice before tak­ing up a posi­tion as lay­offs are far more com­mon for a shaky non-profit than in the com­mer­cial industry.

7. Watch for fab­ri­ca­tions and hype about a com­pa­nies suc­cess. Inquire about pos­si­bil­i­ties for advance­ment how­ever if their expla­na­tion of your career prospects that sounds too good to be true, it prob­a­bly is.

8. The orga­ni­za­tion is small, and it’s access to con­sis­tent fund­ing is lim­ited. This cre­ated a sce­nario for a small busi­nesses to go bank­rupt if they are sub­ject to any degree of mismanagement.

9. Your new posi­tion has an excep­tion­ally high turnover rate. Many have come before you, beware.

10. Your inter­view­ers seem too focused on hav­ing you hit the ground run­ning one day one. This could have impli­ca­tions that they don’t pos­sess the means to pro­vide proper level sup­port or train­ing for your new role. This could prove even more of an issue if you’re accus­tomed to work­ing within the well oiled gears of a large orga­ni­za­tions with lots of struc­tured support.

11. The inter­view process seemed awfully rushed and quite dis­or­ga­nized. Leav­ing you in doubt they really had a chance to match your per­son­al­ity and qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the position.

The pres­ence of one of these red flags from the list above does not nec­es­sar­ily mean you should sim­ply give up on that orga­ni­za­tion as a pos­si­ble new employer. How­ever does imply that you should get as much addi­tional infor­ma­tion as you can in order to make an informed decision.