In a bold move a Vancouver-based company is turning the traditional business model of a consultancy on its’ head. Social Signal CEO Alexandra Samuel explains in her blog post announcing the move:

“We’re taking the intellectual property we’ve generated and gleaned from Social Signal’s four years of consulting, strategy and development and making it available for free online, under a Creative Commons license.”

She puts the decisions leading to the creation of #opensoci (the Twitter hash tag for the initiative) in context with a post at the Harvard Business review website titled “Will Social Media Consultants Practice What They Preach?” where she writes:

“The best social media consultants lead by example. Consultants and agencies that promise to unlock the secrets of the social web need to stop selling transparency and authenticity, and start living it. And the companies who buy their services–the communications and marketing professionals who face the tough job of selling transparency within their own organizations–need to insist on the same level of transparency from their suppliers.”

Both of these Social Signal posts are well worth your time.