Long tail

Long tail refers to the statistical distribution of contributions to an open process.

In traditional organizations the distribution of contributions of employees follows a normal curve, meaning that the majority of employees contribute a given amount (can be a metric of time or number of tasks performed, etc.) for a given duration. If an employee contributes much less they may be kicked out of the organization. On the other side, there are no incentives to contribute more than one is asked to, so less and less people contribute larger amounts.

Open organizations are structured by a 20/80 type curve, where 20% of the work is performed by 80% of the people and 80% of the work is performed by a 20% of people, which are also called the core group.