Media Maven Jeff Jarvis has a compelling meditation on the smallness economy that is gaining speed. Link. Excerpts:
[Y]ou will come to a new definition of value built on trust. Dealing with big companies today -- airlines, banks, stores -- you know you're going to get screwed and consumer victory is avoiding that. In the person-to-person marketplace the internet enables, you do business with and converse with those you trust. They value that trust and earn it. . .
Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change the business model when your competition changes theirs.
Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.
Small means that you can answer email from your customers.
Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others, while you keep the power because you invent the remarkable and tell stories to people who want to hear them.
A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they're good, not because they're big. So smart small companies are happy to hire them. . .
Guess we'll have to dust off E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful and see what he would have said about all this. If you're looking for a chapter-size discussion about Schumacher, we'd recommend Joseph Pearce's Literary Converts.
