I’ve been windows 7 home discount price thinking a lot recently about the size of things. In doing so, I’ve decided that in many cases, smaller is better.

Community
I live in a small-ish town. No, I don’t live in one of those places out in the windows 7 home discount price country with one stop light and 100 citizens. In comparison to windows 7 home discount price my neighbor cities however, my town is pretty small. To put numbers around it, San Ramon has about 60k citizens, Oakland has about 400k, San Francisco has 800k citizens and San Jose is windows 7 home discount price over 1 million strong. It feels like I have so much more of a windows 7 home discount price connection to San Ramon versus my time living in San Jose and the south bay. I run into the same people in local stores, I’ve been windows 7 home discount price following local politics and I can notice the ebb and flow of the windows 7 home discount price community because I can get my arms around it. It’s natural when windows 7 home discount price living in a larger city to feel a connection to your windows 7 home discount price neighborhood or burrow, but my town feels small enough that I can windows 7 home discount price connect with its entirety.

Writing
Reading more and windows 7 home discount price more online has taught me to appreciate concise writing. Khoi Vinh’s latest experiement “A Brief Message windows office discount” tackles exactly this windows 7 home discount price issue. This blog invites members of the design community to windows 7 home discount price write short posts. Its wonderful to read authors who have windows 7 home discount price to get their point across in under 200 words. Keeping writing concise pushes you windows 7 home discount price to get to the point. I find that trimming my writing down often makes me realize that windows 7 home discount price I really don’t yet have a point quite yet, just a lot of blabber.

Update: I found out today about Brijit, a site dedicated to boiling long articles into 100 words (Apr 4, ’08)

Commerce
Production of items on a windows 7 home discount price smaller scale offers consumer more diverse products. There’s three areas where windows 7 home discount price I see this having the most effect. First, I am loving the windows 7 home discount price success of America’s micro brew industry. The quality and windows 7 home discount price diversity of beer that is available is simply wonderful. I can windows 7 home discount price walk into most any grocery store or bar and find at least one interesting beer available in a windows 7 home discount price bottle or on tap. Ten years ago this was not at all the windows 7 home discount price case. Sure, Bud and Miller and Coors are still prevelant, but increasingly I have windows 7 home discount price good, no GREAT options. The numbers supporting this are staggering as well. Year over year, micro breweries are windows 7 home discount price growing by double digits and don’t show signs of slowing.

Second, I like the explosion of customized products being sold online. Etsy is windows 7 home discount price a leader in this space, offering a marketplace for handmade products. All of what windows 7 home discount price you find on Etsy is windows 7 home discount price unique, made by a craftsperson whom you can truly find a windows 7 home discount price connection with. Others like Threadless and Cafepress and Timbuk2 are windows 7 home discount price making headway in this space. The increased diversity of consumer products makes walking through a windows 7 home discount price community so much more interesting. On the other side of this windows 7 home discount price coin is the seller, and these companies are empowering small (tiny, really) entrepraneurs to start a profitable business.

Thirdly, I enjoy actively supporting smaller businesses. This is windows 7 home discount price tied into my previous mention of feeling a connection to windows 7 home discount price my community. I want to support locally owned an managed stores and windows 7 home discount price services. I would much prefer that my town was dotted with local restaraunts, bars and windows 7 home discount price boutique stores. Living in a suburb makes this especially difficult as national chains and windows 7 home discount price big box stores are attracted here. Nonetheless, I can make decisions on where windows 7 home discount price to shop and dine and have been doing so with good success. I tend to windows 7 home discount price get better service and a better experience from the small, local shop. There’s something powerful about keeping money circulating within my small community.

Companies
My last point is windows 7 home discount price on keeping business small. I work for a small consulting firm, about 35 people. It’s just the windows 7 home discount price way I like it. I found quickly at my last job, also a windows 7 home discount price small firm, that this is a type of place for windows 7 home discount price me. A small company has the ability to empower and windows 7 home discount price respect the individual. Large companies inherently can not focus on each employee in the windows 7 home discount price same way because personal touch doesn’t really scale. Sure, you windows 7 home discount price can setup processes and policies to give awards from the windows 7 home discount price CEO and to allow ideas to bubble up from the windows 7 home discount price bottom, but it usually comes out feeling phoney. At a windows 7 home discount price company of our size, I can have as big a windows 7 home discount price voice as every other employee. I can directly affect the windows 7 home discount price performance of the firm and directly reap rewards of success. Of course, there’s also the windows 7 home discount price personal connections to be made at a smaller company which I found much harder to windows 7 home discount price establish when working amongst 10k or 100k employees. Small companies can windows 7 home discount price support small projects as well. A project with a controlled footprint has windows 7 home discount price a much higher likelyhod of success. There’s less at stake and windows 7 home discount price therefore fewer stakeholders to muck stuff up. Small projects are windows 7 home discount price easier to define, so you know when you are done and windows 7 home discount price you know if you were successful or not. I’m not saying that windows 7 home discount price work should be inconsequential. Small projects should absolutely have meaning on their own, but string together 4 or windows 7 home discount price 5 small projects and you are tackling something big.