small small small local local local

Although I missed the session, a friend of mine was at the Think Small session (video, PDF)by Tara Hunt and Chris Messina at Gnomedex and he made sure I knew about it. Their message of smaller, faster, cheaper innovation online was well received by the gathered geeks who are getting whipped into a lather over the explosion of small and cheap applications showing up on the web. They are also beginning to understand these apps achieve their full potential value when they interoperate with other small apps. In other words, the value is in the relationship. 30 Boxes was given as an example.

These web wizards aren't the only ones finding value in relationships and rapid innovation. In my other life with BALLE, the goal is to support the locally owned small business. One of the central tenants for supporting locally owned small businesses is that local owners are more likely to act in the best interest of their community. Again, the relationship between the business owner and the community has tremendous value.

I feel there are many more parallels between the explosion of Web2.0 small apps and the local living economies movement. Stay tuned for more thoughts, or leave your own here.

Eat Local Now!

Coming up this Thursday March 30th is Eat Local Now! A Ballard Food Fest, an event I am helping to organize. Its a join effort between BALLE Seattle and Sustainable Ballard and its a good thing we have two groups putting it on because its a lot of work. We are planning to feed 200 people with food donated from nearly 30 different local farms, CSAs and manufacturers. Seven chefs will take all that food and homefully create some amazing dishes. We have over 50 groups contributing something to the event.

I can't wait to eat.

UPDATE: The event was a huge success. We fed more than 240 people. Read more here.