Rodent Regatta

Managing technology in a small business defies many of the practices that are used to make multi-million dollar decisions in a Fortune 1000 setting. This morning David Berlind at ZDNet profiles a company that struck gold when Boston announced plans for the ”Big Dig.” The company really thinks before spending even $15,000 that might be deferred. Here’s an excerpt:

Outside of a handful of very low-cost investments, Spinelli’s mantra appears to be ”steady as she goes.” When does Spinelli think that things will loosen up a bit? His estimates are not nearly as optimistic as those that I’ve heard from vendors. ”I’m guessing that things aren’t going to change for about two years,” he says. ”And even then, that’s just when we’ll reassess the situation. That’s not necessarily when we plan to start spending again.”

This is the kind of thinking that goes on every day in literally thousands of small companies across the country. These aren’t the stories we see in magazines, essays and industry reports. Why talk about $15,000 when someone has considered buying 15,000 computers? We’d be far better off with few stories about the latter and a lot more case studies of the former.