Big "Strong Town" Developer (?)
Hello, my burning question is: as someone who is working in a big/large scale developer firm, how can I incorporate the ideals, lessons and values of the Strong Towns approach (incremental development, resiliency, adaptability, etc) into my business, business model, and (horizontal) projects we build? Because I recognize the value of this movement, I'd just like to know how the "bad guys" can also make and contribute to positive change.
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The core ideas of Strong Towns make more sense from a developer's perspective if the developer plans to retain ownership of the project for an extended period of time.
It's a really difficult question because the competitive advantage of being big is that you are squeeze out efficiencies by working at scale, by standardizing the approach and making the complex merely complicated.
So, what you are asking is: How do we give up our competitive advantage and instead try to compete with small players at their game when we're big and not able to work as nimbly? I don't have an answer to that one.
There is a great book by Nicco Mele called The End of Big: How the Digital Revolution Makes David the New Goliath. Obviously the timing has been off -- BIG has been able to marshal their advantages and string their existing out much longer than I ever thought they could -- but I think the conclusion is the same: in any type of real marketplace, big players will get taken out by small players. There is an expiration date on big.
In a similar situation, I left and started my own practice. So, if you want do-as-I-do advice....
Outside of that, try and build projects that are small, incremental, adaptable, and have good design. In other words, do your best to do the least amount of damage possible.
Large players in technology generate diversity and complexity in their markets by building toolkits. These toolkits allow smaller players to build differentiated products.
Not sure if you saw, John Ray D. Ng, but Chuck talked about your question on today's episode of the Strong Towns podcast: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/30/chuck-marohn-answers-your-questions
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