I’ve used the term “Academy of Creative Inspiration”, but we must be careful to not idealize that metaphor too singularly. Single large Academies can become isolated and untethered from the Society they were built to benefit.
Likewise, single large businesses can appear connected to Society, but tend to gather an unhealthy amount of momentum. They become too slow to adapt to the ecology of their surrounding Society. Rather than adapt, they force untested, reckless, and deadening social changes through their momentum and unchecked financial power. Small businesses cannot force changes upon their Societies, they can only inspire change.
Small businesses (lets say between 1 and 15 people) are able to adapt quickly. They serve a smaller number of people, but build deeper relationships with those they serve. Small businesses witness first-hand how they affect and integrate with their surrounding ecology – avoiding the obfuscation of administrative layer-shells. Where big business can maintain running on untested theories and distant price indices for far too long, even the idealistic small businesses must keep one eye open to the grounding reality around them.
Internally, small business team members tend to build real relationships with each other, enabling them to work together dynamically. Also, without requiring huge manufacturing batch orders, small business supply chain networks can shift and reorganize more quickly. It is this exceptional dynamism on each front which creates a greater vitality for all along the chain network.
This is why when we speak of the Academy of Creative Inspiration, perhaps we should consider an Academy Decentralized: many small businesses – many Squads – drawing from the same ancestor Mission, but carrying out that Mission adapted to their local ecologies and communities.