is a free, open community aimed at finding solutions to issues that face New Zealand.

This is a place for Kiwis in business, and anyone who cares about New Zealand's future to share issues, find solutions and make small changes that have big results.

A few years ago, our politicians and business leaders had us all hooked on thinking big: borrow large, build huge infrastructure, import ideas from big overseas businesspeople. Like a little brother on his first day at school, we wanted to be big.

The problem with big is it can't adapt: if sea conditions change, it's real hard to turn a supertanker around to avoid the storm. But a jetboat can turn on a twenty piece, set a new course and power quickly to calmer waters.

That's New Zealand's advantage. We're a nation built on the power of small. We're a small country, and we're a small business economy. 92% of our people are employed by businesses employing 5 people or less. There's no getting around that fact, and as it turns out, it's a very good thing. Small, as US blogger, author and marketing guru Seth Godin predicted back in 2005, is the new big.

All we've been a hearing lately is bad news. The world's media are all telling us about the problems we face, that money's tight, demand is down and business is tough. While there's nothing wrong with identifying issues, and there's no doubt that things are serious, we think it's about time we started to focus on solutions. Solutions for your business and solutions for New Zealand.

And that's where thinksmall comes in: using the power of the community to find solutions. Thinking small is not small thinking. It's thinking smart. It's using social media to build your brand and make sales instead of spending millions on an advertising campaign. It's installing a water tank in every back yard instead of spending billions on dams. It's riding to work. It's buying local. It's looking at things in a new way, one which recognises that big is not always better, that powerful, sustainable solutions can come from many small actions.

As the famous Kiwi scientific adventurer Ernest Rutherford said as he set out to be the first to split the atom, "we haven't got a lot of money, so we're going have to think."

Let's think small. And make it big.