We are probably one of the smallest footwear organizations in existence right now.  Two employees in the US, and some dedicated folks overseas.  Of course we do have the help of our significant others (thank you very much!), friends, and family.  Being small is good though - we are incredibly nimble and it's very easy for Rao and I to communicate with one another. 

But as we grow, we add infinite levels of complexity to our little organization.  Especially when we rely heavily on those overseas in opposite time-zones to create our product.  To aid our efforts Rao has introduced a handful of online collaboration tools. Media Fire for sharing photos, and Central Desktop for documents and other files.  These tools are free and intuitive for small organizations such as ours.  As we scale we'll need to either invest in more robust versions with more bandwidth, or re-think how we do business as a whole.

Nike is considered a leader in our industry.  They've partnered with Creative Commons and Best Buy to help re-think how we collaborate.  Together they've formed the Green XChange, an initiative focused on improving the way organizations collaborate.  (Check out the Geen XChange link to watch an interesting PBS like video on collaboration.)  Improving our systems, processes, technology and ideas on sharing is how they hope to improve the overall business ecosystem.  Improving the business ecosystem lessens the impact on our environment.  Once we do that we are able to then re-think how we do business as a whole and hopefully design systems which actually provide positive effects on our environment. 

We're taking small steps here at Common Soles.  Leveraging online file-sharing tools instead of shipping samples and materials back and forth across the globe, and removing unnecessary packaging elements from our product.

So thank you Nike.  We don't consider you a competitor, rather, a partner in footwear innovation.  This is fun...

-Dave