Big companies were once small, and small companies want to be big. Hence the advice from big company IT experts will help small companies. At least that's the idea behind the story “Big IT to small biz: Listen up, little dudes!” from ComputerWorld. I had no idea Big IT ever said “dudes,” much less with an exclamation point, but there it is in the headline.

Of course, Big IT grew in a different era, so one can't assume what worked for the now-big companies will automatically work for you. That's one of the points in my column “Non-IT ideas good for small businesses.” Some commentators believe the mistakes of Big IT should not be continued.

So where does that leave the “little dudes” on the receiving end of all this advice? There's plenty of good advice in the story, but the unstated assumption is that Big IT is the reason big companies got big. It could be successful big companies grew on other strengths than IT, such as products, delivery, and service. IT helps, but isn't the reason for buying.

Ask yourself this question: have you ever bought from a company because they had a great IT infrastructure? Probably not. But you have bought from companies that used technology to put the product or service you want easily at hand when you were ready to purchase. That's the advice Big IT should give the little dudes.