Large organizations, large companies, large numbers of people.

Generally speaking, lawmakers tend to seek information on the issues from outfits that often have little in common with each other except their size: BIG. They do that because these sorts of outfits speak for or deal with large numbers of people.

Volume. That's what they care about on Capitol Hill.

There's a reason for that. In the absence of relevant research, representatives of Americans in bulk can presumably offer information about how most of the group is doing, whereas an individual can only tell you about themselves and, perhaps, the folks in their personal networks.

But, as you have probably guessed by now, there are a couple of problems with this modus operandi.

For starters, the members of those organizations are self-selecting, which means they may or may not accurately speak for the entire universe of whatever group we're talking about. Then, too, large organizations often don't know what's really going on with their members or customers.

Even when they conduct member or customer surveys to address the above Point Number Two, what they learn will be limited because of the above Point Number One.

Bottom line: the larger your organization is, the more distance there is between you and the people who belong to your group — whether they are members or customers.

Conversely, the smaller the firm, the closer the relationship between the business owner and their customers will tend to be. Meaning that, when lawmakers talk to small business owners, they can learn quite a lot — not only about them but also about their peers and their customers.

There are exciting new realms of reality to be explored by members of Congress, if only they would put themselves to the trouble to flesh out the information they receive from the big boys. We saw that, vividly, in both congressional hearings covered in this week's MicroEnterprise Journal.

Yes, quantity is important. Those who craft public policy need to know that the problem their constituent complained about is effecting more than five people.

But policy makers also need to know the nature of the problem, how it impacts that more-than-five people, and how they are dealing with it.

Quality is important, too.