Stable open-source infrastructure coupled with “virtualization” means startup costs and support costs go down.

Example: Instead of a Windows NT product hosted on our servers at Rackspace, we started with a Virtual Private Server on an open-source LAMP stack at a professional hoster.

• Cost savings: $25,000
• Extra benefit: Not having to worry about servers and databases.

The availability of images and graphics under Creative Commons and easy to procure stock licenses through sites like FlickrPro (www.flickr.com), iStock (www.istockphoto.com), and Getty Images (www.gettyimages.com) means we can turn our marketing into highly professional work in a matter of minutes. Professional-quality tools embedded into the Mac means we can create multimedia this way too.

Example: Instead of paying a photographer to create custom marketing-communications images, we started with stock work, cropped and colored it in an interesting way, and were good to go.

• Cost savings: $10,000
• Extra benefit: Faster time to market.

Trend 2: Access to a Global, Distributed, Specialized Workforce

We get a lot of things done faster, on a global time clock, with good quality and at a low cost—direct access to by-the-hour specialists in any field.

Through global talent marketplaces—sites like Odesk (www.odesk.com) and Mechanical Turk (www.mturk.com)—we get instant access to contract and project talent, with ratings and safety protections, in moments.

Example: We hired specialists to work on Search Engine Optimization, or building contact lists, or identifying competitors, in small chunks of time (5 to 20 hours), with very little administrative overhead.

• Cost savings: $45,000
• Extra benefit: Broader breadth of skills.

Online collaboration tools such as drop.io (www.drop.io), Google docs (www.google.com), or project management applications like Intervals (www.intervals.com) make it easy to do work with distributed teams, and mobile devices keep people connected anywhere.

• Cost savings (in office rent and infrastructure): $24,000.
• Extra benefit: These technologies allow us to leverage and support people who are only able to be partially in the traditional workforce, even though they have great talents to share, and to structure our own lives more flexibly.

Trend 3: Social Networks

Through social media, we can reach our natural audience in minutes at a cost much lower than traditional advertising, email marketing, or keyword buys.

While word of mouth has always been present, social media has created a Technology-Enhanced Network Effect. The emergence of Facebook (www.facebook.com), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), Twitter (www.twitter.com), and Ning (www.ning.com) specialty sites as consolidated dominant networks, and their adoption by adults, has changed the world. This time around, we have instant access to a global pool of self-nominating, highly connected interest groups—at no cost other than the labor.

• Cost savings: $60,000 in keyword marketing.
• Extra benefit: We’re having a conversation with our audience, not talking at them and trying to persuade them.