Starting today, I begin a “news fast”. I am over the news. All I hear is bad news! More layoffs. Markets falling. The prognosticators say this is “the worst economic crisis since the Depression.” I don’t remember the Great Depression but I have lived through a few recessions, gained and lost in the markets, and have experienced great hardship with few prospects.

Sure, I have seen decline in business. Yes, budgets are tight. But, there has never been a better time to be a small business owner. In my memory, there has yet to be a time when the cost of entry into entrepreneurship was less. Global commerce has never been more attainable for the small business. Technology enablers have chipped away at the obstacles and hurdles for entering new markets to the point where the walls have fallen almost completely. Access to labor at staggeringly low prices is accomplished at the click of a mouse. The small office/home office is poised to receive the greatest benefits of this current technological wave of innovation.

We have been through times like these before. As before, lack of capital did not lead to a shortage of great ideas. Restrictions led to ingenuity and new methods of productivity. Simplify, skimp, cut back, clean up, organize, re-focus, plan, and evaluate the ROI of old methods. If “necessity is the mother of invention”, I sense a time of great innovation is upon us.