OK, so London is gradually returning to normal after the latest tube strike and attention returns back to the economic situation and the global recession which is now hanging heavy over our heads.

It got me thinking about the small businesses out there that actually drive our economy back to normal.

Without wanting to get too positive (or be too simplistic), small businesses and start ups are critical to recovery, I was reading a good piece about top 10 trends for small businesses in 2009.

Points 1-7 are incredibly interesting, innovation being key (keeping costs low and revenues high, improving customer relationships along the way) and governments providing opportunities for small businesses to aid economic recovery.

But what really grabbed me were the technological points 8-10, of which Glasscubes clearly falls into.

During the last recession, mobile working and cloud computing were terms which weren’t even in existence. The (alleged) millionth word in the English language was still waiting for Web 1.0. While if you wanted to work remotely, significant investment was required.
Mobile broadband is now so commonplace, collaboration and document management tools make working together so simple. The lack of investment required to make remote working possible naturally means that fixed costs can be reduced.

Combine that with the opportunities online marketing provides and the reach that social media technologies, such as Twitter, deliver and the outlook is undoubtedly positive.

In fact, it could be argued that there has never been a better time to have a recession. The opportunity for applying cost effective innovation to working practices is as open to the small business as it is to the enterprise (while the small business can adapt to economic changes much more quickly) putting them in prime position to reap the rewards.