The almighty and powerful . . .

Just yesterday in my tweet stream I came across a blog post by Thomas Frey, Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, and Google's top rated futurist speaker, entitled Shifting Trends and the World Ahead. It was written in December of 2008 and spoke about fourteen trends to look for in 2009 and beyond. Now personally I'm not a big fan of futurists but at a minimum many of them provide interesting conversation topics worth discussing, debating, and maybe even debunking.

As we look at how technology has begun to slowly change the power of the market into the hands of the individual consumer, Thomas' third trend definitely caught my eye. . . 

The Coming “Empire of One.” As a general rule, 7 percent of the recently jobless will attempt to start their own businesses. While those who create our next breakaway success story will be but a tiny fraction of this phenomenon, we will see a strong entrepreneurial push and a realignment of the systems supporting entrepreneurs.

With financial markets being pinched, the most popular form of startup will be the Empire of One, one-person businesses with far reaching influence. Technology is driving a trend of placing unprecedented power and capability into the hands of the individual. That trend coupled with sky-rocketing costs of employment make this a perfect environment for a no-employee business to thrive.

Look for rapid growth of support structures, management systems, and outsourcing options. Even colleges and traditional business schools will see this emerging trend and start to teach courses on one-person entrepreneurship.

Now, from my perspective the question isn't will this trend happen, or how long will it continue for (it is here to and changing the landscape as we speak), it is how profound of an impact will it make?

Only time will tell.