Needless to say, we are definitely in a time of crisis.
People spend less, VCs spend less, and thus small businesses are feeling the pinch
Small businesses are our clients and prospective clients. In case the worst happens, what should a service, people-intensive business like us anticipate? It’s easy. We can simply fire our idle employees and the bulk of our costs are gone.
Just kidding 
That’s not what we do. First, we dont treat our employees as ‘cost’. They are assets.
Second, I believe it’s gonna be a clear day after the storm, sooner or later.
So for example, for an IT consultancy business like us, it’s better to:
- equip the idle guys with the technologies that they havent had experience with before, yet in high demand (like rspec)
- or equip them with the technologies that is interesting to know, like ExtJS
- or have them build reusable application components (like login and registration code), to be used on new projects
- or have them write new plugins to contribute to the Rails community, and also to make a name (I’ve already thought about some useful plugins to write)
- or have them help build / upgrade internal company apps, like knowledge management or HR management systems or the company website or a demo site
- or promote them to management positions, so as to create a stronger company foundation that’s ready for 2009
Well, it’s like benefiting from the difficult times