It is no secret that many countries in the world are currently dealing with some difficult economic times. Up until recently the whole "economic crisis" was limited to the financial/investment market, but the technology sector has started to take a hit as well.
Companies such as Comcast, Yahoo! and HP have all had a large number of layoffs as an attempt to reduce their budget and save some money (list of tech layoffs). Just this week, Circuit city announced that it will be closing about 155 stores nation wide because they are loosing too much money. Some people feel that the Circuit City disaster was just a matter of time since on-line retailers with no physical store are a lot more popular in this day and age, but there is not doubt that the economy helped accelerate this process.
Many people in the tech area are worried, not only about their jobs but about technology in general. With companies trying to cut corners all over, will they stop investing in Research and Development (R&D) of new technologies? But as a Computer Science student in my last year of University, I am not too concerned about this.
Why you may ask? Because in times of 'crisis' brilliant people tend to shine. My favorite example is digg. We all know that it's a community-based news aggregator, but what many don't know is that Kevin Rose would have never started this idea if he had not been laid off from TechTV. Because of his layoff, Kevin had the time (and probably the need) to invest in his own side projects which a day job does not leave time for. Kevin has now made over $60 million dollars (since 2004) with what once was a 'side project'.
So don't worry about the future of technology in these seemingly rough times. My best advice to anyone who has found them self caught in the turmoil to use this time to explore their innovative side and take on those projects that you 'never had time for'.
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