It seems like every article, blog, lecture, or memo now starts out with the words, “In these economic times,” and then goes on to explain what should be done. In fact, I am sure we could find many articles starting out with some slight variation of this premise reading back a few days in this website. While many of the business practices and choices currently being made are a direct result of the poor performance of the economy in general, from a management consulting standpoint, there is nothing like necessity to make people actually take notice of good ideas. I would surmise that if you are using the current market conditions to employ a sound business decision, you are probably well behind the curve. A good idea today was probably a good idea 2 or 3 years ago in the days of double digit growth.