The challenges of outsourcing of activities coupled with technological advances diminishing the need for manual and white collar staff, will inadvertently create a society that wonders what will be the role that they can play in the post manufacturing and post service world.

Offering their expertise, experience and knowledge to industry via consultancy services may be an option for some.

Complementing this with undertaking voluntary work and engaging with the community through provision of services that they are very capable of offering offers a sense of community purpose, engagement and fulfilment.

Councils should work closely with small business incubator entrepreneurs to enable networking opportunities to bring together those who need the services (small to medium size enterprises, not for profit organisations, etc) and the entrepreneurs with the appropriate expertise.

Small business incubator entrepreneurs will have to learn to embrace social media and new marketing methodologies to complement the face to face and word of mouth promotion efforts.

Social media allows for small enterprises to gain a wider audience than was ever possible under hitherto marketing, advertising and promotions and publicity campaigns.

The costs of marketing via social media are a fraction of marketing budgets that were needed previously.

It is a brave new world, but an exciting one.