So I really want to do my own thing, and I'm intrigued with the idea of being a "free agent" just the title sounds positively liberating. But what does it actually mean?

Carol Leonetti Danhauser, a home-based trend-spotter from Fairfield, Connecticut, asked four major futurists to share their best guesses for how individuals could design new businesses that would be based on real needs. Here are 20 that they came up with for Danhauser's article, "What Will You Be Doing Tomorrow?"

1. Tech Support: Companies are outsourcing it more and more.
2. Chat Moderator: It's a great way to capitalize on party-facilitating skills.
3. Online Editor: Somebody has to watch out for quality control on the Web.
4. Online Customer Sales and Service: Only good service will keep people from going to the next online vendor.
5. Translator: You can't sell to people you can't talk to.
6. Personal Information Retrieval: Helping people ferret out what they really need from the mass of information on the Web and other places.
7. Alternative Health Centers: They're going to get more systematized.
8. Adolescent Centers: Parents really need someplace to park their kids.
9. Individuality Consultant: Help folks purchase the items and experiences that really express who they are.
10. Investment Guidance Service: Boomers want to do it themselves -- with a little help from somebody who knows more than they do.
11. Alternative Education: Keep Gen Xers and others learning all their lives.
12. Unique Arts Purveyor: Help people find one-of-a-kind, way-out artistic pieces.
13. Cybertainment: Keep those Gen Xers coming back.
14. Personal Quest Consultant: Help with soul journeys.
15. Pleasure Provisions Purveyor: Find great stuff to help your clients intensify their lives.
16. Personal Transportation Company: Get kids, parents and others where they need to go.
17. Personal Travel Agent: Anticipate the needs of busy people with hankerings for the exotic, the spiritual or whatever.
18. Home Healthcare: The need is desperate and is not going away anytime soon, as we age and create the greatest kid boomlet we've ever seen.
19. Home/Personal Security: How many shootings and bombings do you have to witness on TV before this seems like a worthwhile expense?
20. Personal Assistant Plus: It's better than a wife; and everybody wants one!