Take any communications class (or major in advertising like I did) and you will invariably research the importance of the Industrial Revolution in the history of the industry. Innovations like the printing press, the telephone and the personal computer have been catalysts for speeding up communication between multiple parties. The internet has quickly become one of these innovations and has, to a certain extent, even rendered some of the tools of yore obsolete (newspapers, I’m looking at you).

Nowadays, the PC and the internet combine to change the way lots of things are done, but the change I get most excited about is the democratization of virtually everything with these tools. Armed with a computer and a connection to the web, anyone can be a film producer, a musician, an artist or a journalist (don’t worry, the irony of this article isn’t lost on me).

Last night, I really felt this change within the work that I do as a designer. While settling on the branding for Michelle Greer’s latest entrepreneurial project, I decided to use Mac OS X Leopard’s screen sharing function for the first time in iChat. To break it down, using this feature, I could turn my computer into Michelle’s and she could watch what was going on from her end; we communicated via iChat’s voice chat, which was turned on automatically for our convenience.

Within a half hour of “using” her computer and mine, we had typography and a color palette chosen and collaborated on a business card that I layed out and she could instantly give me feedback on. There was no need for ping-ponging emails back and forth or me drawing up screenshots from PSDs to JPEGs (which believe it or not, can be a grueling process). It was fast, efficient and fun.

The internet has made so many changes in the way people’s lives function and I’m continually finding ways to integrate some of these tools into the way I work. I just finished a meeting with a client and instantly shared a creative brief in Google Docs; I use GrandCentral to manage my phone calls from potential clients; Basecamp is my project manager; Twitter is my watercooler.

What tools do you find invaluable to the way you work? What magical application do you wish existed for your industry to make your job way easier? Do you think that these tools are only beneficial to those that are technologically inclined or do you think anyone can find value in them? Let me know!