Advertising too is likely to start relying more and more on freelance talent to be assembled for creative projects ad-hoc.

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While Jackson and his successors framed economic policy as a matter of limited-government principle, Howe argues that the practical difference was that the Whigs sought to create a coherent national transportation system, while Jackson preferred to dole out projects on an ad-hoc basis to individual states.

FORBES: Is the GOP the Party of Andrew Jackson?

Meanwhile, three-year-old Code For America, a nonprofit that recruits experienced coders nationally for projects like building databases for local governments, has expanded its annual fellowship program from three to nine projects and last year launched a broad "brigade" of volunteer techies to work on ad hoc civic programs.

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