When it comes to choosing a brand identity (logo), you may find that your choices are limited by the imagination of the agency or graphic designer you have hired. On the web, however, it’s the land of plenty.

Try 99designs, a service that provides a quick and cost-effective way to sample many, many creative options and directions, before you commit to one. Say you need a new logo. You can use this site to launch a contest with your design requirements, set a prize amount, and sit back and watch the submissions pour in. Once you choose your winner and payment is complete, you own all the rights to the design. In other words, if you like the winning concept, but don’t want to commit to the design, it is yours to develop further.

99designs charges $39 to host the contest and sets reasonable guidelines for prize amounts (e.g. $100 for a logo, $200 for a webpage with html code). Contest holders are required to leave feedback on designs, a practice that helps participants gauge their skills and encourages them to submit more frequently.

Whether your looking for options or an inspiration, 99designs connects you to a community of designers and offers an affordable option for your a-la-carte creative needs.

The struggle to collaborate continues. You want to create a place to share, but you don’t want to sacrifice control. How do you open up the potential for sharing, without letting the inmates run the asylum?

Now you have another option with Google Sites. This offering is the newest element of functionality from the online office toolset called Google Apps (that we mentioned in Close the loop). This application makes it easy to create a shared website, so you can provide people with up-to-date access to information. You can invite team members to add file attachments, incorporate information from other Google applications (documents, calendar, videos, images) and also create new content. What’s really different here is that this tool puts basic site development into the hands of just about anyone. if you can manage MS Word or MS Powerpoint, then you can use this tool to create sites and then publish them either to your intranet or to the web.

You should be happy to hear that usage options range from free to $50 / year, depending on your level in Google Apps. If you’re looking to create a small site for your team that you want to let everyone use and edit – here’s an interesting option.

We wrote about the power of collaborating on the creation of a document using wikis in The dyslexic New Zealander. But these days, text and images can only get you so far.

Try the video enabled collaboration tool Kaltura to take wiki-like collaboration to the next level. While you can follow the details in this tour, all you need to do is really set up the specific page (where your shared video will reside), invite your fellow collaborators, and then upload photos, videos, and audio files. Once you have files that have been uploaded (by you or anyone in your group), you can then go to work creating and editing your final video. You can drag and drop videos and images along a time-line, in much the same way that professional video editing is done. Just as with a text-based wiki, your fellow collaborators can edit with you.

At your next big PR event, why not ask your team, interns, or just about anybody to collaborate on a summary that incorporates video and audio highlights from a group perspective? Sometimes fast and authentic is much more powerful than slick and professional.

Marketing is rarely a large department in any company – if it exists at all. Given that, how can you find a kindred spirit or maybe find someone who has been around the block a few times?

Check out Meetup as a way to build your personal marketing (or any other kind of) network. Meetup is simply a way to meet real people. Live. In person. You know the way it had to be before the web was around. It’s a simple and easy to use way to find people who live in your neighborhood who might be interested in the same things you are. All you need to do is sign up and join a Meetup group (as they call it). This group will actually have meetings where real, live, breathing people will get together and talk about stuff.

Also, many of these groups will sponsor featured speakers on an endless variety of topics. If you’re looking for a way to help your marketers develop by cross-pollinating with others, here’s the easiest and cheapest way to make that happen.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you know that there are low cost service providers offshore. However, while the price may be right, can you really rely on someone you’ve never met, thousands of miles away?

Odesk may be able to put your mind at ease. The online service connects you with web developers and designers across the globe. Here’s how it works. Create a profile, and then create a project description. Then you can either bid out your project or peruse the database for workers based on their abilities, work history, or prior client feedback (similar to the reviews on eBay). The system mediates the entire process, letting you engage and interact with qualified applicants / partners before you pull the trigger.

You can outsource the nuts and bolts of an entire project or complement your existing workforce with specialized talent on a project basis. What are you waiting for? Try it this year.