Michele Skupic has been around the title insurance business long enough to recognize a turning tide.

Ben Ilfeld thinks a down economy coupled with a decline in print advertising is just what the doctor ordered. He and four other co-founders used the scenario to launch the Sacramento Press online in late 2008.

Bringing in new owners and managers can disrupt a small business even under the best of circumstances. When death forces those changes on a business with little or no warning, the stress multiplies exponentially.

The market for social gaming in America will reach an estimated $1.25 billion in 2011, and social gaming startups — which didn’t exist three years ago — will account for about $835 million of that total, according to Inside Network Inc., a data collection firm that monitors Facebook, apps and the gaming industry. Sacramento’s own KlickNation Corp., a Facebook-game developer staffed by gaming addicts, techies and three former Marvel Comics artists, is one such small firm with big aspirations.

Buy enough businesses and eventually you learn what to expect from the process.

Consider the annual physical and why both doctors and America’s work force find them frustrating: The worker has to carve out time to take all the exams and tests, often in different locations and on different days, and doctors lament the lack of time to discuss the results with patients.

Economically, 2011 may go down as a year with a split personality. Sacramento is looking at a much different year than most of the country. Small businesses face a more divergent climate than large companies. Even among small businesses, many have more confidence in their own prospects than in the economy as a whole.

In a year of job loss and company closures, Scott Blevins’ freight business is expanding, hiring and hauling in the cash.

The past couple years have been brutal on workers: furloughs, salary freezes, layoffs and budget cuts. It’s enough to give the most loyal employee a case of the business blahs and a sense of restlessness as the recession lifts.

Let the economists make all the predictions they like about 2011. It’s the businesses of California that have their budgets on the line.