Joy Faerber's Summary please comment
In his 2005 article entitled, “It’s a Flat World, After All,” Thomas Friedman shows us how technology today is literally changing our lives. Technological progression has reshaped the way every human on earth does business, communicates, works and even plays. We are operating in a global economy, and it even affects people that have never touched a computer or cell phone.
Globalization has been evolving since Columbus sailed in 1492; first through countries searching for resources and imperial conquest, then through companies looking globally for markets and labor. Since the year 2000, globalization has evolved by individuals being empowered through technology. We now see groups of very diverse individuals pooling their knowledge and skills, which will bring us amazing new innovations worldwide. What caused this change in global society? It was the result of ten events that all came together around the year 2000. We call these events “flatteners,” due to the fact that in a sense, they flattened the world. The ten events were:
1. Fall of the Berlin Wall – allowed us the think of the world as one whole world.
2. Netscape browser – brought the internet to individuals and triggered the dot-com boom. India benefited more from the connectivity that Netscape afforded, than any other country.
3. Workflow – software applications, standards and electronic transmission pathways.
4. Outsourcing – jobs were sent to other countries.
5. Off-shoring – entire companies built plants in other countries.
6. Open-sourcing – collaborating together on software development and usage for free.
7. Insourcing – hiring outside companies to handle certain core logistics for a business.
8. Supply-chaining – create a supply chain down to the last widget, from manufacturing to retailing.
9. Informing – allows anyone to collaborate with, and mine, unlimited data.
10. Steroids – a funky name given wireless access and VoIP; such as PDA’s and smart phones.
This “flattening” of the world is causing business strategies to be created more and more through collaboration within companies, between companies, and with individuals, rather than by bloated administration of big businesses. Thomas Friedman says, “It is this convergence of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes for horizontal collaboration that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early 21st century.”
What stands out in this article for me is the point Friedman makes about America falling behind other countries, such as China and India among others, in technological innovations. America has been the leader in innovation over the last century, and perhaps that has made us too comfortable. People in countries like China have nothing to lose, so they are eager to leap right into new technologies, and work hard to create new innovations. We have to realize that if we don’t embrace new innovations, and prepare our children – the next generation of U.S. citizens – to create and produce new technologies and ideas, they will not enjoy the same benefits and living standards that we have had for so many years in this country. Friedman refers to this as a “quiet crisis that is slowly eating away at America’s scientific and engineering base.” Let’s not let that happen!
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18 comments:
Joaquin Chapar- I think that the author of the article makes a lot of points, but there are also others to make. For example the wolrlds minorities which are majorities really [asian,black,latino,pacific islander etc.], have been working since the beggining of time, not just as the world is flattening. Just as these majorities have replaced the labor jobs, they will also replace the intellectual jobmarket. Today the european has the good jobs because of the long centuries others have been doing work. With this age in where computers arebecoming cheaper and the world is more connected, people are finding out about the world. This is specially true for unitedstadians [people from EEUU] that have now beggining to get out and see that the world does not wait and will not wait for innovation.
I thought it was very interesting when Rao said if there is a skilled person in Tumbuktu he will find work. With the advancement of technology essentially making the world flat, a good location is not essential to succeed anymore. Now anyone can gain access to the knowledge only privileged people were once able to receive and succeed in the comfort of their own home.
Darcy Crowell
The three gaps plaguing American Society caught my attention at the end of the article. I think that these assumptions are typical stereotypes of Americans. First, "ambition gap" is comparing "energetic Indians and Chinese" to Americans saying we have gotten too lazy. I feel like the typical Chinese/Indian household holds a great deal of responsibility and expectation over their children's head making sure there are no mistakes, unlike the typical American household, we are more understanding of error and finding out what it is that we really want to do. I feel like Americans are more flexible, all about choice, not necessarily lazy. I have made a few mistakes in my time but that doesn't mean that I do not want to be apart of the growing industry and go beyond all expectations to succeed. Not every American needs to be an engineer, there are other professions that we need to keep our economy functional. If someone is perfectly happy teaching 3rd grade math they shouldn't be judged because they don't have a masters in engineering and making millions of dollars...
On the down side, it is hard to read the face that U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations and businesses are finding better skilled, productive people other than American workers (quoted from article). Is that our fault, or our education plan?
Fahad Algahtani.
I think that the writer addressed an accurate description of the innovation race between The US in one side, and India and China on the other. And I believe that the innovation leadership is being transfered in favor of India and China, and this is clearly noticeable these days. For example, engineering and scince departments in many universities here in the US have a decent percentage of Indians and Chinese, and I think that there is a very large probability that you will see an Indian person when you enter a computer engineering or scince department.
Brett Peterson-
The part of the article that caught my eye was about China becoming a leader in engineering and technology. China is on an upswing, but their system is flawed. America will continue to be a dominant country because capitalism is much more efficient.
Chantelle Venezuela - What I noticed when reading this article is the chain reaction in technological innovation. For example, the reason why China is ahead in innovation compared to America is because of the willingness to explore new technology and to be consistent in trial and error in their explorations. The chain reaction lies with the next genrations to come. Children building on top of old ideas and having the strong interest and eagerness to find new ways to make old ideas better.
Sara Supple-Having previously read a similar article by Friedman about the 10 Flatteners and how it coincided with business operations currently taking place, I found how he related this article to the future and the next generations to be particularly interesting. The part of the article that really caught my attention was at the very end when Friedman discussed the implications of America falling behind. Not only were the ideas of the "gaps" brought forth by Shirley Jackson (ambition gap, numbers gap, and education gap), but Dinakar Singh, an Indian-American hedge-fund manager, was quoted: "For a country as wealthy as we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness." That goes right along with what people have been saying about the education system of today- the average high school graduate is far below levels of students from other countries, and most won't even enroll in college. More then anything I think that coincides with what Jackson was saying about the "ambition gap"-Americans have simply gotten lazy. This shouldn't be completely blamed on today's younger generations, but also on the parents who instead of urging their children to do well in school and go to college, are happy when they merely graduate and spend the rest of their days earning minimum wage. Science and engineering is not where our only focus should be, but more energy should be put into placing students, men and women, into that field. Our society really needs to come together and realize that if we want our country to remain as one of the wealthiest in the world, we can no longer rely on other people to get the job done.
Max Schoenrock- I thought this article was pretty interesting. I can definitely see how the playing field is getting very competitive now days. Everyone has access to the internet now and it is only going to get more innovated. I agree with the author for the most part but when he talks about how countries like China, India, and so forth will surpass us, i have to disagree. Even though these countries have more college grads than the U.S. we still have one of the largest markets and our technology is superior. It is also a lot more expensive to go to college here in America than it is on other countries. You would see the numbers increase dramatically if college were cheaper.
Craig Sugiyama- This article has helped me come to a realization that I have never thought about before. With technological advances becoming easier for other countries to obtain, the world has become flatter in the sense that communication has become easier. In the article there were 3 "platforms" and 6 more innovations that they list and describe to show what specific things caused and what came out of the flattening. The second half of the article that the author talks about is the fact that we are now facing a very competitive market. He says that we as americans have become too lazy and are not working to our full potential because we are used to being at the top. We are in need or more engineers and scientists and many have speculated that it is our high schools that are needing the motivation. This article has helped me come to realize that I may be fighting for a job here with individuals all around the world
Robert Clausen
I was surprised to read that other nations were catching up to America so rapidly. I was aware these things were happening but not at such a high rate. This article is also three years old so the world is most likely even flatter now than described by the author.
I really enjoyed this article. It points out how easy it can be to reach someone that is so far away. Technology has made the world a much smaller place than it was just 20 years ago. Through Xbox Live, a global gaming network by Microsoft I play video games wiht people in Europe all the time. Its just another way that the world is being flattened. Individuals have global contacts, showing how Globalization 3.0 is just begginning.
Bryan Adams . it is apparent that competition is extending beyond my surroudings. The workforce is expanding by 3 billion and huge amounts of knowlege. I have noticed global trends in economy, and investments in other nations. yet, it is good to understand how globalazation will influence me localy. Since the .com bust was 'just the begginig' of relevant business and technology platforms.... maybe the world is flat for now but will get very round once people ( The US?) falls behind.
This was a very interesting article. I like the term "Quiet Crisis" that was used. It seems to me that people misunderstand a lot of what is going on with outsourcing. Like was mentioned in the article. It's not about finding the cheapest labor it's about find thing the best labor. While America used to be the leader in this area man other countries are catching up. I think in many ways the flatting of the world is a very good thing.We are being put under pressure to improve our education system, without improvements the education gap will increase. I argue that this is just what we need. A little more motivation to achieve. Also I think the flattening of the world is bound to help global politics. If countries are more reliant on each other for their economies it will make foreign relations much more important.
Kim McNeely-The World is Flat article describes how over time, the world has become smaller and smaller as we become more advanced. An individual can now communicate with anyone all over the world from any location. All these new technologies have made it so nations such as China and India have advanced so much that they are now ahead of America. Americans will have to work even harder now to find a job because there are billions of people out there with the same education or better. Although I think these new advances are a good thing, I feel like it causes a lot of stress to people having to worry about maybe not being able to find a job.
I also could feel that world is becoming flat by increasing another countries netizen. Especially China. Actually China's development is amazing. As China's no.of blogger users is third in the world. Compare to just last or two years they are growing alot. And not only China, but also other countries too. And the growing speed is really fast. I think we can't not expect future easily. Like Y2k, it was thought as the most serious problem at that time but it was not. And the growing speed of IT in the world is also hard to expect. World is changing so fast.
I enjoyed this article. It is interesting how the world is becoming flatter and flatter.
I especially like the ideas about the 24/7 work day. A team in US sends its material to a team in Japan --> India --> Russia --> UK and back to the US. This allows us to work on things, espcially science and building knowledge at a rapid rate.
One thing I liked about this article is that I felt it simplified the material present while using very modern examples to compare business platforms, models, etc. Good compliment article to our Blog & RSS assignment.
But at best I think the article mostly brought the everday consumer up to date w/ what has worked for online applications/businesses. I think most of us know that we can easily connect to friends in Europe, outsource work to China or India, and take advantage of free source software; yes the world is more connected than ever. I believe that the Innovations article had more insight to offer.
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