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May 13, 2006
Friedman - The World Is Flat
The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas L. Friedman c 2005, 2006 Farrar, Straus and Giroux / New York 593 pages
Friedman is a journalist; he expresses ideas in catchy, understandable ways and uses lots of real world examples. "Flatness" is his way of saying the whole world is enormously intereconnected without regard to hierarchy, distance, size of organization, status of individuals, even language. He describes ten "flatteners" which taken together mean the world is very different than even a generation ago.
Flattener #1 The end of the Cold War broke down barriers between people. To catch your attention he identifies this flatener with 11/9. November 9, 1989 is when the Berlin Wall fell. He contrasts it with 9/11 which is journalistically neat but not terribly pertinent.
But Friedman doesn't stop with an political-historical event. About the same time (the 1980s), Apple and Microsoft were making personal computers available to the world. Not only did the Berlin wall fall but Microsoft Windows opened [cute]. Part of flattener #1 is the personal computer, the ability of individuals to put their thoughts in digital form.
Flattener #2 The internet, the world wide web. Friedman tags this with 8/9/95, the date Netscape went public with first internet browser available to the public at large. Now people could access information from all over the world.
Flattener #3 "Work flow software." Many software developments, standards and protocols enable computers and other digital devices to interact over the internet so that work and other projects can be done by people all over the globe.
At this point Friedman pauses for the observation that, with these three flatteners, a platform is emerging for people to share digital content very inexpensively all over the world, a platform for collaboration in countless ways. Thus in the mid to late 1990s the world changed. The remaining flatteners expand on this opportunity for collaboration, "steadily flattening the world even more."
Flattener #4 "Uploading" This is Friedman's word for people creating content, contributing to the internet. My blog is a tiny example. There are many more. Perhaps the most significant is the development of open source software. Hierarchy and organization are not required; quality content and work product can come from anywhere.
Flattener #5 Outsourcing. Friedman recounts the story of Jack Welch at GE forcing his IT people to contract out some of their work to Indian vendors, starting a tidal wave of change.
Flattener #6 Offshoring. With instant, virtually cost free global transmissioin of data and communication, companies can identify each step in their value chain and put each component in the location where it is most productive.
Flattener #7 "Supply-Chaining" The rapid, accurate global movement of components and finished goods is now possible on an unimaginable scale. Freidman describes a Wal-Mart distribution center.
Flattener #8 "Insourcing" This was new to me. If a company has an extraordinary skill, it may market that skill as a service even though the company appears to be getting into something totally unrelated to their basic business.
UPS, the package delivery company, has a major hub at Louisville Airport. Toshiba had a problem; turn around time on the repair of laptop computers took too long and there were a lot of unhappy customers. They talked to UPS but instead of finding some way to make movement of items to be repaired faster, UPS now operates a Toshiba repair shop in Louisville. Computers are returned to the customer in 3 days. UPS is also managing Papa John's pizza delivery as well as their supply logistics. UPS is good at scheduling, delivering and keeping track of stuff. They sell that skill.
Flattener #9 "In-Forming" Friedman describes this as "the individual's personal analog to uploading, outsourcing, insourcing, supply-chainging and offshoring... the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain - a supply chain of information, knowledge and entertainment."
Flattener #10 "The Steroids" All sorts of things are happening to magnify the previous nine flatteners. Examples are the continued effects of Moore's Law, wi-fi, instant messaging, file sharing, P2P, VoIP, videoconferencing...
This discussion of flatteners takes 150 pages. Friedman is wordy, but he includes a lot of examples to make it interesting. Next he talks about "the triple convergence" which brings home how these ten flatteners are changing / will change the world.
His first point is the sum is more than the parts. Each development has value in itself but it is much more valuable when combined with the others. A PC is great, but coupled with the internet... The ten flatteners taken together constitute a quantum leap; they "created a whole new platform. It is a global Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration..." Although he is cautious about proclaiming a whole new world, the end of history or other hyperbole, something enormously new and significant has occurred.
The second convergence addresses the fact that the world today looks much the same as the world yesterday. With any major technological advance there is a lag between invention and major impact because organizations, processes and facilities have to be redesigned around the new capability. Friedman gives various examples starting with light bulbs and electric motors. Each in their own way changed society but there was a lag. So don't assume nothing major has occurred.
The third convergence is, this whole thing is global. He talks of "new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration - that I believe is the most potent force... The scale of the global community that is soon going to be able to participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation is something the world has simply never seen before."
He gives a host of examples of international developments. And we're just at the beginning.
In the 1990s there were a number of books attempting to predict the shape of the post-Cold War world. Paul M. Kennedy wrote The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers which in essence said, this too shall pass. The US was a superpower but like many superpowers before, it will lose its position due to financial and geographic over extension, internal weariness, coalescing opposition and changing circumstances. Francis Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man) proclaimed that free markets and liberal democracy had triumphed and many nations would model themselves on those principles. Samuel P. Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order) talked of major, multi-national cultural groups competing with one another, e.g. Islam versus liberal, democratic western nations.
All these insights had value but Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree was perhaps the most useful perspective. It described the power and force for change of the developing global economy, but also described the deep rooted emotional reaction and opposition to change. Friedman is a superb observer, able to connect the dots and discern major patterns. The Earth is Flat is definitely worth reading.
Posted by rob at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)