TechBookSummary

The World Is Flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century By Thomas L. Friedman

The World Is Flat is a book about what is happening in technology globally in the 21st. century. The main concept of the book is that the world is flat just like people thought several hundred years ago, but rather then the actual shape of the planet earth being flat, the book refers to how global economies compete on an equal playing field. The book is broken into 5 main areas with individual chapters in each area. The book starts out with the author playing a round of golf. His partner tells him to “Aim at either Microsoft or IBM”. (Friedman, 2006) He notices American businesses all around the golf course. From his standpoint he can see a Pizza Hut billboard, along with signs from Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Texas Instruments. Yet he is half way around the world in Bangalore, India. This is a “Tech” capital of India. If you call many 800 numbers there is a good chance your call goes here. When you visit an Emergency Room late in the evening there is a good chance your x-rays are sent here electronically. Also when you bring your taxes to many of the larger tax offices, your files are sent here to be completed. All this happens electronically and the whole exchange takes several minutes and you have an answer. The author started here to demonstrate the main idea of the book. The world is flat because we are all on an equal playing field. In the early 1990’s when the Berlin wall came down it was not just Germany that benefited, but the whole world. The author states that it was more then just a wall, but a whole idea of a global economy that was plowed open. After demonstrating the changes that are happening the author goes on to describe 10 “Flatteners” that have made the global economy we know today happen. Flattener #1 is what we just heard about, the Berlin Wall. The next flattener described was the opening of the World Wide Web, specifically the release of Netscape on 8/9/95. We then go to Flattener #3 Work flow software, #4 Uploading, #5 Outsourcing, #6 offshoring, #7 supply chaining, #8 insourcing, #9 in-forming, and finally #10 the steroids. The final flattener, “the steroids” are the new wireless capabilities, wireless gadgets, and all things that go along with working, surfing the internet, and sending information wirelessly. Friedman states “I call certain new technologies the steroids because they are amplifying and turbo charging all the other flatteners.” (Friedman, 2006) Now that we know the flatteners the author takes a look at how they influenced what is currently happening in the world. In what he calls “The Triple Convergence” (Friedman, 2006) all the flatteners started to work together. While this happened companies figured out how to better organize purchasing, inventory, supply chains, and all the other areas needed to run a company well. They had new technologies that could help them streamline everything about their business. On top of all this many countries throughout the world started opening up their economies to the worldwide market. China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central and South Americas, who previously had closed economies, started competing with the bigger economic powers throughout the world. All because of the “Ten Flatteners”. Now that we have an understanding of what is going on in the world and how we got there, the author addresses some concerns. The first of which is the outsourcing of jobs in America. Many are concerned that with so many jobs going overseas our country is going to have high unemployment and poverty. They fear we are going to be left behind in the world. Friedman has a different opinion. In chapter six he states, “There will be plenty of good jobs, out there in the flat world for people with the right knowledge, skills, ideas and self-motivation.” (Freidman, 2006) He also feels that many countries that where too small, too poor, or had unstable governments until recently will benefit greatly from America’s outsourcing of jobs. The only issue that comes up is what do we do to keep jobs in America? We need to get the “Right Stuff’(Freidman, 2006). That is, we need to work on our Education system. The flattening of the world will happen no matter how hard we fight against it so what can we do to stay at the cutting edge? That is where our children’s education comes in. We can compete and stay on top if we keep our children’s curiosity going and demonstrate the importance of an education. This growth and open trade throughout the world will continue to go on, but there is still the good and the bad. 9/11 was a demonstration of what can go wrong and bad with the flat world. While many countries are trying to improve the lives of their citizens by getting involved some of their citizens are against it. They feel it is the Americazation of the world and they do not want to loose their culture. With the internet, Televisions everywhere, and the rapid communication with our wireless industry people are being educated on the whole world, not just their small part. This leads to change and some do not like change. There will always be the good and the bad anytime countries communicate at the level we are now. Trade can help ease some of this anger and resistance. When countries depend on each other more for products and business, they tend to be codependent. This leads to better relationships because of necessity. The author used the relationship between China and Taiwan as an example. In recent years the two had to get along because they are growing dependant on each other to maintain their growing economies. This is also true throughout the rest of the world. The book ends with the author refereeing to two very important and similar dates, 9/11 and 11/9. They represent the good and bad of our new flat world. 11/9 is when the Berlin Wall was dismantled. This opened up not just Germany, but many of the closed economies to the world economy which lead to this great growth we are experiencing. 9/11 is the day that some people said they do not want this open world and used violence to demonstrate that. We still do not know what the future holds, but we do know that the pace of technology development will continue to speed up and the amount of people against will rise. We can just hope that our flat world takes the high road.

Friedman, Thomas L., The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006