world is flat thomas friedman

8/13/2019 World is Flat Thomas Friedman

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Book Summary: The World is Flat (Thomas L. Friedman)

By Mike Lee

The Ten Forces That Flattened the World

These are the ten factors describing how the world is becoming flat or globally interconnected,

thereby allowing businesses all over the world to compete on a more equal playing field.

1. The New Age of Creativity (the fall of the Berlin Wall)This event tipped the balance of power across the world toward those advocatingdemocratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance, and away from those

advocating authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies.

2. The New Age of Connectivity (the rise of the Web)This event enabled more people to communicate and interact with more other people

anywhere on the planet than ever before.

3. Work Flow SoftwareThis force enabled more people in more places to design, display, manage, andcollaborate on business data previously handled manually, resulting in more work to be

able to flow between companies and continents faster than ever.

4. Uploading (open online collaboration and communities)This force gave newfound power [to] individuals and communities to send up, out, and

around their own products and ideas, often for free, rather than just passivelydownloading them from commercial enterprises or traditional hierarchies, thereby

reshaping the flow of creativity, innovation, political mobilization, and informationgathering and dissemination.

5. Outsourcing


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This force meant taking some specific, but limited, function that your company is doingin-house and having another company perform that exact same function for you and

then reintegrating their work back into your overall operation.

6. OffshoringThis force meant being able to manufacture the very same product in the very same way,only with cheaper labor, lower taxes, subsidized energy, and lower health-care costs in

another country, then integrating it into [your] global supply chains.

7. Supply-ChainingThis force allowed [horizontal collaboration]among suppliers, retailers, and

customersto create value, resulting in the adoption of common standards betweencompanies and more efficient global collaboration.

8.

Insourcing

This force allowed small companies could suddenly see around the world and sell theirproducts and services globally, while large companies could act really small and

customize products at the last minute.

9. In-formingThis force gave all the worlds knowledge, or even just a big chunk of it to anyoneand everyone, anytime, anywhere, resulting in becoming your own self-directed and

self-empowered researcher, editor, and selector of entertainment, without having to go to

the library or the movie theater or through network television.

10.The Steriods (computers, the Internet, wireless, and personalization)This force, made up of specific technologies, supercharged all the other flatteners.

The Triple Convergence

These are the three factors that came together to set off the flattening of the world.

1. Convergence IThis is the convergence of the ten flatteners [into] a whole new platform. It is a global,

Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration [that] enables individuals,groups, companies, and universities anywhere in the world to collaborate without

regard to geography, distance, time, and, in the near future, even language for thepurposes of innovation, production, education, research, entertainment, and, alas, war-

makinglike no creative platform ever before.


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2. Convergence IIThis is the emergence of a large cadre of managers, innovators, business consultants,business schools, designers, IT specialists, CEOs, and workers.

3.

Convergence III

This is the creation of horizontal collaboration and value-creation processes and habitsthat could take advantage of this new, flatter playing field.

The Great Sorting Out

These are the issues that will need to be resolved in the flat world.

1. Offshoring: Who is Exploiting Who?This is where the world starts to flatten out and value increasingly gets createdhorizontally who is on the top and who is on the bottom, who is the exploiter and who

is the exploited, gets very complicated. The US workers who are out of jobs? The UScustomers and citizens who pay lower prices and less taxes? The Indian workers who are

paid comparably low wages? The Indian workers whos comparably low wages raisestheir standard of living?

2. Where Do Companies Stop and Start?This is where businesses define their interests and labor opportunities more globally

than domestically [and than where they are headquartered], and the whole shareholding

process demands more and more that these companies perform against global standards,opportunities, and resources.

3. From Command and Control to Collaborate and ConnectThis is where hierarchies are not being leveled just by little people being able to act big.

They are also being leveled by big people being able to act really smallin the sense thatthey are enabled to do many more things on their own.

4. Multiple Identity DisorderThis is where the tensions among our identities as consumers, employees, citizens,taxpayers, and shareholders are going to come into sharper and sharper conflict. For

instance, the Wal-Mart shareholder and shopper in us wans Wal-Mart to be [keepcompany profits high] and prices low. But the Wal-Mart worker in us hates the limited

benefits and low pay packages. And the Wal-Mart citizen in us knows that because[Wal-Mart doesn't fully cover employee health care costs], the taxpayers will end up

picking up the tab.


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5. Who Owns What?This is where we need to decide whether we build legal barriers to protect aninnovators intellectual property so he or she can reap its financial benefits and plow

those profits into a new invention, [or] keep [the] walls low enough so that we encourage

the sharing of intellectual property, which is required more and more to do cutting-edgeinnovation.

6. Death of the SalesmenThis is where efficiency and automation is replacing human beings. Its hard to create a

human bond with e-mail and streaming Internet.

America and Free Trade

This is the idea that even as the world gets flat, America as a whole will benefit more by

sticking to the general principles of free trade, as it always has, than by trying to erect walls,which will only provoke others to do the same and impoverish us all. And while protectionismwould be counter-productive, a policy of free trade, while necessary, is not enough by itself. It

must be accompanied by a focused domestic strategy aimed at upgrading the education of everyAmerican, so that he or she will be able to compete for the new jobs in the flat world.

The New Middlers

These are the job categories that will make up the new middle-class in the flat world.

1. Great Collaborators and OrchestratorsThese are jobs that involve collaborating with others or orchestrating collaborationwithin and between companies, especially those employing diverse workforces from

around the world.

2. The Great SynthesizersThese are jobs that involve putting together disparate things that you would not think of

as going together.

3. The Great ExplainersThese are jobs that involve [seeing] the complexity but [explaining] it with simplicity.

4. The Great LeveragersThese are jobs that involve combining the best of what computers can do with the best

of what humans can do, and then constantly reintegrating the new best practices the


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humans are innovating back into the system to make the whole that much moreproductive.

5. The Great AdaptersThese are jobs that involve being adaptable and versatile and are capable not only ofconstantly adapting but also of constantly learning and growing.

6. The Green PeopleThese are jobs that involve designing and building renewable energies and

environmentally sustainable systems.

7. The Passionate PersonalizersThese are jobs that involve pure passion pure entertainment [and] a creative touch

that no one else thought of adding.

8. The Great LocalizersThese are jobs that involve [understanding] the emerging global infrastructure, and then[adapting] all the new tools it offers to local needs and demands.

The Right Stuff

These are the abilities that will help individuals compete effectively in the flat world.

1. Learn How to LearnThis is the ability to constantly absorb, and teach yourself, new ways of doing old thingsor new ways of doing new things.

2. Passion and CuriosityThis is the ability to be passionate and curious for a job, for success, for a subject area oreven a hobby, because nobody works harder at learning than a curious kid.

3. Play Well With OthersThis is the ability to be good at managing or interacting with other people.

4. The Right-Brain StuffThis is the ability to nurture more of your right brain [(creative thought)] as well as yourleft [(analytical thought)].


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This is where we need politicians who are able and willing to help educate andexplain to people what world they are living in and what they need to do if they want to

thrive in it. Summoning all our [nation's] strengths and skills to produce a twenty-first-century renewable energy source is George W. Bushs opportunity to be both Nison

going to China and JFK going to the moon in one move.

2. MusclesThis is where the government and companies can guarantee you that [they] willconcentrate on giving you the tools to make yourself more lifetime employablemore

able to acquire the knowledge or the experience needed to be a good adapter, synthesizer,collaborator, etc.

3. CushioningThis is the concept of wage insurance that would compensate you for your old specific

skills, for a set period of time, while you take a new job and learn new specific skills.

4. Social ActivismThis is where global corporations must develop moral consciences because they aregoing to command more power, not only to create value but also to transmit values, than

any transnational institutions on the planet.

5. ParentingThis is where we need a new generation of parents ready to administer tough love:

There comes a time when youve got to put away the Game Boys, turn off the television,shut off the iPod, and get your kids down to work.

What Developing Countries Should Do

These are the actions a developing country should take to remain competitive in the flat world.

1. IntrospectionThis is where a country asks itself to what extent is my country advancing or being left

behind by the flattening of the world, and to what extent is it adapting to and taking

advantage of all the new platforms for collaboration and competition?

2. Reform WholesaleThis is where a country [focuses] on improving education and infrastructure and, inparticular, adopting better governance [and] market-friendly macroeconomic policies [on

a strategic, high level].


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3. Reform RetailThis is where a country [looks] at infrastructure, education, and governance and[upgrades] each one [on a tactical, detailed level], so more of your people have the tools

and legal framework to innovate and collaborate at the highest levels.

4. Culture and GlocalizationThis is where a country asks itself how outward your culture is: To what degree is it

open to foreign influence and ideas? How well does it glocalize [(adopt foreignideas)]? as well as how inward your culture is: To what degree is there a sense of

national solidarity and a focus on development, to what degree is there trust within thesociety for strangers to collaborate together, and to what degree are the elites in the

country concerned with the masses and ready to invest at home?

5. The Intangible ThingsThis is where a society increases its ability and willingness to pull together and sacrificefor the sake of economic development as well as has leaders with the vision to see what

needs to be done in terms of development and the willingness to use power to push forchange rather than to enrich themselves and preserve the status quo.

How Companies Cope

These are ways companies can remain competitive in the flat world.

1. Be UniqueThis is where companies [dig] inside themselves to locate [their] real core competencyto avoid commoditization, which is happening faster and faster across a whole range of

industries in the flat world.

2. And The Small Shall Act BigThis is where companies [take] advantage of several new forms of collaboration

supply-chaining, outsourcing, insourcing, and all the steriodsto make [their smallcompanies] very big.

3. And The Big Shall Act SmallThis is where companies create a platform that allows individual customers to servethemselves in their own way, at their own pace, in their own time, according to their own

tastes.

4. Be Collaborative


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This is the phenomenon that allows diaspora communities around the world to use todaysglobal media networks to cling to their local mores, news, traditions, and friendsno matter

where they are living. It is not the global which comes and envelops us. It is the local whichgoes global.

The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention

This is the theory that no two countries that are both part of a major global supply chain, like

Dells, will ever fight a war against each other as long as both are part of the same global supplychain.

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world is flat thomas friedman

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