“Slow and Steady Doesn’t Always Win the Race”

To even have the slightest chance of keeping pace with the competition in this world, as Friedman quotes, “you better start running.”  This crazy technological era we live in seems to have two options, keep up or be left wondering what the heck just happened.  Rather than leveling off and hitting the usual plateau after so much advancement as many would expect, the steady rise continues.  Now the trick the world as a whole must learn each day, is to simply run faster.

            The only thing scarier to a call center worker than outsourcing, is so similar that it is often confused as being the same thing.  The terror I speak of is off-shoring.  The difference between the two is that outsourcing breaks everything down into smaller pieces.  A certain specific function is now done by a group of people that may or may not be on the other side of the world.  It is the same work that was being done before, just most likely at a lower cost.  Everything is then combined again to achieve the same end result.  Off-shoring takes even the slightest chance of keeping your job and throws it out the window to land with a splat, usually in a country you never really knew existed.  The entire production is picked up and moved to a new location. Nearly nothing is left behind except the now jobless masses. The ultimate goal is to make the exact same product, service, etc as previously, just with much less overhead.  A very justifiable need when you are a business owner looking to get ahead in the world.

            Once this idea took hold, the only logical response was for everyone else to do it as well.  No one in their right mind would seriously try and emulate our fabled friend the turtle in a mad race against the rabbit.  The time to run had come, and run they did!  The surprising outcome to me in all this was a low-cost, yet high quality product.  With the world nearly flat, we no longer are forced to sacrifice quality for quantity!

            What came next is almost as terrifying to me but in a completely different way.  The frightening part came in the form of a single sentence by Friedman.  “Walmart today is the biggest retail company in the world, and it does not make a single thing.”  Mind. Blown!!  Walmart has become such a staple in our society that I never even paused long enough to consider this fact.  Wow!  By simply (although not a simple process) harnessing the insane power of supply-chaining, Walmart has made a name for itself and created a seemingly unstoppable empire.  Supply chains work to allow suppliers, retailers, and customers to cooperate in a more smooth and efficient way.  The end result is happy customers, which turns into very large dollar signs ($) for Walmart.  By purchasing directly from manufacturers and getting them to lower prices as much as possible, then creating a seamless supply-chain to get the product to distribution warehouses they gained even further advantage over competitors.  It is seriously no wonder it seems like there is, or will soon be, a Walmart on almost every corner.  Who can compete with logic like this?!

            Another question that will garner a similar response is, “Who has not heard of Google?”  Why is it when a random question is posed that no one seems to know the answer to, the most common response is, “Google it!”?  Google has flattened the world as we know it when it comes to accessing information.  By completely erasing boundaries that separate classes, languages, and economic status it revolutionized the industry.  They are able to track searches and target advertisements that are meaningful and relevant to each customer.  This information is then used to bill the advertisers directly for linking them to interested and potential consumers. The race is on!

            The good news in all this is that, in a flat world, running is easier!

“Instant Gratification”

It is nearly unthinkable to the younger generations of today that in the not so distant past there were no such things as cell phones, personal computers, and ipods.  Our society seems to have developed the mentality of a spoiled child.  We want what we want, when we want it.  Most likely when we want it, is now!  This is, of course, almost to be expected when many youth today have never even experienced the frustration of waiting for a dial up internet connection, let alone a world without text messages! 

This impatience encompasses business life as well as personal life.  We all want to be able to connect quickly and without problems, to anyone, anywhere, anytime.  We expect the information in a timely and easily understandable format at the click of a button.  Workflow software is the technology that prevents the temper tantrums that would most certainly erupt from the “spoiled” masses otherwise.  It allows the flow of information between individuals, companies, countries, and even continents.  It also allows for tasks to be simplified, delegated to those who can complete it the best and quickest, then re-combined to produce a finished product in a virtual environment.  Proximity is irrelevant when the world is flat.  We are no longer limited by boundaries.  What an incredible concept!

Workflow software seems to me to be the same basic notion as that of the assembly line, such as those used to build aircraft or automobiles.  None of us expect one person to kick out an entire airplane on their own.   A complicated process is broken down into smaller, simplified steps.  Each person along the assembly line is responsible only for completing their one specific task, and then the product moves on to the next person, each adding their input in their area of expertise.  The end result is a finished product compiled from the many small tasks put together as a whole. 

Open source software is a collaboration of a different sort.  This idea seems both revolutionary and outdated at the same time to me.  It is insane that people would knowingly and willingly invest their time and brainpower on designing and improving software that is then offered to the world for no cost.  This seems like an incredibly outdated ideal to me personally.  On the same note however, it is INSANE (as in awesome) that people would knowingly and willingly invest their time and brainpower on designing and improving software that is then offered to the world for NO COST!!  Totally revolutionary.  How incredible it is that we live in a world where so called no name “geeks” can band together and give a huge conglomerate like Microsoft a run for their money!

Such amazing innovations in software have led to the idea that strikes fear in the hearts of call center workers throughout America.  I know, I have been there unfortunately.  “Outsourcing”!  The surplus of fiber optic cable created a new highway that connected the entire world easily and at a relatively small cost.  Now with work flow software, the “assembly line” could be broken down and shipped anywhere in the world to be completed.  Each of the pieces were then just as quickly and easily shipped back and put together to form the finished product.  Now instead of work being handed out based on location, it was focused on the very best result at the lowest cost. 

And thus the spoiled child began screaming.  Who can give me what I think I want, as quickly as I think I want it, and at the least amount of financial burden?  The era of instant gratification had begun.

“Falling Off the Edge”

From the time we are in grade school, learning about the voyage of Christopher Columbus it is ingrained in our minds that the world as we know it is round.  It is almost impossible for us to imagine anyone actually believing that if you went far enough in one direction, you would literally tumble into oblivion.  How ironic that as society becomes increasingly advanced, and gains multitudes of knowledge, the unintended side effect is a return to the theory of a flat world.

It is used, of course, as a metaphor.  The physical landscape of the Earth has not changed, but the implied landscape of cyberspace has very nearly become a flat plane.  In the not so distant past, specialized services were hard to come by.  It usually required extensive time, research, and even travel in some cases. This is not so in today’s modern world.  Thanks to the World Wide Web, individuals with access to a computer, be it at home, work, school, or library, also have access to nearly anyone, anywhere on the planet.  As an extension of this, they also have access to the same nearly limitless products and services.

This incredible level of access did not, of course, happen overnight.  According to Thomas L. Friedman, it happened in three distinct periods.  The first, which he labels Globalization 1.0, happened from about 1492 until 1800.  This time frame dealt with ideas on a larger scale.  Countries and their government authority were scrambling to prove which had the greatest power, and the most inventive way to harness it.  The focus became global opportunities, and the ability to connect and integrate through the country.

The next period, is referred to by Friedman as Globalization 2.0, and began with the end of the previous era around 1800 then continued until about 2000.  The focus now became multinational business. Connections were made through companies rather than countries.  The third and final period began around 2000 and is, of course, Globalization 3.0.  This era personalized the focus further, down to the individual, which promoted global competition and collaboration on a more intimate level.

An enormous stepping stone on the way to a flat world was the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.  This event was a ripple felt around the world.  It cleared the landscape and made room for society to think on a global level.  Core standards were set on ideas such as how economies should be run.  With everyone following the same rules and regulations, the playing field inevitably became more uniform. 

Opportunities and options that had not existed were now available with the click of a button.  Companies such as Netscape harnessed this idea and provided a way for people to connect with one another in a way never before experienced.  No longer was the individual relegated to the station they were born into in life.  One only had to set their sights on a new circumstance, and the doorway could be opened through the World Wide Web. 

In a flat world, proximity is no longer a direct factor for possibility!