Making Good Mondays
Some years ago I wrote a post at my other blog titled, "Friedman's Flat World." It has been popular with readers to this day. This chart shows what the author was talking about.
In the chart, the world is the sum of its parts, 100%. And any part can be next to any other. In an Internet world, India is right next to the United States, only "a click away." This is unlike the actual world where countries are trapped by the circumstances of geography.
The chart reflects the location of people visiting this website in recent days. Less than half are from the United States. One in ten visits are from India.
They are not actual visits, they are virtual visits. The Internet is, essentially "free," allowing my visitors to "meet" me through my words and images. In Friedman's flat world virtual reality makes instant money transactions possible, along with instant adjustments for different currencies, etc.
The earth is actually shaped like a ball; not flat like the chart or Friedman's world. In the chart countries are segments of a larger whole just like Friedman's interconnected world. In reality countries are separate and unique. And one can learn a great deal about a country and its people via cyberspace's interconnectedness. Even within a country, the Internet makes it possible to come to know about regional and cultural differences, without having to make the trip.
The old round world means weeks to ship something, or to travel abroad by boat. But intercontinental flights flatten the world for travelers. And computers allow virtual meetings "face to face" on computer screens.
To quote from that earlier post:
Friedman's flat world thesis suggests several markers, what he calls "genesis moments setting the new platforms for flat world collaboration."
- outsourcing - of work to remote locations away from the company
- off-shoring -move the plant out of the US and integrate it into another country's economy.
- open-sourcing - programmers collaborated in open source form to write new OS language, pure peer-reviewed science loved by geeks like Linux and FireFox, the open source web browser.
- supply-chaining - one of the key elements in the Walmart success, that depends on an elaborate communication system that closely manages the vendor/Walmart/customer interface.
- in-sourcing - the example the speaker used here is UPS' "we come to you" strategy; where a customer's electronics equipment is picked up, transported, then repaired at a central UPS hub by UPS technicians, then returned to the customer.
- informing - I manage my own data via examples Google's search engine and the TIVO device.
To summarize, my Internet experience assures that my community is larger, more in touch and much more interesting and informative than it would be without a computer.
Welcome!
My topical post today at South by Southwest and The Reaction is about politics.Technorati tags: internetFriedman]international
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