IT Opinion: The World is Flat
I'm reading a book right now called The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. The basic point he makes is that a serious of technologies (one of which is blogging) and convergences between those technologies is flattening out the world market. As this process continues we can expect people all over the world to be able to compete in the IT market. A blog entry from the Bex Huff blog today discusses just that. There's a global technical talent shortage, and talent, like everything else in a market economy, is priced based on supply and demand. So expect to go further and further afield to find inexpensive programming labor. Eventually even the most far-flung corners of the globe will have respectable wages as long as they produce the kind of people our technocentric economy requires.
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3 comments:
I would much rather the discourse on Globalization came from economists like Joesph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank), Paul Krugman (Princeton), Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard)etc than a New York Times columnist, who is an apologist for Corporate Globalization. Do go thro'Ted Koppel's interview with Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, who ofcourse doesnt find a mention in Friedman's book.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/opinion/25friedman-transcript.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
Two books to read, which offer a counterperspective to Friedman's "The World is Flat."
The Harvard Professor, Pankaj Ghemawat's latest book, "Redefining Global Strategy," is more academically inclined. I read an article of his published in the journal, "Foreign Policy", where he argues that the world is, at best, only semi-globalized. His argument being that Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic aspects of a nation come in the way of total globalization from taking place and cites examples of the same.
The other small, but interesting book, is by Aronica and Ramdoo, "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller." It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. The authors point to the fact that there isn't a single table or data footnote in Friedman's entire book.
"Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution," says Aronica. Aronica and Ramdoo conclude by listing over twenty action items that point the way forward, and they provide a comprehensive, yet concise, framework for understanding the critical issues of globalization.
You may want to see www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman's
"The World is Flat".
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html
Thanks for your thoughtful and in-depth comment!
Though I'm finding some useful material in the Friedman book, his partisan approach (and lack of technical depth) is off-putting. I will look into the websites and books you recommend, since this subject is of both professional and personal interest.
I like to read books on the Kindle (which is where I'm reading Friedman's tome), I wonder if you've read "GLOBALISTAN: An Antidote to THE WORLD IS FLAT" by Pepe Escobar. It looks like another shot across the bow to Friedman that may be an interesting read.
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