March 26, 2006
My World is Flat Too
About a month ago I had a strange week where Thomas Friedman's landmark book "The World is Flat" came up in three separate instances over three straight days:
- Thursday
- The CEO of my company held up a copy during our quarterly town-hall stylites broadcast as "recommended reading" as part of his continuing explanation as to why we're outsourcing certain business processes. Recommending any reading is something I've never seen him do in the past 3 years.
- Friday
- I bump into a good friend from a previous job, who I've seen maybe 3 times since my wedding almost 4 years ago, at a local art event. We spent at least half an hour talking about outsourcing, how its affected our businesses (mine web, his television). Our main point of contention was that he was convinced that offshoring and outsourcing would touch every single part of American business and our economy with probably devastating results. Of course he's read Friedman's book and asks me if I have too.
- Saturday
- Helping some friends setup a baby shower, I spent some time talking with the brother of the expecting, an IT manager. By now I'm thoroughly intrigued by this book, and shamelessly bring it up. During the conversation I mention that I'm still not convinced a country that employs over 50% of its population through small business would be so thoroughly decimated by outsourcing. He agreed that he was having trouble envisioning such a large impact, but in the same breath he also mentioned the massive effect outsourcing has had on his own business.
I went out and bought a copy of "The World is Flat" on the following Monday.
A Whole New World
I just finished the final chapter today, something I had a much harder time acheiving than usual for me. It was easy to read, and Friedman's stories and style are approachable by anyone picking up the book. I had trouble finishing it because it seemed like every chapter would lead me downstairs to my homemade whiteboard sitting on a sink, fleshing out the latest brainstorm.
I could write all afternoon about what was made clear to me through Friedman's excellent book, but instead I'll just focus on a few of the insights I took away from it:
- Preconceptions were the first to go
- I, like many others I've worked with over the last years, thought that India or China could never compete with the level of knowledge work generated in America. It was naive and stupid, but I believed it. I saw the commoditization of IT and it made sense to me, but I also heard the stories of how offshoring any actual design or anything beyond just coding within a strictly managed project failed miserably. The first few pages of Friedman's book broke open my misconceptions with a sledgehammer. The interviews and stories of his time with Infosys alone was really eye-opening, and that was just the start. The rest of the book regales story after story of Indian, Chinese, and even Jordanian companies that are not only catching up, they're thinking bigger than Americans and aiming to take us to the cleaners.
- Its time to think bigger
- The idea that you can't afford the level of service your business needs to compete with the big boys is old thinking. Finding, extending, and building trust with outsource vendors around the world will be vital to every business in the future, even the local coffee shop.
- Its time to go back to school
- I've been pondering getting a masters ever since I graduated from CU in 1996. But I've never been keen on doing the classroom thing again. Friedman points out in the book that not only do Americans need to step up our education, but there are fully accredited and well respected online universities offering MBAs today. The time is right, so I looked one up. Last weekend I applied to Jones International University to get an MBA in Global Enterprise Management. I can't wait to get started.
I know many people are fearing the future a flat world could bring, but I'm genuinely excited for the next 10 years. The flattening of the world will shake our country and many others like a tectonic plate shifting, and I just keep getting ideas on how to leverage it to do bigger, better business ideas.
Like I said above, I can't wait.
- Posted in:
- Business of Web, Reviews
Comments