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The World is Flat?
ICT and Globalization
Cmpt. 408
March 18, 2008
Three Stages of Globalization
• Globalization 1.0: 1492 to 1800
– the renaissance and the enlightenment
– the rise of world empires
– countries globalize
• Globalization 2.0: 1800 to 2000
– the industrial revolution
– companies globalize
• Globalization 3.0: 2000 to ????
– the information revolution
– individuals globalize
• Think of the transformative effects that each of these
previous revolutions and globalization spasms had on
their worlds
The Flat World
• The basic hypothesis is that a number of interrelated
factors are combining to massively stimulate various
kinds of globalization, to reduce or eliminate
geographic barriers to trade and commerce
the flat world
• When Columbus arrived in America in 1492 he
thought he had arrived in India, and thus the world
was round
• When Friedman arrived in Bangalore, India, in 2004
he saw all of the American companies now in India,
and realized the world was now flat
The 10 Forces that Flattened the World
• 11/9/89 - Berlin Wall comes down, partially as a
result of information technology (internet and PC)
helping breach the iron curtain; triumph of capitalism
• 8/9/95 - the birth of the web (when Netscape, the first
PC-based browser, went public); much subsequent
standardization allowing interoperability across
platforms for most application software
• Work Flow Software - software that coordinates
tasks
• Uploading - harnessing the power of communities
(eg. Wikipedia, chat rooms, blogs, etc.)
• Outsourcing - massive overbuilding of fibre optics
cable during dot com bubble provides very low cost
internet
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The 10 Forces that Flattened the World
• Offshoring - movement of manufacturing jobs to lowwage
countries
• Supply Chaining - supply chain management
software (eg. Wal-Mart)
• Insourcing - logistics managed by third party experts
( (eg. UPS) allows ll small ll companies i tto act t llarge
• In-forming - finding information on the web (eg.
Google searching, Yahoo!)
• The Steroids - digital, mobile, personal, and virtual
technologies (eg. cell phones, Blackberries, iPods,
video conferencing technology, etc.)
The Great Sorting Out
• As a result of the flattening world, the traditional roles
of consumer, employee, citizen, taxpayer and
shareholder have all become blurred and
interconnected
– individuals can act big
– companies are now distributed
– communities are now fragmented
– everybody has multiple identities
– are third world workers exploited? who is exploiting whom?
The Triple Convergence
• The flattening forces needed time to work and take
root, leading to a triple convergence
– convergence 1 - the single, web-enabled computing
platform for global and multiple forms of collaboration
– convergence 2 - business practices become horizontal,
breaking down traditional hierarchies
– convergence g 3 - 3 billion people p p ( (in China, , India, , Eastern
Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Latin America) suddenly able
to be players in the global economy
• The triple convergence of universal platform,
horizontal business practices, and massive numbers
of new players led to rapid, dramatic globalization,
and ultimately the flat world
Work in the Flat World
• Jobs flow to where the work is cheapest and/or the skills are
greatest
• Free trade vs. protectionism
– free trade competition for existing jobs or expanded markets and
more jobs?
– race to the bottom or race to the top?
– what kinds of new jobs are available in the flat world?
• creativity is key
• What kinds of skills will be most useful in the flat world?
– synthesizing
– explaining
– leveraging
– versatility and adaptability
• Crucial: education and training
– right brain skills and wholistic thinking
– learning to learn
– self reliance
– life-long learning
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A Case Study: Ireland
• Ireland is now the second richest country in the EU (after
Luxembourg)
• But in mid-80’s Ireland was nearly broke and most college graduates
were emigrating, after a “borrowing, spending, and taxing spree”;
thus, government, unions, industries forged a pact
– fiscal austerity
– corporate taxes slashed
– moderate wages g and pprices
– aggressive courting of foreign investment
– public college education basically free
• Result: huge success; Ireland now
– hosts operations of 9 of top 10 pharmaceutical companies, 16 of top 20
medical device companies, 7 of top 10 software firms
– has large amount of foreign investment
– has tax receipts that are steadily rising
• Lesson: success goes to the country with the best educated
workforce, most competitive infrastructure, most creative
environment, and most supportive government
Final Thoughts on the Flat World
• My final pessimistic thought: as all knowledge
becomes available to everybody, how do we protect
the world from one really nihilistic person who can
access the most dangerous information?
• My final optimistic thought: never have so many
individuals been so empowered to play on so broad a
world stage and consequently never has so much
knowledge and culture been available to so many for
so few resources
• Next: new media and the long tail
Globalization vs Localization
• Is the flat world homogenizing?
– one global village or many global villages (see McCalla,
2000)?
– “flat world platform” affords opportunities for preserving and
enhancing diversity of culture and language
• uploading of all kinds of multi-media by all sorts of people in all
sorts of places
– negative side too
• support for groups of pedophiles, terrorists
• the end of a special role for expertise: good or bad?
• Impact on global politics: 11/9 (Berlin Wall falls) vs
9/11 (Al-Qaeda rises)
– good: integrated economies make war less likely? (but
remember WW1)
– bad: terrorists and other local groups can have global
influence, can share knowledge about weapons, techniques
References
• Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief
History of the Twenty-First Century (Release 2.0),
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006
• Thomas L. Friedman, “It’s a Flat World, After All”, NY
Times Magazine, April 2005
– also available directly
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMINANCE.html?page
wanted=1&ei=5090&en=cc2a003cd936d374&ex=1270267200
• G. McCalla, “The Fragmentation of Culture,
Learning, Teaching and Technology …”, Int. J. of AI
in Education, 11, 2, 2000, pp. 177-196
– follow IJAIED Papers link at
http://aied.inf.ed.ac.uk/
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