The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

First published in 2005, Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, has changed the way we talk about globalization. Many had begun to recognize and experience outsourcing when we called helplines that connected us to India and noticed the proliferation of goods made in China. Friedman, however, wrote about the big slew of forces that are propelling this interconnected, face-paced world, and pretty much makes the case that the changes, which he nicknames a flat world, are permanent.

Friedman predicts that the service sector (telemarketing, accounting, computer programming, engineering and scientific research, etc.), will be further outsourced to the English-spoken abroad; manufacturing, meanwhile, will continue to be off-shored to China. As anyone who reads his column knows, Friedman argues that these developments are desirable for their competitive efficiencies and are unstoppable, and that American workers should be preparing to 'create value through leadership' and 'sell personality.'

And for education, what does this all mean?
Is education a product or a service?
Is education outsourceable?
What about e-learning?

check out this website: Tutorvista.com or this one: Indian Math Online
online language instruction, standards-based KET Distance Learning

About Thomas Friedman

Biographical highlights:
Friedman graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University with a degree in Mediterranean studies and received a master's degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford.

joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC- and oil-related news and later served as the chief diplomatic, chief White House, and international economics correspondents

three-time Pulitzer Prize winner

his webpage

His Books:
From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989) - basic understanding of the modern history of the Middle East and all its layered problems
The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999) - analysis of oil politics and America's involvement
Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 (2002) - collection of his columns about worldviews post 9/11 from his travels in Middle East, Afghanistan, Europe, Israel, Indonesia
The World Is Flat (2005) - paradigm shifting book about globalization as permanent state of the world
Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008) - the need to green for economic survival

collection of his New York Times articles

Friedman Sampler Pack

I have selected a handful of great samples of Thomas Friedman's writing. People love him, in my opinion, for two reasons: his conversational/humorous style and the depth of his honest perspective. Even if you do not agree with him, his work is well done, on point, fun to read, and makes you think twice.

About the Olympics: "A Biblical Seven Years"
About Mother's Day 2008: "Call Your Mother"
About Energy Awareness: "Flush with Energy"
About a lottery to go to boarding school: "Hope in the Unseen"

Thomas Friedman at MIT

This lecture is from MIT's Open Courseware (free distance learning). MIT President Charles Vest introduces Thomas Friedman, explaining that Thomas Friedman is there at MIT because he is a powerful public voice, a global spokesman, for the values of openness, collaboration, and the importance of science and technology, all of which are what MIT embraces in its mission.

I had trouble getting the audio to play at first. Download it first, then double click the file on your desktop. It took a minute to load, but then played without trouble. Great interview -- well worth listening to.

If you have trouble above, try this link for an i-tunes download: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266

About half way down the page it says "Download this video at Apple iTunesU site."

Thomas Friedman on Charlie Rose 2006

What Made the World Flat?

Friedman defines ten "flatteners" that he sees as leveling the global playing field:

the Powerpoint
the article
the synopsis:

#1: Collapse of Berlin Wall -- 11/09/89: The event not only symbolized the end of the Cold war, it allowed people from other side of the wall to join the economic mainstream. Countries that had favored centrally planned economies were able to choose free-market oriented economies. Example: Eastern Europe, China,

#2: Netscape -- (8/9/1995): Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for the Internet from its roots as a communications medium used primarily by 'early adopters and geeks' (Compuserve users/early AOL users) to something that made the Internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to ninety-five-year olds. The digitization that took place meant that everyday occurrences such as words, files, films, music and pictures could be accessed and manipulated on a computer screen by all people across the world. Look at the way digitization (i-Tunes) changed the music industry.

#3: Workflow software: The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved. Friedman believes these first three forces have become a “crude foundation of a whole new global platform for collaboration.” See how this have evolved into Web 2.0 (online communities) and Web 3.0.

#4: Open-Sourcing: Communities uploading and collaborating on online projects. Examples include open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia. Friedman considers the phenomenon "the most disruptive force of all." ("disruptive" means interrupts what we are familiar with; changes everything.)

#5: Outsourcing: Friedman argues that outsourcing has allowed companies to split service and manufacturing activities into components which can be subcontracted and performed in the most efficient, cost-effective way.

#6: Offshoring: The internal relocation of a company's manufacturing or other processes to a foreign land in order to take advantage of less costly operations there.

#7: Supply chaining: Friedman compares the modern retail supply chain to a river, and points to Wal-Mart as the best example of a company using technology to streamline item sales, distribution, and shipping.

#8: Insourcing: Friedman uses UPS as a prime example for insourcing, in which the company's employees perform services--beyond shipping--for another company. For example, UPS repairs Toshiba computers on behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub, by UPS employees.

#9: In-forming: Google and other search engines are the prime example. "Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own-had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people", writes Friedman. The growth of search engines is tremendous; for example take Google, in which Friedman states that it is "now processing roughly one billion searches per day, up from 150 million just three years ago".

#10: "The Steroids": Personal digital devices like mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants, instant messaging, and voice over Internet Protocol ( VoIP).

Surviving A Flat World

Friedman believes in order to fight the quiet crisis of a flattening world, the United States work force should keep updating its work skills. Making the work force more adaptable and skilled will keep it more employable. He also suggests that the government should make it easier to switch jobs by making retirement benefits and health insurance portable and by providing insurance that would partly cover a possible drop in income when changing jobs. Friedman also believes there should be more inspiration for youth to be scientists, engineers, and mathematicians due to a decrease in percentage of these professionals native to America.

What skills might a young person need to focus on to thrive in a flat world?

It's a Flat and New World

This video, Shift Happens (sometimes called Did You Know?) is amazing. It illustrates what is, whether we like it, want it, or not.

Shift Happens wiki - there are various versions of the presentation at this site.

This is the text of the video:

Did you know . . .
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.
Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China . . .
China would still have a labor surplus.
During the course of this 8 minute presentation . . .
60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs . . .
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by for less than one year.
More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company they have worked for for less than five years.
According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley . . .
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England.
In 1900.
Did you know . . .
The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration.
(Luxembourg just passed us.)
In 2002 alone Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development.
The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on Research and Innovation in Education.
1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.
There are over 100 million registered users of MySpace.(August 2006)
If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th-largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico)*
The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.
Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.?
(Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . .
Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 40 exabytes (that’s 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
Third generation fiber optics has recently been separately tested by NEC and Alcatel . . .
That pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.
That’s 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls every second.
It’s currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least the next 20 years.
The fiber is already there, they’re just improving the switches on the ends. Which means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.
Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
First grader Abby will be just 23 years old and beginning her (first) career . . .
And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.
What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Mr. Friedman's newest book - Hot, Flat, and Crowded - rallies the cry for America to become the leader and innovator as only Americans can be in the new field of ET - energy technology.
He predicts that the ET boom will be akin to the IT (information technology) boom in that it will be a game-changer. More than that, Friedman sees ET as the ticket to the United States' sustainability and respectability in the world


Article from Wired magazine on Friedman's newest book: Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Thomas Friedman on Charlie Rose (video)

About William Damon

William Damon, author of The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life, will speak at Grace-St. Luke's School on Tuesday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m. in the church sanctuary on the corner of Peabody and Belvedere. Damon is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and a professor of education at Stanford University. His current research explores how people develop character and a sense of purpose in their work, family, school, and community relationships. He examines how young people can approach their careers with a focus on purpose, self-understanding, imagination, and high standards of excellence. Damon also has written widely about how to educate for ethical understanding.

Damon's most recent books are Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble Intentions to Responsible Giving (2006); The Moral Advantage: How to Succeed in Business by Doing the Right Thing (2004); and Noble Purpose: The Joy of Living a Meaningful Life (2003). Earlier books include Bringing in a New Era in Character Education (2002); Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet (2001); The Youth Charter (1997); Greater Expectations: Overcoming the Culture of Indulgence in Our Homes and Schools (1995); and The Moral Child (1990).

Damon is editor-in-chief of The Handbook of Child Psychology, fifth and sixth editions (1998 and 2006). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education.

Damon has received awards and grants supporting his research from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the John Templeton Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Before coming to Stanford in 1997, Damon was a professor of education and University Professor at Brown University, where he continues to hold an appointment as an adjunct professor of human development. From 1973 to 1989 Damon held a variety of academic positions at Clark University and, in 1988, was a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico. Damon received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is married and has three children.

It is with great intention that Grace-St. Luke's invites Dr. Damon to speak about his book The Path to Purpose. This school year at Grace-St. Luke's will focus on helping each child start the process of understanding themselves as learners, with each child engaging in intentional programs and processes to discover their strengths, their learning style, and how to use this awareness to become strategic learners. Damon's work furthers the discussion to include how parents and teachers can use a child's self awareness and understanding as a platform to guide them to a sense of purpose, mission, calling or passion early in life. Finding a passion or calling early, Damon postulates, thereby gives a child a lens or powerful sense of meaning to the whole education journey.