The World is flat
I became a 'curious George' when I saw on the racks of the Odessey bookshop the book"The world is flat". Is there any new scientific revealation? But when I had the chance to read the book I realised how nicely the phrase is used by the author Tom Freedman in a symbolic way to explain the globalisation. He traces the history of economic revolution in three phases. the first sea-faring adventures of people like Columbus centuries ago for commercial purposes.Second the Industrial revolution of 18th century and the third software revolution. when texts,voice,etc could be stored and retieved and digitised (windows) and anything digitised can be sent thru satelite or fibroptic cable (netscape) the revolution has started its voyage never to look back. He nicely discusses the irony of Indias luck as a result of Y2K boom and over-investment of fibroptic cable.Thank to these development we Indians enjoy the prime position in software and cheap telecom fascility.The 11/9 when the Berlin wall was razed to the ground , the seclusive world opened up.(walls razed and the windows raised and opened. Nilankani of Infosys terms this as the playing field is levelled. the author puts it as the (round) world (with ups & downs of obstruction and hesitation removed) has become flat(flattened to a level playing field)
The political,beurocratic & management concepts have changed from 'control & command' to 'connect &coordinate'. The capital in the present scenario is 'knowledge & skill. Thus Indians,Chinese,East Asia, to some extent the East Europe are taking the lead. Outsourcing,outshoring,supply chain, opensourcing,insourcing,informing,software flow are all becoming important. The developed and the developing counties will mutually benefit if only the economic game is played intelligently.
"The gazel wakes up every morning with determination to run faster than the fastest lion;
The lion also wakes up with determination to run faster than the slowest running gazel lest it should lose its prey and starve to death."
This anacdote holds good for the countries in the flat world. The moral is whether developed or developing country ,has to run to keep pace with the fast progressing technology as the flat world has given level playing field and equal oppertunity"
This is what I understood from the book. He has given enormous information in a simple and elegant way. This book is one of the 'must read' category.
The political,beurocratic & management concepts have changed from 'control & command' to 'connect &coordinate'. The capital in the present scenario is 'knowledge & skill. Thus Indians,Chinese,East Asia, to some extent the East Europe are taking the lead. Outsourcing,outshoring,supply chain, opensourcing,insourcing,informing,software flow are all becoming important. The developed and the developing counties will mutually benefit if only the economic game is played intelligently.
"The gazel wakes up every morning with determination to run faster than the fastest lion;
The lion also wakes up with determination to run faster than the slowest running gazel lest it should lose its prey and starve to death."
This anacdote holds good for the countries in the flat world. The moral is whether developed or developing country ,has to run to keep pace with the fast progressing technology as the flat world has given level playing field and equal oppertunity"
This is what I understood from the book. He has given enormous information in a simple and elegant way. This book is one of the 'must read' category.
posted by HARIHARAN at 3:33 PM
1 Comments:
The author does use the term and it is
self explanatory
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