Author: Thomas Friedman
Pages: 600
Amazon Average Customer Review: 
based on 963 reviews.
Reviewed by: Joe Grant, CAE
My Overall Rating: 
We all know the world has changed due to globalization and technology but sometimes it's hard to put it all into perspective to see how these changes interrelate and more importantly, the effect they have on our lives today and in future. With his newest book, Thomas Friedman, an award winning columnist with the NY Times, has done just that. In The World Is Flat
We live in a new world where the playing field has been leveled for companies, countries, communities and individuals. While the natural inclination is to protect the past, this is not the answer. Those who embrace the changes and find new ways to plug into the flat world will not only survive, they will thrive.
Friedman attributes the flattening process to ten forces which include:
- 11/9/89 - The day the Berlin Wall fell: a symbolic moment in history that brought down the walls and barriers to a more open world.
- The New Age of Connectivity: the web browser gave a everyone a window to see the outside world without leaving their computer monitor.
- Work Flow Software - Internet communication standards were further developed and combined with the ability to communicate with anyone around the world faster and cheaper than ever before.
The first three forces essentially created a platform for six new forms of collaboration: uploading, outsourcing, offshoring, supply chaining, insourcing and informing: - Uploading - The ability to collaborate on projects in open source communities, create something new and share the content with individuals around the world.
- Outsourcing Y2K - In order to correct the Y2K bug, companies needed workers. Many turned to workers in India. The millions of miles of fiber optic cable that were laid during the dot com era helped facilitate the process of outsourcing. Companies learned the benefits of disaggregating and sourcing work to cheaper, more efficient places.
- Offshoring - Taking outsourcing one step further, companies picked up their operations and placed them in places like Canton, China where labor was cheaper, taxes were lower, energy was subsidized, and health care costs was lower.
- Supply Chaining - The connection of companies and countries around the world to conceive, produce, and move goods and services for just in time delivery. Walmart is cited as the epiphany of supply chaining. "In 2004, Walmart purchased $260 billion worth of merchandise [from suppliers around the world] and ran it through a supply chain consisting of 108 distribution centers around the United States, serving the some 3,000 stores." Using radio frequency id chips and bar codes, Walmart and its suppliers track the movement of merchandise in real-time worldwide. When someone picks an item off the shelf and it is scanned by the cashier, a supplier somewhere in the world receives an instant communication to manufacture more of that item.
- Insourcing - Many companies, in collaboration with other businesses, have taken over certain pieces of operations because they have the ability to do it more efficiently. For Example, UPS and FedEx don't just deliver packages anymore. They now manage inventory, shipping, support and supply chain logistics for many companies. For example, if you need your Toshiba laptop serviced, UPS picks up your computer and repairs it at the UPS Louisville hub. By giving this piece to UPS, Toshiba cuts out the middle steps, reduces shipping time, and creates happier customers.
- In-Forming - Google, Yahoo, and MSN Web Search are just a few tools that exist for individuals to find information on just about any topic 24/7/365. Friedman points out this scary realization - before the Internet, individuals could have and keep skeletons in the closet. Not today. Now if you make a mistake, whether you are a company or individual, you can't hide...it won't be long before your news shows up in a Google search. Also, individuals have the power and tools to be journalists and share their opinions with the rest of the world through weblogs and user groups.
- The Steroids (digital, mobile, personal, and virtual) - combine all the above flattening forces with the ability to communicate from anywhere in the world via PDA, Blackberry or Cell Phone and you have enormous horsepower. Now machines can talk to computers, people can talk to people, computers can talk to computers farther, faster, more cheaply, and more easily than ever before.
The ten flattening forces by themselves weren't enough to make the world flat. Friedman continues by explaining that the triple convergence is what has made the most impact.
- The ability for the ten flatteners to integrate and build on one another to create the new platform. This only came with time.
- The ability for these changes to take root in people (IT specialists, CEO's, workers, business schools, designers, etc). All of these players needed to change their way of thinking from the traditional vertical mindset to a more horizontal and collaborative mindset.
- The ability for individuals in other countries to work from their home country and collaborate with everyone else in the world. "New players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration."
From a geopolitical perspective, Friedman argues that the more developing companies become intertwined in supply chains and connected to the flat world, the more stable they will become. In essence, by jeopardizing established supply chains and relationships with companies and other countries, the costs of war have become higher.
While the flat world platform has created so many opportunities for individuals and companies to accomplish great things, it has also enabled individuals to do bad things faster than ever before. Terrorists, like those of 9/11, are tapping into the same networks, supply chains, and channels of collaboration to plot out horrible acts. This will remain a challenge in the future; and is a threat to hinder or even stop the flattening process.
Finally, Friedman compares 11/9 to 9/11 and urges individuals to focus on the positives that came from 11/9 when the Berlin wall fell. This means focusing on creativity and innovation and not losing our identity to fear from events like 9/11.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The IT Revolution everyone has been talking about for the last 15 years was just a warm up for what's to come. Like any new invention, it takes time to fully understand an incorporate the power and most effective use for the new tools.
- Individuals are now connected and empowered more than ever before to upload, inform, and collaborate.
- To thrive in the future, individuals must become "untouchables" committed to perpetual life long learning and cultivation of their right brain thinking. Creativity is more difficult to outsource.
- Individuals must become great collaborators, orchestrators, synthesizers, explainers, leveragers, adapters, localizers (tailoring the global capabilities to the local community), green (learning how to operate in the new flat world and still protect the environment), and passionate (tranforming commodities into an experience).
- Companies must accept the fact that they cannot put up walls to protect their businesses, they must dig deep to find new ways of doing business.
- Big companies need to learn how to act small.
- Small companies need to learn how to act big.
- Companies need to become the best collaborators to survive and create new value.
- Companies need to get regular check ups and xrays "to constantly identify and strengthen their niches and outsource the stuff that is not very differentiating."
- Companies must find new ways to differentiate their services to be unique and avoid becoming a commodities.
- America needs to go back to making science, math and engineering an important priority if we are to continue generating new ideas and innovations in the future.
- Idealists can use the new flat world to make a difference.
MY TAKE
I believe every business executive, politician, college student, and professor should read this book. The scenarios described by Friedman will change the way we live, work, communicate, and collaborate in the future. It's easy to focus on the negatives of globalization and outsourcing, but complaining doesn't accomplish anything. Individuals, companies and countries that erect walls, ignore the future, and try to protect the past will suffer the consequences - stagnation, lack of innovation, and obsolescence.
In a world where individuals are connected and empowered more than ever before to upload, inform, and collaborate (association members not excluded), how will this affect membership recruitment and retention now and in the future?
When individuals can access industry related information from many other (free) sources, what does that mean to the association's future? What is the association doing about it today, to ensure a future?
How are your member companies or professions being impacted by outsourcing or insourcing? What does outsourcing or insourcing mean to your future membership pool?
Are you seeing industries changing, merging or becoming one to accommodate the "one stop shop" consumer mindset? If the industries do combine, can they support the existence of multiple associations?
These are all interesting questions that could lead to some great strategic discussions. Who knows, they may even have the potential to uncover new opportunities for the association community!
The World Is Flat is a long read but is well worth the time investment. While reading the book, I had so many "aha" moments. I started to connect news headlines and observations that reinforced the points Friedman was making. Buy the book and understand what it takes to excel in the new flat world.
How do you think The New Flat World will affect Associations?
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