Sunday, October 15, 2006

Globalisation 3.0

Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman terms this era Globalisation 3.0 in his highly acclaimed book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Friedman vividly describes 10 reasons which have shaped the flow of globalization.
  1. 11/9 was the fall of the Berlin wall, and it had as much an impact as 9/11.
  2. August 9 - Friedman is referring to the Netscape IPO, not Singapore's National Day.
  3. Work Flow Software - think PayPal
  4. Opensourcing - Linux and the rebel code
  5. Outsourcing - Its a friend and foe
  6. Off shoring - Its about dismantling a factory in Canton, Ohio and rebuilding it in Canton, China.
  7. Supply Chaining - All about Wal-Mart
  8. Insourcing - According to UPS, on any given day, 2 percent of the world's GDP can be found in UPS delivery trucks or package cars.
  9. In-forming - It matters because I can Google your name, your address and even your telephone number.
  10. Wireless - the next generation communications devices can only shrink the world.
In the book, Friedman begins by exploring these intriguing 10 flatteners and how technology as a whole, has been a key factor in challenging the frontiers of globalisation. Probably, every economist knows deep down in his heart, that there would not have been globalisation before there was technology, and that globalisation has only grown in strength because technological waves ebb and rise, pushing the shorelines of globalisation forever back, and to conquer it with its unpredictable nature. Of course, some would choose to liken globalisation to a runaway train on a collision course. Point of view.

But then, Friedman is different.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

While the debate over whether the "The World is Flat" or not continues... Friedman’s book definitely abstracted the phenomena of globalization and “opening” of economies that is already happening. Now, one could choose the moniker of a “Flat World” to describe it or…use an alternative term.

Anonymous said...

I'm an open-source fan, but I don't like the pure market focus (as opposed to a cultural focus) on the consequences of globalism. My mother had to do a term paper on political ideologies for her final year political science degree, and I had to absolutely digress on his idea that globalism had created "for the first time" a "more level-playing field for all people and and races".

I'm into alter-globalism - the exchange of ideas and cultural diffusion - but not current globalism as it stands.