Is the world flat?

The World Is Flat, it's just not that I am answering my own blog title but reading the title of a book written by Thomas L. Friedman in '07. I am going thru it now after it collected a thin layer of dust in my shelf. I have to say, it is quite interesting with his introduction of Ten Flatteners. Each one he goes thru in detail, how Netscape turned the world towards clickable information, Google's incredible power of searching anything on the web, and the insourcing and outsourcing activity etc. In summary: Digitization, Virtualization and Automation of everything.

Bottom line message is: Change is hard. Change is hardest on those caught by surprise. Change is hardest on those who have difficulty changing too. But change is natural; change is not new; change is important. And that is why the greatest challenge for our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people but also do not leave them behind. None of this will be easy. But this is our task. It is inevitable and unavoidable. It is the ambition of this book to offer a framework for how to think about it and manage it to our maximum benefit.

I don't want to plagiarize the entire material but I thought it would help lot of my naive friends who are upset and mad about activities such as offshoring, outsourcing, China and India and so on. Tom gives a good way to look at the situation and how to deal with changing times. He calls it funnily, how to become untouchable. How to recognize the dead-end jobs and move to an occupation that may help win a bread. As you know, not all jobs can be outsource-able and offshore-able. Not every job can be completely automated, digitized and virtualized. When the going is tough, tough get going... dig inside!

I will end up luring you to read his book with some of his quotes, What I tell my own girls? When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving." Today I tell my girls, "Finish your homework. People in China and India are starving for your jobs."

And that's the only thing to tell people. That's the fact. I always say, "When the world goes flat, reach for a shovel, not a wall." Dig inside yourself. Dig inside your company. Find the secret of the sauce inside. If you're reaching for a wall, it's a losing strategy because the technology is going to blow that wall down.


^{Note: I like to hear your genuine thoughts on this. Don't flame me, as I do understand some of you out there who's job has been outsourced.}