Title: The World Is Flat, A brief history of the twenty-first century. APA Reference: Friedman, T. L. (2006). The world is flat, a brief history of the twenty-first century, release 2.0. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Summary: An account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before – creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place. The author at once shows how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes (excerpted from dust jacket flap). My Comments: I hate that everything is moving so quickly. This book would have been a good read for me about a year ago. I look at it now and realize the information is already dated. The author relates stories about people sitting in meetings and finding answers to questions right then and there, from their wireless equipped handheld devices. This is no longer a novel idea. Internet everywhere is dubbed the steroids that are pumping up all the other world flatteners, such as outsourcing, in-sourcing, globalization, supply chaining, etc. The benefit of this book is the author’s ability to view the world at work, then distill many of the processes into a single theme (such as each of “The ten forces that flattened the world”). The expanded edition does a really good job of brining some of the concepts up to date. Perhaps version 3.0 will discuss the impact of the iPhone, WiMax, and tagging. In the meantime, you should read this to catch up on the trends which will shape the next few decades.
Title: The World Is Flat, A brief history of the twenty-first century.
APA Reference: Friedman, T. L. (2006). The world is flat, a brief history of the twenty-first century, release 2.0. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Summary: An account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before – creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place. The author at once shows how and why globalization has now shifted into warp drive and brilliantly demystifies the new flat world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering scene unfolding before their eyes (excerpted from dust jacket flap).
My Comments: I hate that everything is moving so quickly. This book would have been a good read for me about a year ago. I look at it now and realize the information is already dated. The author relates stories about people sitting in meetings and finding answers to questions right then and there, from their wireless equipped handheld devices. This is no longer a novel idea. Internet everywhere is dubbed the steroids that are pumping up all the other world flatteners, such as outsourcing, in-sourcing, globalization, supply chaining, etc. The benefit of this book is the author’s ability to view the world at work, then distill many of the processes into a single theme (such as each of “The ten forces that flattened the world”). The expanded edition does a really good job of brining some of the concepts up to date. Perhaps version 3.0 will discuss the impact of the iPhone, WiMax, and tagging. In the meantime, you should read this to catch up on the trends which will shape the next few decades.
Comment by ebeale — May 13, 2007 @ 6:23 pm