The World Is Flat: Working in a hypercompetitive world...

I made it through Thomas Friedman's 2006 iteration of The World Is Flat. (This book, an expanded version of the book that was first published in 2005, is so lengthy and challenging that I read it in sections over a period of months.) Personally, it helped me understand the changes that I've witnessed in technology and the workplace since starting my career as an automation librarian in 1992.

As noted in my previous post, I can vouch for the growing importance of the "steroids" (page 186) cited by Friedman. The moment when I first successfully posted to this site just after registering my LG "V" phone was a breakthrough for me. (I got the qwerty keypad phone this fall after hearing Dr. John Lawson, former Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at Tulane University, speak at a conference. Lawson noted that after Katrina, the Tulane IT staff was dispersed throughout the southeast. The most reliable method of communication in the aftermath of the storm was text messaging.) The qwerty keypad will also enable me to use the phone as a blog posting tool. The down side: I'm convinced after seeing the Motorola Q SmartPhone that my V is obsolete.

One thing that I took from Friedman's book is a realization of the gap between what's possible using today's technologies (sourcing, workflow software, wireless devices) and the way that institutions actually operate at a technical and a cultural level. To me, taking advantages of flat world opportunities requires a leap of imagination that is more the exception than the rule. The most relevant point I could find is the author's quotation of former IBM chairman Lou Gerstner (page 366):

Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis or urgency...no institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive.

If the change mindset is embraced, opportunities abound. But it's not easy, and for a summary of issues, including some facing the US, see the section "The Unflat World" (page 457). Even the mid-term elections of 2006, an election in which Friedman strongly encouraged support for Democratic candidates, illustrate the complexities of this era. Will Senator Sherrod Brown really embrace the change vision articulated by the author?

I had problems with Friedman's coverage of full-text digitization, best epitomized by the Google Book Search program, but in the context of the entire book, it's not that important of a point.

In summary: A tremendous read, highly recommended.