Dear All,

I would like to recommend you “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century”, a book written by Thomas Friedman, a journalist and correspondent for The New York Times.

What Friedman means by “flat” is “connected”: the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution that have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is not driven by major corporations or giant trade organizations, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete and win, not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end design, programming and engineering work as well.

I one of my next posts I will come back on the questions what the flattening of the world means for Xavo. Back to Friedman, he defines ten “flatteners” that he sees as leveling the global playing field:

#1: Collapse of Berlin Wall (10/11/1989): The event allowed people from other side of the wall to join the economic mainstream.

#2: Netscape (8/9/1995): Netscape and Internet Explorer made the Internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to ninety-five-year olds. The digitization meant that everyday occurrences such as words, files, films, music and pictures could be accessed and updated on a computer screen by all people across the world.

#3: Workflow software: The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved. For Friedman the “crude foundation of a whole new global platform for collaboration.”

#4: Open sourcing: Communities uploading and collaborating on online projects (open source software, blogs, Wikipedia, social communities, etc. Friedman considers the phenomenon “the most disruptive force of all.”

#5: Outsourcing: Friedman argues that outsourcing has allowed companies to split service and manufacturing activities into components which can be subcontracted and performed in the most efficient, cost-effective way.

#6: Offshoring: The internal relocation of a company’s manufacturing or other processes to a foreign country in order to take advantage of less costly and more efficient operations there.

#7: Supply chaining: Friedman compares the modern retail supply chain to a river, and points to Wal-Mart as the best example for streamlining sales, distribution, and shipping.

#8: Insourcing: Friedman uses UPS as a prime example for insourcing. For example, UPS repairs Toshiba computers on behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub, by UPS employees.

#9: In-forming: Google is the prime example. Never before in the history of the planet have so many people had the ability to find so much information.

#10: “The Steroids”: Personal digital devices like mobile phones, iPods, PDA’s, instant messaging, and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

Best Regards

Detlef Riedel