Technology-Leadership+Book+Summary

The World is Flat is Friedman's explanation of the world in front of us; a world that is a new playing field from what we have known in the past. Not only is the world changing in front of our eyes, but it's changing at a pace like we've never seen before. This new "flat" world is one where technology has helped create a global environment where businesses, governments, cultures, schools, and individuals must learn to adapt. The major theme addressed throughout the book, we must learn how to learn, reminds us that we must teach ourselves to stay curious, innovative and self-reliant. Friedman focuses on ten forces that helped flatten the world, or flatteners. These are, in Friedman's opinion, the ten most influential factors that led to globalization and the flattening of this world. Friedman explains the flattening factors and the effect they have on the way we now do business. · Collapse of Berlin Wall: (November 9, 1989) allowed people from the other side to participate in the mainstream economy. · Netscape: turned the internet into a more mainstream and accessible to everyone. · Work Flow Software: took the humanness out of communication. Computers could talk to each other. · Uploading: opening the world of online collaboration through blogs, wikis, and open source software. · Outsourcing: allowing companies to departmentalize components of their work processes and allowing each section to be completed in the most cost effective manner. · Offshoring: allowing the manufacturing processes to be completed in the most cost effective manner possible. · Supply-Chaining: streamlining distribution and shipping through technology · Insourcing: affording companies the chance to work with a major supply chain by using other companies to perform services. · In-forming: establishing a online environment where so many people have the ability to find out so much information. · "The Steroids": infusion of personal devices such as cell phones, iPods, instant messaging, and Voice over IP (VoIP) that helped the other factors grow at amazing rates. In an environment where a co-worker may not be sitting in the cubical next to you, the competition for success isn't limited to location. The whole world is in the game. Students have to be prepared to be competitive in a global market. Friedman talks about the "untouchables", those whose jobs will be less likely in jeopardy of being outsources or digitized. The key components of an "untouchable" include, being special, specialized, anchored, or adaptable. As far as the education world is concerned we should stressing the importance of learning to learn and self-learning. Developing skills that cannot be replicated by a computer are key, mainly the right-brained skills. In addition, America needs to focus its resources and energies on building stronger grade-level programs for math, science and technology. Our school-aged population seems to have an inherent lack of interest in these areas, and partly due to our outdated education system. "The American education system from kindergarten through twelfth grade just is not stimulating enough young people to want to go into science, math, and engineering. (p 270) He attributes three main factors to the "Quiet Crisis" that is effecting the United States right now. The "Quiet Crisis" is the term he uses to explain that we are in trouble now, but it is unfolding slowly and quietly. We are not building our engineering and scientific base that has always been a strong hold for this nation. The gaps that are emerging that are killing Americas ingenuity are the numbers gap, the ambition gap, and the education gap. Education has to change to keep up with the changing, flattening world. From Richard Rashid at Microsoft in the Northwest to Tracy Koon at Intel in Silicon Valley to Shirley Ann Jackson at Rensselaer on the East Coast, the people who understand these issues the best and are closest to them have the same message: Because it takes fifteen years to create a scientist or advanced engineer, starting from when that young man or woman first gets hooked on science and math in elementary school, we should be embarking on an all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred, no-budget-too-large crash program for science and engineering education immediately. The fact that we are not doing so is our quiet crisis. Scientists and engineers don't grow on trees. They have to be educated through a long process, because, ladies and gentleman, this really //is// rocket science. (Friedman, 2005, p 275)
 * The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century **

<span style="display: block; line-height: 200%; margin: 7.5pt 7.5pt 7.5pt 30pt; text-align: center; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; text-align: center;">References <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';">Friedman, T. (2005). The world is flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">.