Module 3

Jacob Ready

1-22-12

Module 3

Module 3

     Friedman does a great job of explaining how we do business in the United States and the way we share business is through off shoring.  Off shoring is the internal relocation of a company’s manufacturing or other processes to a foreign land to take advantage of the less costly operation there.  China’s entrance in the world trade organization allowed for greater competition in the playing field. Now countries such a Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil must compete against China and each other to have business offshore to them.  Off shoring is different for outsourcing in the fact that we are not just sub contracting certain parts of business when we use off shoring we are actually moving the business to them they do not have to talk to us from across the world.  We are actually in their countries and working where they live.  Off shoring has completely changed the way that all Americans run their businesses.  An example of this in my home town is the company Micron. Micron is a huge part of my community and I would say over half of the kids I know have a parent who is working for Micron.  Micron in the past ten year has decided to move to Japan and use off shoring because the work there is so much cheaper than it is here.  I completely disagree with what company owners are doing I realize that it is cheaper and you will make more money in the process.  I don’t think they realize that it is a matter of respect and to first take care of the people within your own company first not just move on to whatever is cheaper.

     Friedman talks so much about how companies use what they have and take advantage of what power they have and to use every resource to the best of their abilities.  He talks about a company that we all know very well, Wal-Mart.  He talks about Wal-Mart being the best example of what a supply chain is.  Friedman compares the modern retail supply chain to a river.  He explains how Wal-Mart uses technology to streamline item sales distribution and shipping to better their company.  Everyone knows that Wal-Mart is the cheapest of any of the retail stores out there and that is why Wal-Mart has the success that it has.  It is one of the best companies out there and they have masters supply chaining.

      Friedman in the reading talked a lot about how people who you think could never be involved in activities are now involved in everything because of a search engine you may have heard of called Google.  Google and other search engines are the prime example of how we keep people informed. Friedman wrote, “Never before in the history of the planet have so many people on their own had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people.”  The growth of our search engines is tremendous an example of this is how Friedman wrote that Google is now processing roughly one billion searches per day, up from 150 million just three years ago.  It is almost scary how much we have grown. I remember as a kid how my Dad would say to me when I asked him how to spell a word he would tell me to go look it up in a dictionary of in an encyclopedia.  Now day’s books such as those are never even touched.  If we need anything now we just say type it into to Google.  I think it is very cool how the world is changing through technology and I am really learning a lot while reading through this book and is opening my eyes to the world and making me realize how easily we are all connected now.

Module 2

Jacob Ready

1/15/2012

IST 1100

Module 2

     After reading the next section of our book I feel like this is one of the most interesting books that I have ever read.  I am learning a lot of new things that I was completely uninformed about.  I thought what Friedman stated about workflow software was interesting and how he states how it is one of the biggest flatteners of all. The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved. Friedman believes these first three forces have become a crude foundation of a whole new global platform for collaboration. There was an emergence of software protocols, SMTP – simple mail transfer protocol, HTML – the language that enabled anyone to design and publish documents that could be transmitted to and read on any computer anywhere. This is what Friedman called the genesis moment of the flat world. The net result is that people can work with other people on more stuff than ever before. This created a global platform for multiple forms of collaboration.  I completely agree with what Friedman is saying about how Workflow software has changed our world and made me realize how much has changed in such a short amount of time and how easily everyone on earth can be connected in a matter of milliseconds.  An example of this is Microsoft SharePoint where others can look and view what you are writing on the software, my dad using this a lot in his accounting.

     Open sourced software is something that has expanded so much in the past five years.  Some examples that have most impacted many of our lives are Wikipedia and Blogs that each individual can express what they think about any subject matter.  I believe that is community software has made the individual a much bigger part of society and allows everyone who wants to straight their thoughts on a certain subject can speak their mind from the privacy of their homes.

     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. This process became easier with the mass distribution of fiber optic cable during the introduction of the World Wide Web.  I believe that outsourcing has a good and a bad side.  Outsourcing is taking away from the business that we have here in America.  I realize that we save a lot of money by outsourcing out business to other country’s  but it comes down to a matter of we need to keep our business here where our own people live and to take care of ourselves first.  The fiber optic cables were out of our biggest outsources of all and allowing business from thousands of miles away can be turned into businesses that are next door neighbors to you.

Module 1

Jacob Ready

1/5/2012

IST 1100

Module 1

The difference that I thought were important that Friedman talked about in his book between globalization 1.0 was that countries and governments are the main protagonists. Globalization 1.0 is more the like Cold War and Embargos where as it is a small group in globalization 2.0 there was the boom of the stock market, Wal-Mart, Business go to war with nations. Globalization 3.0 is more of the Web and anyone who wants to be involved can now be.  Globalization 3.0 made the individual much more important part of what happens and now everyone and anyone can be connected at anytime.  Reading this made my mind think how much has changed in my lifetime. It is almost scary to think about what I would do if I didn’t have my cell phone around and how difficult it would be to travel around during the golf season here at Weber State and not be able to communicate with teachers through e-mail and text messages.  Globalization is the increasingly global relationships of culture people and economic activities. Globalization is a huge part of life now and has completely changed the way that business is performed.  The story that most scared me in the book was the McDonalds that were having people ordering their meals from a call center from thousands of miles away.  It amazed me how we are outsourcing at our fast food restaurants in order to save money.  The other form of outsourcing that amazed me as well is how we have  companies that send reports and information to India where people will do all the work that needs to be done in the money be done there and send back while the businessman is sleeping here in the U.S. One of the main points in this book that Friedman thought was very important was the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Friedman called the flattener, “When the walls came down, and the windows came up.” The event not only symbolized the end of the Cold Was it allowed people from the other side of the wall to join the economic mainstream.  He talks about the Berlin Wall coming down and how is the fall of communism and the impact the personal computer had on the ability of individuals to create their own content and connect to one another. At that point the basic platform for the revolution to follow was created: IBM PC, Windows, a standardized graphical interface for word processing, it was a standardized form of communication.  The most important point that that Freidman talked about was when Netscape came out it took the world to a completely different level.  It broadened the audience from the internet from its roots as a communications medium primarily by only early adopters and geeks, to something that made the internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to ninety-five-year-olds. The digitization that took place meant that everyday occurrences such as words, files, films, music, and pictures could be accessed and manipulated on a computer screen bu all people across the world.

In conclusion I think that what the book The World is Flat is very interesting and I am enjoying reading it.  I am learning a lot about how the world has changed in a short amount of time.  Friedman does a very good job of showing how much the world has changed and how the world is now outsourcing to India and many other foreign countries.  Friedman’s interpretations of the events that have occurred I feel are spot on such as the Berlin wall falling and it allowing the world to be free to join the economic mainstream. We are seeing now how the U.S. isn’t just staying within the boundaries of our own country but we are expanding and sharing with other countries.  I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about how we are expanding and how we are all connected.