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.