“The World is Flat” – Itunes U MIT – T.Friedman introduces his book

“The World is Flat” is a book from Thomas L Friedman. He presented the main theories of the book in a class at MIT and I listened to that podcast through I-Tunes University. Here is a resume and thoughts about the topic which I hope will raise your interest in debating over it.

What flattened the world
- 11/9 collapse of the Berlin wall which made the world seen as a single flat place
- Netscape democratized Internet by making it alive and not a scientist bunker
- Fiber optic network made places of the world interconnected and data flow easily
- Work flow which help to collaborate (people to people and application to application)

- Outsourcing, new form of collaboration
- Offshoring, outsourcing abroad
- Opensourcing, new form of collaboration and innovation
- SupplyChaining (ex WallMart), designing a world supply chain interconnected
- Informing, it means I can inform myself by myself (ex today Wiki and Google)
- Steroids: Wireless, voice over the internet and file sharing, which allows you to do any work from anywhere by anyone on earth.

The triple convergence in 2000′s:
- All those flattener converged
- We all learnt to horizontalized ourself (value = how you connect and collaborate)
- India, China and Russia opened their economies and came on the game with 300 million new connected players (10 percent of 3 billion)

The 4 unflattener:
- The too sick who aren’t able to get involved in world economy because worrying about disease
- The too unable who are too poor to get into the world economy and suffer from bad governance (ex. from local politicians in India)
- The too frustrated because who can’t accept and want to fight the system
- Too many Toyotas, when everybody consumes and resources are scarce which can spur conflicts on resources around the world

Then, one question is how companies will be able to adapt themselves to a different world. (ex: HP adaptation in India by giving cameras/printers solar powered to local women NGOs against fees on paper and camera renting)

Another point is how far can the developed countries compete with developing countries providing cheaper human resources. First, people perceive a factory closed down in a remote area but won’t notice new employees in Google office in big cities. Second, after WWII, the USA help Europe and Japan to rebuild their economy because they see them as trading partner and rely on the theory of competitive advantage where each country produces what it is best at. Then, we can expect (and it’s already proven in some extent) that growth in the developing world is contributing to growth in Western countries.

Finally, from my point of view, it is better to support this growth based on the developing countries growth with the risk of them competing our businesses than accepting the stagnation of the economy. Once again, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that their growth is contributing to changes in our economies which seems very useful to keep a growth in productivity and to maintain inflation at an acceptable rate. On the other hand, there is still the big question of how the planet will support our population and its thirst for material “stuff” and any kind of basic resources (clean water, clean air, energy, ground space). That is the topic of a future post.

Thomas Friedman emphasize in the conclusion that the USA is famous for: unbreakable optimism for the future and the idea that every problem has a solution. And since 9/11, the US government is spreading fear around the world but it should spread hope. I agree.

More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat where they actually present the 8th flattener as Insourcing.
Buy book http://www.amazon.com/World-Flat-History-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0374292884

I-Tunes U for university

Some of you might have had issues waking some times for the early classes and so did I. Some of you in France wished they could have taken a course not in their field of studies and so did I. Some of you might want to have a continual training on new technologies or trends in their field of work.

Here is the solution for all those issues: I-Tunes University.

It stores classes from prestigious universities and sometimes prestigious lecturers for free. As long as you have I-Tunes, you can listen to their classes from anywhere in the world. Though, the quality might vary but I find some diamonds such as International Relations, Geopolitics and Woods’Energy Seminar from Stanford…all that for free and of good quality. At best I will learn more than the traditional podcast of France Culture (french radio) I used to listen and at worst I will just improve my ability to understand spoken English.

On another perspective, I would emphasize that I-Tunes U is free because Apple consider universities are already preparing the course so putting it online might not cost much (not really true if you want to deliver quality). Universities participate to the scheme as a way to advertize, to keep in touch with Alumni and (some say) to promote free education among the world as it’s obvious very few people  actually end up sitting in MIT classroom every year.

My remark/ I think it’s a good way of promoting quality education around the world (even if not everybody as Internet and an Ipod but you always need a beginning). I think my home university should do that as the dean seems to be very tech-friendly. I remark here the brillantism dynamism of Apple in launching new market and business models. I-tunes U doesn’t yet generate revenues directly but it might be a source of business if you can put advertising on it, if universities decide to sell courses through I-tunes one day, if customers are willing to pay ( I would). It will not compete universities because they sell mainly degrees (paper) and nothing would worth the quality of interaction in universities. Though, what is doing the e-learning University of Phoenix (offering only distance class with some occasional physical meeting i think) and Is it the begining of outsourcing/offshoring of education? I know that some indians already go to China to study medicines because it’s cheaper and recognized. Could we expect tomorrow a cheap version of Yale bachelors in the New Delhi instead of New Haven? with remote courses and local teachers just assisting the class and supervising exams? The University of Phoenix is a good beginning and I-Tunes U revigorate the idea.

More information: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103102521.html