Thomas L. Friedman talking at MIT about his bestseller "The World is Flat" {search for 'The World is Flat' on iTunes}. A lucid and engaging account of what globalization is and implies. Identifies 10 factors globalizing the world. I'll plug the best mathematical description of globalization I know of yet again: Watts & Strogatz (1998) Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks. Nature 393:p440-442 (pdf). Some of the best 3 pages you'll ever read (if you disagre, read them again). Through the internet, the world is taking on the properties of a small-world network.
Here's Charlie Rose interviewing Friedman about the book. One interesting anecdote: he says Bill Gates told him the best new software they're getting today is from China and that the way the Chinese do it is they went around the top universities in China with IQ tests and hired the top of the top of the top. What's the average IQ of the top 0.0000001% in a population of 1.3 billion? 195? 210? 225? 250? Say what you will of IQ but that's sharp.
In other news, Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion (article). Heavy.
Here's Charlie Rose interviewing Friedman about the book. One interesting anecdote: he says Bill Gates told him the best new software they're getting today is from China and that the way the Chinese do it is they went around the top universities in China with IQ tests and hired the top of the top of the top. What's the average IQ of the top 0.0000001% in a population of 1.3 billion? 195? 210? 225? 250? Say what you will of IQ but that's sharp.
In other news, Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion (article). Heavy.
1 comment:
I would much rather the discourse on Globalization came from economists like Joesph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank), Paul Krugman (Princeton), Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard)etc. Ted Koppel interviews Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, who ofcourse doesnt find a mention in Friedman's book.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/opinion/25friedman-transcript.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
Two books to read, which offer a counterperspective to Friedman's "The World is Flat."
The Harvard Professor, Pankaj Ghemawat's latest book, "Redefining Global Strategy," is more academically inclined. I read an article of his published in the journal, "Foreign Policy", where he argues that the world is, at best, only semi-globalized. His argument being that Cultural, Administrative, Geographic and Economic aspects of a nation come in the way of total globalization from taking place and cites examples of the same.
The other small, but interesting book, is by Aronica and Ramdoo, "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller." It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman's book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn't a single table or data footnote in Friedman's entire book. "Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution," says Aronica. Aronica and Ramdoo conclude by listing over twenty action items that point the way forward, and they provide a comprehensive, yet concise, framework for understanding the critical issues of globalization.
You may want to see www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman's
"The World is Flat".
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html
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