Summing Up
In supporting innovation, does it matter how flat the world really is? "The world is oval!" (Hujaj Ali Nawazkhan). "[T]he world is flatly circular" (Santhanam Krishnan). "[T]he flattening process, while occurring, is highly uneven in its pace, extent, and effects" (Alex Evans). "It really doesn't matter whether the world is flat or not. Most value is added by the exploiters, not the creators, and that works in both (flat and non-flat) environments" (Gerald Nanninga). These comments, among others, reflected many of the thoughts generated by this month's column.
Bruce Bockmann stated the case for the "flat-worlders" in reminding us that "it is the responsibility of government to support technology in its own country. If government does that, the capital and entrepreneurs will follow ... capital and management seek efficiency, and being close to the technology is efficient." Further, William Halveson pointed out that "CRADA agreements can limit how fast the high level discoveries escape."
Abbey Mutumba, on the other hand, said that "Most innovations now take place at the users' end...." As John Arnott put it, "Entrepreneurship is the motor that gets technology to market." According to Kamal Gupta, "Scientific research and technological innovations create new products, but the top line and bottom line come from entrepreneurial innovations...." Adnan Younis Lodhi added: "With the virtual mobility of global labor insured, only those companies and nations will grow ... that make the best use of entrepreneurial qualities...."
How governments should spend money in support of innovation clearly depends on one's view of just how flat the world is. On this question, those who addressed the issue at all played it quite safely. For example, C. J. Cullinane wrote, "[I]nvest at the basic high school and college level in math and science. Small business should get tax breaks as well." After largely accepting author Amar Bhide's arguments, Kamal Gupta concluded that "governments should fund education in math and science ... Markets will take care of entrepreneurial innovation."
Jay Somasundaram asked whether we are even asking the right question. In his words, "The critical problems of this century are war, massive income disparity, non-sustainable use of resources, and discontent. What we need most is not innovation from the physical sciences ... but innovation from the social sciences."
Is the world really flat when it comes to innovation in the physical sciences? Or is that even the right question? What do you think?
Original Article
That's the question posed by Amar Bhidé in his new book, The Venturesome Economy. Disputing Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, Bhidé concludes that: (1) it isn't, and (2) arguments by Friedman and others—whom he labels as "techno-nationalists"—fail to recognize how innovation that matters really occurs and aren't always helpful to long-term global or even U.S. development.
Bhidé's conclusions are based on interviews with a large sample of start-up entrepreneurs as well as economic analysis. He's concerned with the complex set of relationships in a three-by-three matrix composed of high/mid/ground-level products and services and high/mid/ground-level know-how—for example, developers of high-level (think microprocessors), mid-level (motherboards), and ground-level (laptop computers) products and services as well as high-level (solid state physics), mid-level (circuit designs), and ground-level (management of a specific fabrication plant) know-how for each product or service (in this case, microprocessors).
His conclusions are, among others, that: (1) it doesn't matter where in the world high-level research takes place, because (2) its findings travel easily and at relatively low cost, but that (3) as one progresses from high-level to ground-level products and services and from high-level to ground-level know-how, ideas travel less easily. The work associated with them is more localized and less exportable. Thus, concerns about "brain drains," the proportion of foreign students studying in U.S. institutions of higher learning, or the likelihood that the U.S. will continue to lose its dominance in the development of new high-level ideas and know-how are overblown.
Instead, Bhidé concludes that the edge in economic development from the "innovation game" comes from the kind of entrepreneurial behavior that adapts and combines high-level ideas and know-how, adjusts them to the needs of particular markets, and actually sells them to willing buyers. Without these capabilities, high-level ideas, as was the case with the development of transistors, can take decades to develop.
Of course, the development of high-level ideas is critical to this process as well, but if it is less and less possible to hoard such ideas, where they are developed is of less importance than where mid-level and ground-level ideas and know-how are applied. The iPod, for example, was an example of purchased (largely non-U.S.) technological innovations combined with Apple design capability and knowledge of the U.S. market, where the vast majority have been sold.
If one agrees with these hypotheses, what does this mean for investments in basic science on the part of any government? Would some of that money be better deployed in supporting education in areas such as marketing and entrepreneurship that fosters entrepreneurial thinking and behaviors, providing credit to entrepreneurs and small businesses, and instituting tax policies that encourage the provision of venture capital? Or is the world really flat? Do the "techno-nationalists" have it right? What do you think?
To read more:
Amar Bhidé, The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).
Having said that, let me also share another instance of why the location where research happens gains relevance. Silicon Fen (also referred to as the Cambridge Cluster), on the outskirts of the University of Cambridge, isn't as big as its American cousin. However, according to an article (John Tilston, Feb 06, siliconfenbusiness.com), this area hosts between 1500 to 3500 high-tech firms (depending on which survey you believe in) and collectively contributes upwards of 4.5 billion to Britain's GDP and the top 20 of them listed on stock markets have a capitalization of over 6 billion. They employ somewhere between 35,000 and 50,000 people. The region consistently outperforms the growth of the UK economy as a whole. Cambridge cluster companies secured more than 25% of the UK's venture capital investments and more than 8% of the European total by value in the first half of 2004. Though this information is a little dated, I'm guessing the latest figures would extrapolate this trend.
The point I'm trying to highlight is the self-prophesizing nature of the technology innovation process in and around the geographic source of innovation. I'm guessing Bhide isn't saying basic research isn't important, just that it may be overrated and getting more attention than it deserves. That argument definitely provides food for thought.
Pure science is worthwhile in itself but when utilized for practicle use it is multiplied exponentially. While the innovation brings change it also brings competition and the dreaded 'Knock-off' or copy. So I believe the world is indeed "Flat" but also has the ability to 'curve' or even be porous when innovation (and money) is involved.
Where should government invest money? I believe it should invest at the basic high school and college level in math and science. Small business should get tax breaks as well as technological innovators (entrepreneurial start-ups). Let Capitalism pick the technologies to build but government can supply the engineers and math wizards.
Charlie
Although Thomas Friedman has compellingly captured a fundamental shift in the world, there is still considerable debate about this view of globalisation - namely, that the world will become increasingly flat. Some question whether the world is headed in the direction of greater globalisation, or, in Samuel Huntington's words, headed instead for a "clash of civilisations". Others in the anti-globalisation movement question whether the flattening world is good thing and call for it to be stopped. Rising concerns about global warming and other environmental problems could also affect the flattening of the world. It is clear, as Friedman acknowledges that the world is not completely flat. Some of these different opinions ensure that there will not only be healthy debate for many years to come, but also that a variety of forces could slow or even reverse the flattening of the world.
The overconfidence of technocrats, however, regarding their technical expertise and their inclination toward large-scale technological projects seem to contradict their "grassroots consciousness" and the "common touch" derived during their earlier life experiences. As always, their worldviews and values are also subject to change. Political leaders need to adjust to new socioeconomic environs. This is even more essential in today's world, where other social forces, especially entrepreneurs and public intellectuals, have become increasingly influential.
Most importantly the fourth generation of leaders is not a monolithic group of people with completely identical views and values. Intra-generational differences do exist in every generation, but they are particularly prevalent among the fourth generation of leaders. A balanced analysis of the fourth generation leadership should address both its collective characteristics and its intra-generational diversity.
Certainly in the west we have a strongly biased view towards technology and its importance to our society both in terms of intellectual rigour and economic contribution. Both authors have valid points of view but neither addresses one of the paradoxes of the real business world.
Research I did for the government of Canada showed that only 6% of new businesses use a new technology; another 6% use some technology, fully 88% of new businesses use no technology (OECD). The average lifespan of a company is <10 years. Companies like GE that have existed for a century are truly the exception. Of course these numbers are skewed by mom & pops and of course many more that do not incorporate.
The scientific and engineering comunities have a vested interest in sustaining promotion but I think Bhide is closer to the mark. Entrepreneurship is the motor that gets technology to market.
Funding the other things mentioned ... is akin to choosing which banks should get bailed out. Bureaucrats choosing which ideas and firms to back is ... well ... somewhat counter to the whole idea of risk/reward balancing, no? Why extend moral hazard from banking to innovation? Shouldn't we expect similar results?
As for the brain drain debate, it is clear America and Europe have benefited from it. Certainly we can't fill the need "technology" has for trained/talented people - or primary care physicians, either. Some argue we need to spend more money for education, which would make it a policy choice.
But what if it is a limitation of our species? That's the politically incorrect question that really needs asking: what if our technology is (on a global basis) unsupportable because it requires more talented/trained people than our species can produce? There aren't enough 7' tall people for the NBA, why should it be different for bioengineering?
The factor that is the most difficult and expensive to produce is technology - certainly consistently produced great quantities of technology. A great university or government or private research center is required to produce volumes of technology and cause capital and entrepreneurial management skills to locate nearby. I think that it is the responsibility of government to support technology in its own country. If government does that, the capital and entrepreneurs will follow. If it does not, capital formation and entrepreneurial management will be hit or miss.
Government funding should go to universities and to corporations but it should not be spread politically the way it is today. If you check to see where goverment technology funding goes, you will find out it is spread geographically. What we really need is to focus our funding on maybe a dozen key centers where technology can flourish and capital and entrepreneurial managment will locate. China has done that and that is why they are catching up.
My view is that government funding is vital but it needs to be more efficiently deployed, recognizing that clusters attract the other factors that are key to successful commercialization. To bend the world, as many other governments are trying to do, we need keep trying to lead in technology development and we need to have a strong technology development program within the country. Geography counts because capital and management seek efficiency and being close to the technology is efficient.
It really doesn't matter whether the world is flat or not. Most value is added by the exploiters, not the creators, and that works in both environments. If the world is flat, you can easily get an idea from anywhere and exploit it for profit. You just need to be a little faster.
If the world is not flat, then that just means that exploitation needs to be customized more for each market.
So if you believe that the role of government is to create jobs and strengthen the economy (which in itself is a debatable issue), then an emphasis on exploitation would appear to be the way to go. Isn't this basically what the Japanese government did back in the heydays of the 1970s and 1980s?
PoC occurs must span applied research across the feasibility bridge to the product/service Development phase. In the PoC environment novel ideas are crafted into realistic innovations. Then six months to one year are spent shaping, testing and guiding an innovation based project to understandabilty of its higher performance/value and cursory market validation. Very few words by innovation processes observers have been written about this crutial weigh-stop to commercialism.
Here is a short PoC FAQ:
1. Investment to move innovations to feasibility are not available from the venture capitalists - too early stage, too risky.
2. Universities dislike commercial activity on campus; and, are reluctant to use operating or research money for PoC operations and grants to faculty.
3. Corporations percieve PoC's as disrupting of their culture; and, have chosen outside investments to satisfy growth; meanwhile, the perhaps brilliant ideas within internal engineers/scientists remain in their notebooks.
4. The value of PoC work is not more fundable commercial potential, but projects of higher quality and swiftness to market. An additional benefit is catalyizing greater numbers of ideas from researchers where a PoC is operating - not an incubator as that comes later.
5. Over the last 30 years many PoC initiatives began with hope of a new venture ROI that could provide self-sustainability. Observation and history conclude that only a philanthropic attitude
and funding will sustain PoC efforts.
6. Once the scoured innovations of the PoC process reach the Development stage, the venture capitalist may invest in perhaps 5-10% of the offerings.
Focusing on the need to mobilize proof of concept intitiatives is a national imperative best supported by government and philanthropy. No matter where the innovations orginate, America must seize an innovation to increase its value and more quicly than competitors ready it for development and deliver its higher performance to users. This surely will ignite more novel ideas.
But when I walk the streets of Bombay and find Chinese batteries selling for one third the usual price, eagerly bought by a slum-dweller to power a Chinese toy cheaply purchased in a big store, I think Friedman has a point or twenty.
The globalization of banking and the acceptance/exploitation of capitalism's advantages by even non-democratic societies in Asia has certainly contributed to this flattening.
On the other hand, we need sane dissenting views such as Bhide's to counter those of the alarmists and protectionists. I believe the entrepreneurial spirit and the innovation-fostering environment of America will continue to be a significant competitive advantage for its citizens. Innovation, in its essence, thrives in diversity and with sourcing of ideas (and things) from wherever-it-makes-sense.
Hasn't the USA created and benefited from computers and the Internet, the same technologies that have enabled third-world countries to compete globally? The cultural constraint faced by budding business giants of Asian and even European countries is underestimated.
It is a narrow and limited perspective that suggests that if China and Malaysia become the manufacturing hub for the world and India rises as a global backoffice, there would be no jobs or economic growth in the USA.
A lot of change is in the offing but the entire ground is not necessarily covered by Bhide or Friedman.
Until somebody came up with the idea of hire-purchase, tractors were an unsaleable product, the American farmer simply could not afford to buy it.
Credit cards expanded the consumer markets manifold; so did the home mortgage system. In India, homes were a dream for most middle income families; by the time they had saved enough to buy one, prices would go up 2x. Since the time home loans were introduced in the country sometime in mid-90s, home ownership would have shot up 20 times, maybe more.
The near demise of music labels, and the rise of downloaded music, is another glaring example of entrepreneural innovation.
Bangladesh's pioneering work in microfinance is an example of locally-tailored innovation, so is Mother Dairy (India's) pioneering innovation in milk collection and dairy processing, which transformed India from an acute milk shortage market to the world's largest milk producer in one generation.
ITC Ltd's (another Indian company) work on e-choupals, a bazaar concept where villagers buy their home and farm needs, and sell their produce, is another eample. ITC lets village folk track prices in various markets over the internet, and get the best prices for their crops.
None of these did basic scientific research or developed technology. The tractor was developed by somebody else, it was the hire-purchase guy who made it a marketable product.
The Japanese did something similar for manufacturing - their techniques of just-in-time and single-minute-exchange of-dies revolutionised manufacturing without using much technology.
My view is that governments should fund education in maths and science, right up to the doctorate level. Markets will take care of entrepreneurial innovation.
Naturally, man thinks and rethinks the way it is. More often, the perception of the entrepreneur plays a vital role in the understanding and explanation of theory through their actions regarding innovative studies and developemnt. If enterpreneurs find it easy and intresting with beliefs in solid results, they will pursue the world in their own directions and no flat TOT/TOK (Transfer of technology/transfer of knowledge) exists. ... Now it really depends on: What is the product? Who is taking the ownership? How will it be positioned? Who will be the consumers? Especially what cycles exist at that particular point in time?
Thanks!!
1. Ideas across national boundaries travel faster;
2. The acceptance of ideas is slow in the older generation than the younger;
3. Adapting ideas meets lots of resistance, but this also depends on many factors such as cultural and ethnic differences;
4. At the grassroot level, maximum resistance is observed in accepting and implementing ideas.
The where and how for start-up sparks may become less important if one gets the whole picture, as inclusive of the often-coincidental factors of opportunity, timing, keen individual or institutional interests, plus the omnipresent and not to be forgotten serendipity factor.
For example, improving school and university education results is a common theme in this discussion. Science, on the other hand, is clear that the most important learning period by far is infancy - science that we fail to exploit.
However, entrepreneurship is still very much a localized effort, for the simple reason that it requires so many elements as part of its enabling environment including (but not limited to) access to venture / risk funding, strong legal and commercial environment, absence of bureaucratic red-tape. That is the reason why a US tech giant would get its research increasingly done in a Bangalore or a Taiwan, but would get it commercialized from California.
So it will be naive to assume one way or the other whether the world is flat or not. For there are certain areas where it is flat and totally boundaryless, and then are other areas where severe impediments still exist towards assuming a flat structure.
The developed world wants new things that are more sophisticated. The developing world would just like things period. This is an important edge on which both technological innovation and entrepreneurship divides. Today the developed world is rethinking consumer based capitalism while the developing world is figuring out how to become consumers.
In the developed world, public policy for the funding of science is most often managed by former scientists. Complicated problems are by their very nature more interesting to scientists. This is why health and medicine constitute the bulk of US federally funded R&D as opposed to, say, the science of nuts and bolts.
Our business values technologies for their capital asset value. What we learn from this process is sometimes surprising. For example, that a left threaded lug nut that holds farm machinery together is actually more valuable than say, a new drug to treat male pattern baldness. But then again, that depends on whether looking good is more valuable than eating well. Whether or not the world is flat, I am optimistic that there are entrepreneurs aplenty to exploit both opportunities. What works best depends on where you are standing.
of various elements is essential due to the 'execution' related complexities. For policy planners and leaders(in business, government or non-profits), the challenge is in identifying the equilibrium based on the current status of development in each part of the world. Identifying innovation in context of the social systems of a region often helps in productizing successfully.
I would ask any emerging manager of a research mission if the best judge of security (and this is my job) is her researcher, not the politician or FBI/CIA clone garnering power. Until we can bring the best minds together, using every means and system without fear, the flat world will have rows of razor wire every ten feet. The US is not producing talent for its needs, and if we ever hope to renew our enormous potential we must address our fear. And we must find a means to welcome, not exclude.
With MUBS (Makerere University Business School) fellow lecturers/researchers, we are trying to adapt and convince entrepreneurs in Uganda/East Africa into preferring franchising to other business growth and social improvement strategies. We are currently working on a research paper entitled 'Football Branding, Franchise System Development, and Creation of Franchiseable Football Brands'. We want football clubs in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, and the entire region to become franchises that will attract more investors, paying supporters, corporate sponsors, and FDI. 'Health Franchising and Access to Quality Healthcare Services' is another innovative research that we are trying to adopt into our East African/Great Lakes Region region. Both adaptive initiatives and high-level innovation from the developed world will be maximized in our developing countries. But remember, i came to learn more and creatively thought about marketing 'business format franchising' into Uganda through the internet, which is in line with the benefits of 'Innovation Explosion' where the original/high-level innovators in the developed world and the mid and ground-level adaptors in Uganda benefit.
Indeed the country where the applied research is done or the high-level innovation was conducted is less important than my country--Uganda--where that innovation is modified and maximally utilized. It is a win-win scenario with mutual benefits. Most innovations now take place at the users' end while the originators of the winning innovation are usually paid royalties through technology transfer catalysed by increased internet access. Uganda should facilitate adapters to exploit the high-level innovations that entrepreneurial researchers like me are fine-tuning for our country's economic development.
Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in appalling conditions to churn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours - so who is actually benefiting from this sort of globalization? Corporates of course!
Two books to read that offer a counterperspective to Friedman's "The World is Flat":
The [former] Harvard professor Pankaj Ghemawat's latest book, "Redefining Global Strategy," is more academically inclined. 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, a small, but interesting book, is by Aronica and Ramdoo: "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller."
Interestingly enough, the book was written about two years back and discusses prescriptions for the future and other related issues in the chapters "Debt and Financialization of America," "America"s Former Middle Class," and "A Paradigm Shift for America."
Some understated observations not forthcoming in arguments on a "Flat World". The observations temper any conclusions, implications, inferences etc made. The observation are physical but apply the the conceptual flat world.
a) Even if the world were flat, we would still have to account for mountains and valleys i.e. the height from which the observation is made affects the conclusion etc. So the conclusion is made in real time but is it complete enough to be strategic?
Beta or VHS anyone?
b) In both the flat world and the round world, real and conceptual, events of significance occur and change a conclusion or trend overnight and/or for varying periods of time e.g. an earthquake and a better copy will rapidly change what exists or is planned.
But who can predict the earthquake and the copy inventor who take the idea but markets a competing product or need?
How may of us really need to walk around with music in our ears? But better than music blasting out for all to hear!
c) It was never about flat and round! It was always about isolation versus ease of entry and exit since the size of the earth was not changing but population kept increasing.
That native north American Indian was right when he said that the white man had no concept of technological sustainability being about resource sustainability.
d) In a flat world, it may be impossible to stop the fast spread of good or bad and the consequences may have to be played out, except in the mountains.
In a round world, where there is isolation, it may be impossible to prevent the arrival of the bad and the good. But those who escape to tell the story have a hard time telling tales of the fantastic in untouched worlds.
There is no doubt in my mind that world has grown flat or with some concession growing flat by the day.
It is apparent that investments done by one particular government in basic science is going to provide a free ride to other governments and organizations as we have seen the pace of dissemination of useful knowledge has grown in recent decades. Holding a productive product or technology for a longer term is a great challenge today particular with the lax piracy standards in the developing countries.
With the virtual mobility of global labor insured, only those companies and nations will grow quick that will make the best use of entrepreneurial qualities of its populace.
Thus the buck making corporates become the cash cows that contribute to the tax revenues of Governments that deploy them in education in areas such as marketing and entrepreneurship that fosters entrepreneurial thinking and behaviors, providing credit to entrepreneurs and small businesses, and instituting tax policies that encourage the provision of venture capital. This is the route many developing countries have taken to be in the game of growth and position themselves as an attraction for investment by entrepreneurs!
To answer the question viz. whether the world is flat or otherwise - my answer would be - the world is flatly circular! This is the reality circle!
Dropping further behind the new ideas and taillights of China, India and 20 other nations - is not an option for Canadian youth!
Future generations can't wait any longer, for their parents, teachers, employers and politicians to match the overwhelming global pace for adapting to new ideas, higher technologies, plus math and sciences at the level foreign students do in their schools.
The highest priority for all governments is to cut their own spending without layoffs, by consolidating the work and eliminating the position of all employees as they retire in each of the next 5 years. Bureaucrats have had the software and computers to do so for 30 years, but have never seen fit to give Canadians the information technology dividends we have been owed.
Therefore, to generate the highest possible revenues quickly, the feds and provinces can cut corporate tax rates to 0% for 3 - 5 years, plus provide 10 year tax holidays for entrepreneurs that start new businesses and for early investors that fund them. This will have a much faster impact on all communities than any infrastructure project.
Also, the higher level knowledge and skills now locked up in government jobs, can be freed up for work in the private and not-for-profit sectors - when all new government hires are for 20 years with a fully vested pension paid on retirement. Providing current employees with a fully vested 20 year pension, might be a good idea, for the same reasons.
But, ordinary Canadians have a key role to play in the recovery of our economy - by nominating, campaigning for and electing higher-level politicians who have the financial independence, knowledge, experience and drive to initiate and champion changes like those suggested above.
Moreover, rather than merely sell access to government honey pots like highly politicized infrastructure programs, that restrict innovation - newly elected politicians are more likely to foster private sector growth by adopting new ideas that change the status quo mentality of governments.
Also, thousands of practical bottom up ideas will be nourished and implemented by better access to global levels of math and sciences and new technologies on the internet, when all parts of Canada have access to the high speed www. Therefore, most infrastructure spending approved initially should be directed to projects with a fast track pay back in rural Canada, where 15% of Canadians work, but produce 80% of Canada's natural resource wealth.
Cities that mistake maniacal, huge open-ended infrastructure spending for genuine economic achievement, often had billions in overruns. Therefore, major urban projects must be put on hold, until private sector financing is more readily available.
Jim Peers,
B Com McGill; MBA HBS '51;
Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
However, I believe that the world has become flat as it is not possible for any country to do the range of activities that are required to succeed in the Innovation Game. Each country is at a different level of development and has different competencies.
The developed world has the infrastructure inplace for high level research and know - how, but needs to depend on the skills of countries in South East Asia and China to develop them into high level products at low costs. Countries like India provide the IT backbone.
While investments in developing entrepreneurs are required to be made by all countries, a country should also focus on investing in the relevant area in the three - by - three matrix where it is most competitive.
I feel future winners of the innovation games will be part of globally networked organizations where entrepreneurship exists throughout the organization, with each part providing the know-how, product or service in which it is most competitive.
An iPod, while it remains a brilliant, non-linear innovation, is just one more "wow" product for the over-served, over-pampered market segment that is at the top of the market pyramid. The market segment at the top of the pyramid has been living in a flat world for a while--the recent global economic crisis has underscored the same, albeit in a negative way.
Yet, the need of the hour is how the most creative, brilliant minds across industry sectors strive to use their talents and skills in a positively non-linear manner whereby the under-served across the continents can also enjoy the joy of owning and using a stripped-down version of an iPod, laptop, or mobile phone. To quote Obama once again--a nation (read: the world) cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous (read: top of the pyramid).
When are the questions of technological acceptability, applicability, and ease of technological transfer addressed?
The world being flat must be driven by the assumption that technological innovations score highly in the above-mentioned factors.
I happen to be living in an African country where these technologies are used suspiciously and are reserved for those in a given age group! How then can the world be flat if a people who are living in the same times and same town face two conflicting viewpoints on technology and its usage? Our elders use technology as migrants would do in a technology-driven country, while we the youth use these technologies as the citizens of a technological world.
Notice that these technologies may be either high end or low end. It does not matter to the migrant. All is technology.
"While technology is often referred to as providing 'competitive edge' it delivers nothing until it is used by somebody (Pettigrew and Whipp, 1993). Therefore technological change has to be seen in terms of a process beginning with the idea itself and, later, adoption amongst an extended set of users. The process does not end there. Once an idea is in the hands of users they, in turn, may initiate modification and adaptation of the idea and regenerate the innovation process (Von Hippel, 1977). Indeed, idea providers (manufacturers) have been known to search out and gain the cooperation of 'active users' to help to improve the stream of new products (R. Rothwell, 1990s.1992). To make possible and maintain an innovation process involves, inter aria, the interaction and collaboration of different sets of individuals: idea originators, technological developers, gatekeepers to link the activity to its environment, top management 'eye on' to smooth the progress of the innovation when it does not conform to the current norms of organizational satisfactoriness, and so on."
Further, I would like to put all your attention to Buddhist philoshopy. It explains everything about the world very clearly.
To understand this process in its whole dimension, one may move focus away from an industry and supply perspective towards a consumer/user and demand perspective. The full socio-cultural development especially in Asia and parts of Eastern Europe includes an equalization of consumer insights and needs. With growing wealth and availability of information and goods consumers discover needs they never had before, in many ways these are exactly the needs that do exist in the Western world already. The process of transfer and adaptation just gets faster with every year and thus results in a flattening of attitudes, needs and choice.
No way to get around this and the earlier Western corporations understand this the better they are prepared to understand this challenge as a gigantic opportunity.
A. This forum has already beat the "business world is flat" to death. And it is perhaps the wrong question anyway.
B. Perspectives on Technology and where new innovations and new processes are developed, that eventually develop new products, are indeed interesting, but take up my time and are not necessarily useful in developing information that might be useful to me...well, to anyone.
C. As someone above suggested, we spend far too much time about products and entrepreneurship; asking the wrong questions, when a lot of what we find in the Skymall catalog is frill; unnecessary to the human condition, no matter how neat, how innovative, how cheap or how useful it might be, unless, of course one has money to throw at frivolous things.
D. The current financial crisis should be a lesson to us that there is a lot of product on the market that is not necessary to life, or the pursuit of happiness...no matter what the technology or the innovation or the marketing prowess of individuals or corporations might be. For all the years we've had windows from Microsoft, have we developed a better way to keep books? No, we just automate them. Now we can keep two sets more easily.
E. What matters is what the innovation and new technology can achieve that will make this world better...not how to make oneself or company richer, or make more product to make life easier for those who already have all the toys they know how to operate. And it won't matter where or how we get that innovation, or who owns it, as it will, as said, make the world better...perhaps altruistically.
F. Finally. Yes, we need better schools...teaching better. How to do that is / would be a better subject of inquiry, and perhaps a technological breakthrough. And funding education by the government sounds great, but not if it's done the same way...nor without buy-in by parents taking responsibility for students unruliness. Otherwise the results won't be any different than back in the 70s, when Iaccoca announced we had already lost a generation of kids; quite possibly the ones we have now running our companies into the ground...and getting paid excessively for doing so.
We are living on the cusp of the industrial society and the the emerging knowledge society. The main difference between the two lies in the difference in the tools of communication which lie at the very basis of human activities. For example, today in commerce, government, banking and learning, we use the Internet, rather than national based transport and postal technology of the industrial society. The Internet as a democratic tool allows the transfer of information (read new ideas, applications, innovation, entreprenurial activities etc) to any nook and corner of the world instantly. The concept of 'flat' 'round' or 'oval' is abstract, and applied to the Internet-affords everyone (who has access of course) 'glimpses of heaven, and visions of hell'. At the same time, the Internet which enables globalisation (another abstract concept) provides a platform for McBride's "One World, Many Voices" including the marginalised. By definition therefore, we see ideological,
cultural, political and social clashes which need to be managed as communication phenomena in order to inspire trust and assurance from the sender to receiver of the message, and include appropriate response to the feedback.
In the final analysis, relationships whether face to face or mediated are essentially complex communication activities that must be skilfully managed if we are to avoid the social upheavals we are witnessing today.
Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has been critical of Friedman's book. In "Making Globalization Work", Stiglitz writes:
"Friedman is right that there have been dramatic changes in the global economy, in the global landscape; in some directions, the world is much flatter than it has ever been, with those in various parts of the world being more connected than they have ever been, but the world is not flat [...] Not only is the world not flat: in many ways it has been getting less flat."
I consider what behind these copying behaviors as great disequilibrium between China and developed countries. Baidu.com after Google.com, the coffee shop chains copying Starbucks, automobile services companies learned from US, tremendous entrepreneurial opportunities lie in the disequilibrium. However, not every such case turns to be a successful venture. For example, though friends-making websites such as Facebook.com in US are very successful, similar companies in China are suffering extremely.
I would say if you look at the big picture, globalization makes the world more homogeneous; while if you look in more detail, globalization makes the world more heterogeneous too.
Governments should definitely create fiscal policies geared towards entrepreneurial activities, however this must be blended with an education which inspires thinking for oneself. This is the basis for further scientific (technological) developments. The education must be free of prejudices and, in the words of Karl Popper, it should help to discern truth and acquire knowledge.
Many of the economies are passing through turbulence with the huge increases in fuel prices, lack of consistency in food and troublesome credit positions. If the world is really flat - why the world communities fear of Global Warming? Why the countries issue bigger currencies to sustain economies? Why chunks of people still have to reside roadside and face hunger?