HW 11, the World is Flat, chapter 10, Developing Countries and the Flat World

In chapter 10 of his book, the World is Flat, Thomas, Fridman says that the manufacture of statuettes of The Virgin of Guadalupe in China and their subsequent importation into Mexico is an example of the problem that  is created when one developing country competes with another, as China became number two importer in 2003 after the U.S.  Also, Friedman discusses the need to develop the countries and the polises and laws to creat the right enviroment for that country's companies and entrepreneurs to succeed in the world.  He states that countries must be tottaly honest in determining their place in the world market inorder to adapt and survive.  Moreover, the concept of reform retail and everything is introduced as we explore the changes in education, infrastructure, and governance. Ireland becomes a case study for financial success as their per capita and GDP has risen to second highest in the European Union. Friedman contemplates a society’s ability and willingness to sacrifice for the purpose of economic development, but some countries will not.

Yasameen.Jawdat_HW 9, The World is Flat

In chapter four of his book the world is flat, Thomas Friedman say that the world is exploring the manner that counters are facing and adopting to the changes that globalization brings to the way we do business.  The comparison he made between the Industrial Revolusion and teh IT Revolusion make the people belive that Karl Marx presicted the world flatting that we see today.  In an interview with Harverd's political theorist Michael J.Sandel ask if the exploitation is globalaization or not and if the outsorced Indian are utilized or they are given a change they will never have?  In order to answer this question, Fridman examined the India-Indiana story from 2003, where abn Indian company was outsourced to upgrade Indiana’s unemployment computer system, effectively taking work from people in Indiana in order to provide more work for people in India.  In the end Fredman summiraze the chapter test for intellectual property law and it means that this law must be put in place and proctact the law.

Yasameen Jawdat_HW 8, task 2, The World is Flat

In his book the World is Flat, and in chapter two, Thomas Friedman talks about ten fatteners, the seventh one is Supply-Chaining. Supply-Chaining is the relationship between the suppliers, retailers, and customers. Friedman gives the company Wal-Market as an example of supply-chaining. Although Wal-Market became under havey critisim because of the way it's treat thier employees. Wal-Market domination of the retail market is how it intelligently handles products. When a cashier scans your item in the checkout line, a sign is sent to Wal-Mart central command telling them for the changing demand in a product as well as the local supply. If a demand is increasing faster than supply, a message is send to Wal-Mart’s suppliers who could be anywhere and more of that product is instantly on its way to the store. Communicating with suppliers in this way was completely new, and enabled them to increase or decrease production to keep up with demand. Also, Wal-Mart created new ways to control its distribution of products. Supplychaining is an example of flattening the world because of the way it levels the boundaries between customers and manufacturers regardless of where in the world those manufacturers are. Friedman also talks about the negative consequences of Wal-Mart’s obsession with efficiency because everything about Wal-Mart is trying to keep prices as low as possible, store managers are under tremendous pressure to keep labor costs low. The eighth flattener is "insourcing". Insoursing mean that hiring companies to handle your company supply chain. Friadman's example for insourcing is UPS, United Parcel Service. He talks about how UPS transformed itself from just a delivery business into an insourcing company. UPS handles all the routing and scheduling of Papa John’s supply trucks. Toshiba insourced with UPS, and if your toshiba broke UPS will fix it to you and deliverd it back to you. Also, if you wanted a pier of nike shoe, UPS will deliver it to you. Also, UPS helps the small companies that they are dealing with to be known around the world. Insourcing flattened the world in three way, first, letting little companies be global companies. Second, dissolving barriers between companies, and third, increasing the business's standars that practices across companies and around the world. The ninth flattenner is in-forming. In Forming means that how easy it is to obtain information. The World Wide Web provides users with information they have never seen before. But you connot benifit from the information unless you can find what you’re looking for. The Web search engine Google contributes to in-forming because people could find webpages that are more relevant to their searches than any other search service. Google is based on the idea that webpages can be ranked by the number of links pointing to them. It now processes over 1 billion searches per day, up from 150 million three years ago. Google gives more power in the hands of users by letting them do their own researchs. One new risk in flattening the world is that Google is allowing people to find out more about you than was ever possible before. The tenth flattener is steroids. Friedman means by steroids is a combination of small factors that amplify the effects of outsourcing, off-shoring, uploading, supply-chaining, insourcing, and in-forming. The digital steroid puts all text, sound, photo, and video media into a common standard that can be easily shared, stored, searched, and manipulated. An emerging digital flattener is VoIP ,Voice Over Internet Protocol, which allows people to make phone calls using a broadband Internet connection. All VoIP calls cost the same, regardless of how far you are calling. And Chief among these is the spread of wireless Internet access, which allows people to work online from their portable computers in airports, hotel lobbies, libraries, and even coffee shops. Personal steroids shift power from institutions to individuals.

The first convergence in chapter three talks about the ten flatteners in chapter two because all of them tegother make a new platform. It is a world, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration. This platform enables individuals, groups, companies, and universities anywhere in the world to collaborate for the purposes of innovation, production, education, research, entertainment, and, alas, war-making. This platform works without a proble with geography, distance, time, and in the near future, even language. The second convergence happened as business practices caught up with the changes in technology. It took a surprisingly long time for companies to reap the benefits of Convergence I. When electrification began in the late 1800s, the factories that existed were built around steam technology and they were huge and designed to support massive steam engines. To save money, industrialists had to replace those huge factories with smaller and cheaper factories that were filled with the lighter and cheaper electric motors. The third convergence is demographic. In the 1990s, China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Central Asia opened their economies and political systems for their citizens could participate in the global platform. Giving so many people access to all these tools of collaboration, along with the ability through search engines and the Web to access billions of pages of information, ensures that the next generation of innovations will come from all over Planet Flat.