Module 5

                Once the flatterers converge what are some of the problems that will arise around the world. That is what we read about this week in, “The World is Flat”. We are getting to the point in the reading where everything is coming together. Where the flatteners are becoming tools to revolutionize the world. We are talking about the triple convergence. Also in the reading some of the conflicts with outsourcing particularly the India and Indiana case. Also we learned about intellectual property.  

The triple convergence starts with ten of the previous flatteners coming together and being used together. Next is companies changing and or adapting to these new changes. The last part I would say is to maintain the changing and adapting of the new flatteners, stay up to date, keep training people for it. Hire new people to do some of the new work that comes along with it. So why is the triple convergence so important, Friedman uses the example of when they first introduced computers to the work force, they thought that it would be an immediate jump in productivity. That was not so, the people had to learn what they were doing, they had to change how they worked. Just because you have the tools doesn’t mean better results if the people using them don’t know how to use the equipment or software or whatever it might be to the best of their abilities? This requires training and keeping everyone up to date on updates.

            When the state of Indiana decides it’s time to upgrade the computer system, it needs to contract the work out. They receive the bids from the potential companies. The lowest company is offering 8.1 million dollars lower than the rest of the companies. It seems the obvious choice, but government gets involved and wants to keep the work local instead of using the cheaper way which would have saved so much more money. You wonder who was exploited here, the people who are now paying probably more than that 8.1 million to divide the work load and divide it among smaller companies, or the companies that just spent all the money training people to the best way of how to upgrade and having no work for these people to do now. The problem both sides lose, no one is winning, the state government just wasted all that money, and India just lost the contract. The problem is I think if we are going to commit to outsourcing just commit. It will save more money make us more productive here at home in our own fields of study. When we play this game of politics and switching because of public opinion all we are doing is losing money that could have been better spend elsewhere.

            Intellectual property is your idea on software. Such as an app, or even your e-mail. This is important because this is where it all starts. We need to make sure that people share their ideas and work together while at the same time protecting the original inventor of the idea. We don’t want people being closed off with their ideas. Ideas that could potentially be the next success. I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing my ideas with other people knowing that any one of them could take the idea and try and change it or make it better then what I was doing because they have better resources.  We need to be able to trade mark and idea. Which would prove to be very difficult.