The world is flat : Thomas L. Friedman

The book is on how, why and what about the Globalized world in the Twenty-First Century.

The global competitive playing field was being leveled, as Thomas L. Friedman realized during his visit to India, and during a chat with Nandan Nilekani.

Now more people can plug, play, compete, connect and collaborate with more power than ever before. We are all becoming publishers and therefore all becoming public figures.

The three greatest era 0f Globalization:
1. 1492 to 1800: When Columbus set sail. Countries globalized and world started shrinking.
2. 1800 to 2000: Great Depression and World Wars I and II, industrial revolution. Companies globalized and world became smaller.
3. 2000 and after: Individuals collaborate and compete globally, in a flat-world platform.

The ten forces that 'FLATTENED' the world:
#1 (11/9/1989) The New age of creativity: When the walls came down and the windows went up.(Berlin-MS)
#2 (08/9/1995) The New age of connectivity: When the web went around and the Netscape went public.
#3 Work Flow Software: 24/7/365 we are working: The Flat-World platform emerges.
#4 Uploading: Harnessing the power of communities. We are the web: Leads to globalisation of the local.
#5 Outsourcing: Y2K: India is 'The second buyer', who mined the brains of its own people.
#6 Off-shoring: (11/12/2001:China formally joined WTO): Running with Gazelles,eating with lions. While outsourcing takes only a limited specific function, off-shoring takes the whole factory activity.
#7 Supply-Chaining: Eating Sushi in Arkansas: Replace inventory with information. Wall-marts Sam Walton's vision was build by David Glass who is to supply-chaining what Bill Gates is to word processing. Selling at EDLP (Every Day Low Prices)
#8 In-sourcing: What the Guys in funny Brown shorts are really doing: FedEx, UPS (slogan: Your world synchronized: They even repair Toshiba laptops), DHL: Not just delivering packages, but doing logistics.
#9 In-Forming: Google, Yahoo!, MSN web search
#10 The Steroids: Digital, Mobile, Personal and Virtual. (iPaq's): Computing, Instant messaging and file sharing, phone calls over internet, Video conferencing, computer graphics, Wireless technologies and devices.

All these reinforce one another like complementary goods.

A new player, in a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration - is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early twenty-first century.

We have grown up with hippies in the 1960s, became yuppies in the 1980s to Zippies in 2000s. Cool, confident, creative, seeks challenge,loves risk, and shuns fear. Never stop inventing, and continue reinventing.

The great sorting out:

*India Vs Indiana: Who is Exploiting whom?
*Where do companies start and stop: No more in a country or locality.
*From "Verticals" command and control to Collaborate and connect "Horizontalization".
*Multiple Identity disorder.
*Who owns what? (Even what I type?)
*Death of the salesman.

The Untouchables:

@'Special or specialized' and the 'Localized and anchored'. Sufferers are the middle-class: They need to re-skill themselves.
@collaborators and orchestrator.
@Synthesizers
@Explainers
@Leveragers
@Adapters
@Sustainable and renewable green people.

The right stuff:

- Learn how to learn
- Navigate
- CQ+PQ>IQ (C=Curiosity, P=Passion)
- Stressing liberate art: Connect history, art, politics, and science. (India is loosing on it)
- Right brain : Innovate, do what you love.
- The right education
- The right country

The quiet Crisis:

With wealthy parents kids get fat, dumb and lazy. Not looking for education but an MBA and IPO.
We are sleeping in an airmatress from which air is coming out.
Wealth will gravitate to those countries who get three basic things right:
=Infrastructure to connect as efficiently and speedily as possible, with the flat world platform
=Education programs and Knowledge skills to empower people to innovate and do value-added work
=Right governance: Tax policies, investment, trade laws, support,inspirational leadership.
Do your homework, or they will take your job.

GAPS:
o Number gap : Skilled people to replace
o Education gap : Resulting in number gap
o Ambition gap: Love to television, video and online games.
o Education gap at the bottom: Education for mass production jobs which are no more.
o Funding gap
o Infrastructure gap
Bottom line: Creative thinking and entrepreneurship.

Need of the hour:
~ Leadership : Employ-ability
~ Muscle building : Portable benefits and opportunities for lifelong learning : It makes you mobile and adaptable
~ Cushioning : Good fat cushions worth keeping: Social security.
~ Social activism
~ Parenting: Ready to administer tough love: off games, television and i pods and get children down to work.

How to cope:
'Out of clutter, find simplicity.
From discord, find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.'
- Albert Einstein

Rule I : Whatever can be done will be done, 'The only question is whether it will be done by you or to you' : (As the greeting card to Barkha: It is upto you to decide you want to be hammered or nailed)
Rule II : The most important competition today is between you and your own imagination.
Rule III : And the small shall act big...One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big. Imagination is necessary, but not sufficient. You have to be able to implement what you imagine. And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach farther, faster, wider and deeper.
Rule IV : And the big shall act small...One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning how to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big.
Rule V : The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaborations within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation-whether in technology, marketing, bio medicine, or manufacturing- are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone.
Rule VI : In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients.
Rule VII : The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists - not to save money by firing more people.
Rule VIII: How you do things as a company matters more today than ever.
Rule IX : When the world goes flat - and you are feeling flattened -reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don't try to build walls.

If it is not happening, it is because you are not doing. Walls simply aren't, what they used to be. Muhammad Yunus a Bangladeshi, Micro credit, Noble Peace Prize, in 2006.
Don't use 19th century economics, 20th century engineering to solve 21st century problems. Doing business well is very hard, and the conceptual frameworks and tools underlying the conduct of today's business are hopelessly outdated.

Now that we all have dogs hearing, we're so accessible, that we're inaccessible. We are everywhere-except where we actually are physically. Thanks to the flat world.

Rules to live in the internet world:
* Develop a thicker skin.
* Avoid internet addiction.
* Keep it all in perspective.
* Let your kids know what world they are living in.

There is a parallel unflat world with:
# The sick people : who are yet to know, yet to come up, the yet to know
# Too dis-empowered
# Too frustrated
# Too many Toyota's (So much of imitating the rich, and lots of junks created)


Free Trade is God's diplomacy. There is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace. - Richard Cobden, 1857 (British politician)


To prevent conflict, things are done JIT, from various places, by the best people, and and author has described 'The dell theory of conflict prevention'

We bring good things to life. It is used by all Infosys Versus Al- Qaeda. What we put it to matters.

Thus in a way we are too personally insecure.

11/9 versus 9/11, is a matter to ponder. From Ebay, India to the curse of oil.

Imagination is more important than Knowledge. - Albert Einstein

Look at the good examples. "One good example is worth a thousand therories."

The flattening of the world, has provided us with new opportunities, new challenges, new partners, but also with new dangers. We need to find the right balance among all of these. Become global citizen. If you don't visit a bad neighborhood, it might visit you.

Remember: The most important competition is now with yourself - making sure that you are always striving to get the most out of your own imagination, and then acting on it.

The world is now becoming flattened. I didn't start it and you can't stop it, except at a great cost to human development and your own future. But we can tilt it, and shape it, for better or for worse.

The Grand Canyon....

A Nice View from the top of The Grand Canyon: Absolutly beautiful, everywhere you look, is breath taking.

The Grand Canyon, one of the world’s premier natural attractions, known for its visually overwhelming size and its intricate and colorful landscape, is a steep-sided canyon (or gorge, a deep ravine between cliffs often carved from the landscape by a river) carved by the Colorado River in the state of Arizona in United States.


Geologically it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent. The Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long, up to 18 miles (29 km) wide and attains a depth of over a mile (1.83 km) (6000 feet)

In 1908, the Grand Canyon became an official national monument and became a national park in 1919. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited it on numerous occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.

Weather in the Grand Canyon varies according to elevation.The forested rims are high enough to receive winter snowfall, but along the Colorado River in the Inner Gorge, temperatures are similar to those found in Tucson and other low elevation desert locations in Arizona.


Amanda says "Another nice view, walk all the way from the other side accross to where this pic is taken (following the lowest point, where the river is), 27 miles roughly. Mind you not in a day....(which is not entertained)It took us a total of 4 days, we walked down 8 miles the first day and camped out, across 8 miles the second day and camped out, 4 miles up and camped and then the rest of the way out (about another 4-5 miles). My legs hurt SOOOOO bad, I had to take Aleeve to help with the pain (it was the hardest waking up and having to hike again). My family did a couple of smaller hikes as well so they went about 6 extra miles in total (I stayed at the campsite and rested while they did this). Yes, I walked all 27 mile :)"



This just shows an example of how the trail is, it zig-zags back and forth to make it less steep. But walking around is definitely the hardest thing .

Aside from casual sightseeing from the South Rim (averaging 7,000 feet [2,100 m] above sea level), skywalk, rivers all green because of the minerals in the water, rafting, hiking, running and helicopter tours are especially popular here.

Tons of Thanks to Amanda through whom I could see and write this....

All that I can just say is 'WOW', and you?

A hat trick for India - Winning

And … India won again! A hat trick !

The Ayodhya verdict first a victory for the nation as a people, for the calm and mature manner that the masses and the politicians took the decision of the courts.

A fantastic victory on the cricket pitch when down and out India fought like seasoned gladiators against the might of the Australians.

The CommonWealth Games amidst apprehensions of all the terrible stories that kept coming out, a spectacular show applauded by one and all through the entire world. to let the world know that we can do it when we want to.



I wonder if ever India has won so many medals, but pray that let the spree continue..


Skies over the national capital lit with multi-colour laser beams and fireworks as part of 160-minute closing ceremony at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium filled to capacity of 60,000 cheering sports lovers on 14th October 2010.

Reading out the closure statement, the Prince said, "In the name of the Commonwealth Games Federation, I proclaim the XIX Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 closed.

"In accordance with tradition I call upon the sportsmen and sportswomen of the Commonwealth to assemble in four years time in Glasgow, Scotland, there to celebrate the XX Commonwealth Games."

No longer that oft repeated tale of how we ‘went down fighting’, but instead how ‘we fought back to win from the brink of defeat’. BUCK UP INDIA !!!

Hits and Misses : OPI and Tamil Nadu

When it was Sangamam in OPI: Me was in Trichy enjoying BIL's Sisters marriage.

Lovely, name: well managed event and food.


When it was Annual day in OPI : Me was in Chennai the prayer came true, me with parents had been to Ramakrishna Matt, Sayi Baba temple and Kapaleshwara Kovil

Missed somethings, but enjoyed: Which I would not have if still there....

Need of the hour?

And here comes the result of the long awaited, verdict on the Ayodhya dispute:
Allahabad High Court ruled that the 2.77 acre disputed land in Ayodhya be divided into three parts among Hindus and Muslims and held that the place where the makeshift temple of Lord Rama currently exists belongs to Hindus. (0.33+0.33+0.33? so where is the balance 0.01?) A temple would be constructed at the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya and "national unity will be strengthened"? Would the verdict be a catalyst for national unity or a road for further chaos?

"The atmosphere at the national level has been positive with religious leaders of both the communities, political leadership as well as the media. It would not be wise if politically motivated statements which could vitiate communal harmony are issued now," said Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangimahli, the Niab Imam of Idgah and member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. This was said when there were some political party trying to create chaos…(Mulayam/Modi:Ram Rajya-Gandhi’s dream)


What ‘Madhushala’ said was meaningful. This was written in 1935 when the Ayodhya issue was not even thought of -

Musalmaan aur Hindu hain do, ek magar unka pyala,

Ek magar unka madiralaya, ek magar unki haala

Dono rehte saath na jab tak, mandir masjid mein jaate,

Bair badhate mandir masjid mail karaati Madhushala !

The Muslim and the Hindu are two but their cup is one. One their drinking place, one their wine.

Both remain one till to Mandir Masjid they go. The mandir and the masjid bring the differences and tear them apart. But the House of Wine brings them together again.

Written in 1935. So many years ago, but so topical even now in these prevailing circumstances. The symbolism strong and meaningful.

Wondering how the people from Kerala would have managed two consequtive dry days?


True as said in My Experiments with truth: Those who say what religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion or politics is.

Here I remember Swami Vivekananda’s words in his Chicago address: ‘ I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as ture. ……….’

Though a small booklet, it is something I cherish, with:
 The Background story: On how Vivekananda reached Chicago.
 Response to Welcome: The forceful, mesmerizing introduction.
 Why we disagree: Frog in the well story.
 Paper on Hinduism.
 Religion, Not the Crying Need of India.
 Buddhism: The fulfillment of Hinduism
 Address at the final session.

‘Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.’