How my World became Flat in the last 25 years - Part 2
by George Eby Mathew, Head of Infosys Solutions Consulting, Canada
In the early 90s, communication and connectivity were dampeners too. My father who eventually settled in India waited for 8 years to hear his first dial tone on a phone that he owned. Today, it takes roughly an hour for me to get a permanent communication line.
Not long ago I reminisce the times our family huddled around a telephone as we waited for a trunk call to speak to family barely 100 km away. The wait could be as long as an hour for what was called a “lightening call”. Today I get connected to my cousin in St. Louis in approximately 3 seconds. If I have the money to pay, I could make my dial tone follow me wherever I am on the planet because connectivity has become pervasive too.
Consider this: Much of this blog was written while on vacation in a tiny hamlet in southern India that does not even have a fax machine for public use but does have internet access and even blackberry access! Affordability of technology, connectivity, access, and the pervasiveness of the interaction medium hastened the flattening process in my world.
Today, companies face similar situations like me not because they don’t have these opportunities. But they have complexity of the scale bigger than my world.
The curvature of the world is a good point to ponder on for companies too. Think of the curvature of the world as the bumps and kinks companies need to cross before they can reach customers, suppliers, partners, skills, and capital from any part of the world. Unlike me, companies face cultural, geo-political, and socio-economic dynamics that are far more complex than my world.
The heartening aspect of a zero curvature world is that the barriers are breaking along multiple lines. For example, Samsung’s teenage mobile phone customers in Taiwan almost mirror their counterparts in Mumbai or Mozambique because most of them (at least affluent of the lot) watch MTV music, drink Pepsi and eat a Big Mac Burger. But it is hard to predict what will flatten faster than others but one thing is clear that human interactions required for trade is becoming flatter and flatter.
Comments
Hope that flat world will not become another word for blind westernization of the so called third world countries, which will make their wheels flat!
Posted by: Sreekandakumar Pillai | August 13, 2006 06:04 PM
With flattening i dont believe there will be one culture and one world mac burger, this is not only constrained thinking but also very boring.
I believe that flattening will promote respect and understanding between different societies and cultures as they will try to harness each others strengths and make win win situations.
So cultures will become more vibrant free of the stereotypes and more colourfull.
Consider this: My south indian friend goes to france and in some french restaurant eats with his hand to a gaping audience.
Why cant a boy in uganda have a bottle of coke?
I for one would not term it as the sweeping wave of westernization. To me its just a kid trying on a new experience, an experience we all are habituated to. The reason why we dont really feel the boy's side.
Posted by: Anant Vats | August 28, 2006 10:48 AM