Module 1, The World is Flat.

Module 1

The world is expanding through technology and becoming one large global network that has opened the doors for a bigger global economy, and anyone is free to participate.  Thomas L. Friedman refers to this as the “flattening” of the world. 

Friedman suggests that the globalization of the world occurred in three different era’s. The first era, globalization 1.0 occurred from 1492-1800.  What sparked this globalization was the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus.  This opened trade between the Old World and the New World.  In this era, global integration was limited by a countries wealth, power, and available resources to take advantage of expanding trade to the New World.  Globalization was solely in the hands of a country and its government. 

The next phase, globalization 2.0, occurred from 1800-2000.  The driving force that changed globalization in this era was the falling costs of transportation and telecommunication and later advancements in technology.  The development of technology such as telegraphs, telephones, PC’s, satellites and the World Wide Web allowed for multinational companies to globalize and expand to a world market.  The difference between this era and globalization 1.0 is that the limiting factor is how your company fits in to globalization, rather than your country.  The advancements in hardware, and movements of goods and information around the world created a global economy and presented opportunities for companies to take advantage of this.

Globalization 3.0 gives the power to globalize to the individual.  The advancements of the PC, fiber optic cable and software has allowed individuals to create and share their own digital content all around the world, and also collaborate with others anywhere around the world.  The difference in this phase is that the current advancements in technology removes any limitations for global integration, and thus empowers individuals to globalize. 

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 proved to further help globalize the world.  It opened a whole new part of the world to the free market economy, which helped shift the world into one central economic system. The world adopted capitalism over communism.  This allowed more economies to be developed by the people, rather than a government.  Essentially, the fall of the Berlin Wall allowed us to see the world as a single market for the first time.

Another important breakthrough in the flattening of the world was Netscape.  Essentially, Netscape put the World Wide Web on the map.  This easy-to-use browser helped to popularize the Web and make it easily accessible to everyone in the general public.  When Netscape launched in August of 1995, it became the spark that the World Wide Web needed to take off and form into what it is today.  The world became digitally wired together, and Netscape was the foundation of the internet’s success.

The world is being knitted more and more tightly together each and every year.  Looking back at some of the technology and advancements that has helped create the global network that we share today has really given me an appreciation for how far the world has come with our global economy.  The world has really been shrunken down so small through technology that the possibilities to globalize are endless.  It’s a little scary to think about how practically any occupation can become digitized and outsourced to another country for more profitability but it’s definitely something we need to take into consideration. 

 

Friedman, Thomas.  The World is Flat. New York: Picador/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007