Triple Convergence and The Great Sorting Out

The Triple Convergence

First around 2000, all ten flatteners started working together

Second, people started getting it.

Third: China, India, USSR all joined in

Convergence I: Simultaneous improvement of complimentary goods, reinforced each other

II: People needed time to get comfortable w/ the "horizontal" playing field.

• Like distance ed?
  
• The previous model was vertical silos.
  
• went from top down to side to side
  

 

III: Add 3 Billion People

• Prev. it had been NA, West Europe, Japan and East Asia with similar education, wages, workforce size "Gentlemanly competition"
  
• Some countries simply skipping a step—like cell phones in China
  
• Zippes in India: Generation Z.
  
• You can innovate without having to emigrate
  

 

The other triple convergence:

• com bust (actually helped the world, but scared us)
  
• 9/11
  
• Enron
  
• Other things?
  
  • X-box; 100 channels of tv; reality tv;
    
• Politicians in 2004 were not educating us, they were making us stupid
  
• Now the real IT revolution is about to begin
  

 

The Great Sorting Out

• from command and control to connect and collaborate
  
• Dissolving of feudal, national and religious id, giving universal citizenships
  

 

• COUNTER ARGUMENT, HERE'S WHY PEOPLE ARE BURNING THINGS DOWN AT WTO MEETINGS:
  
  • BIG PAGES Mixed blessing: Bumping up against the world of friction
    

  
   

  • What extent should we lean against the current for the sake of values the global market can't supply? (Religious faith; national pride; social cohesion—copyrights? Worker protections; min. wage—see today's paper)
    
    • (Global min wage?)
      

Sorting Out:

• India v. Indiana: wow. Whose values to protect?
  
• Where do companies start and stop?
  
  • Whose values will govern a particular company and whose interest will that company respect and promote? GM goes, so goes America. But not today.
    
  • Google and China; Yahoo and China; Fruit packers and Japan; EU and the height of chairs in Selah;
    
  • IBM and Lenovo: Would you call this an American company? A Chinese company?
    
  • Rolls Royce and Germany and Russia
    

 

• Command and Control to Collaborate and Connect:
  
  • Colin Powell and Google and blackberries
    
  • Wal-Mart and our conflicting identities. Walk through this one up to page
    
  • When you flatten the world, you take humanity out of life
    

 

• Who Owns what? Intellectual Property:
  
  • Napster; video;
    
  • Google Books in France
    
  • The Blog? The film? Chapbooks?
    
  • What about Amy's work?
    
  • AOL Passwords, in your will?
    

 

Death of a Salesman

• Tommy all anyone cares about today is price.
  
• But fat is what gives meat it's taste
  

 

What about politics?

Wall party (labor and far right social crowd) v. Web Party (conservatives in Business and social liberals who want a connected world)