Book+Summary


 *  Kerry Reinhackel EDLD 5306 ||



Wake Up, Sleeping Giant! A summary of Thomas Friedman’s book //The World Is Flat// By: Kerry Reinhackel

Thomas Friedman’s book //The World Is Flat// opens a window into how rapidly-changing technology is leveling the playing field for all who have access to the internet. Friedman discusses ten events responsible for this flattening effect. Included in Friedman’s significant ten is the outsourcing of jobs, growing at a rapid pace. It is imperative that all who work in education become aware of and meet this challenge head-on. Friedman believes that the flattening of the world has taken place while America was sleeping. He passionately calls on all Americans to wake up, adopt, adapt, and ensure that our future workers will be prepared to compete on the global landscape. Ten events that occurred while Friedman says Americans were sleeping are the collapse of the Berlin wall, Netscape, work flow software, uploading, outsourcing, off shoring, supply-chaining, in sourcing, in-forming, and the steroids (pp. 51 – 99). Joining these ten elements together is what Friedman calls //The Triple Convergence// (p. 200). This convergence allowed businesses and individuals, using digital tools and developing software, to take their places on the global playing field. One of Friedman’s flatteners is outsourcing. He describes the types of outsourcing taking place through interviews he conducted in his travels to India, Japan, China, and several U.S. cities. Friedman discovers that India has about seventy thousand accountants graduating every year who are happy to handle the tax returns outsourced to India for a fraction of the cost that it would be in America. Additionally, x-rays and CAT scans, taken at night in America, are outsourced to doctors in India, where it is daytime. The results, like the original scans, are sent back digitally. Although outsourcing is only one of the many effects the technology explosion has had on leveling the playing field, Friedman deals with it repeatedly. He ponders what parents should tell their children about future employment if the work of accountants, lawyers, and doctors is being taken by workers in India, Russia, and China. He says to tell them “There will be plenty of good jobs out there in the flat world for people with the right knowledge, skills, ideas, and self-motivation to seize them” (p. 278). Friedman doesn’t want today’s youth to become math, science, and technology robots. He wants students who have also spent time in the arts. His argument is that a liberal arts education is horizontal, connecting disparate dots in history, art, politics, and science (p. 316). Friedman believes that to be innovators individuals must be lateral thinkers, capable of using the right side of the brain as well as the left, in order to see how one thing can aid and support another. Friedman doesn’t place the onus solely on educators but advocates for everyone involved in creating the next generation of workers to get on board with ensuring there is a future for children to excel towards. He wants parents to make their children study hard, he wants education to catch up and adapt, and he wants leadership in America to steer the country in the right direction (pp. 398 – 399). In passionate, prosaic style Thomas Friedman advocates for change in America. He describes ten events in history that have leveled the playing field, allowing anyone, anywhere to be employed, conduct business, market goods and services, and find success in a digital world. Friedman calls on leaders, educators, and parents to all do their parts to ensure a future for today’s youth.

The World Is Flat Summary