I am officially in Loveland, CO which is just outside of Denver. I got up this morning at 4:00am eastern and arrived in Denver at 7:55am mountain time. While on the plane I got to start reading a book that I have been meaning to read for 2 years. The title of the book is The World is Flat. I am only 137 pages into the 566 pages of the book. Now if you would have asked me up to today if I had read this book I would have told you that I know all of its principals. Which basically means that I have read the Executive Book Summary but not the actual book. So why go back and read the book? One to make my sister-in-law's husband proud of me (not really but I think he will be), and because I enjoyed the summary that much and the book has had that kind of impact on the business world. I also wanted to get in the mindset of learning and thinking and this book makes you do both.
My thoughts/questions so far have been (random but it is how I think):
1. Open-Source Ministry for Preschool, Elementary, Jr. High, and Sr. High.
2. Is it possible to outsource curriculum development to India? Graphics, copy writing, printing.
3. Is for profit to fund not for profit efficient? Would it last without the support of a larger organization?
4. Why is ministry not flatter? How can I help make it flat? How can what I do over the next 3 days propel others to become more flat?
5. How can we utilize each other's strengths so that we can enhance our personal ministries instead of all doing the same work and hurting our ministry to people?
6. Tom Friedman is a very gifted writer. I should learn how to write better.
7. Should I learn how to speak Hindi or Chinese?
There you have it. Before the conference about ministry begins I have to many questions and not enough answers. Of course I do like questions more than I like answers. We will see where this goes from here.
Now back to reading and sending more tweets to Twitter.
May 12, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
comments
4 Responses to "@ Group: Thoughts from the Plane, The World is Flat"Very interesting. This book is on my list. My father-in-law recommended this book to me almost 2 years ago. I love the premise.
I actually downloaded a hour long lecture from Friedman. On iTunes you can download college lectures and this one was from a lecture at MIT. So, I haven't listened to it yet, but plan to soon.
As you get a little further along (maybe I should read it first) I'd be interested in your thoughts on what you said in number 5. In the multi-site arena, I get to take advantage of this kind of teamwork/collaboration. But what about those who aren't in multi-site? Or, why wouldn't I want to collaborate with some of the best in the "business." I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently... somehow finding a way to rally some people together in a collaborative environment and put some amazing things together... know what I mean???
Attaboy!
Friedman is indeed gifted and surprisingly easy to read.
Matt,
Love the way your brain thinks! And at 7 in the morning! very impressive.
I am gonna have to read this book now!
Dave
Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank) said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization. So, obviously, all India is not going to migrate into middle class, if anything the inequality is far, far worse now, after the advent of globalization.
Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in apalling conditions, to chhurn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours - so who is actaully benefiting from this sort of globalization? Corporates ofcourse, and the few privileged people of India nd China who have been able to get educated in engineering and technology! Not the vast majority of population.
I would much rather the discourse on Globalization came from economists like Joesph Stiglitz , Paul Krugman (Princeton), Pankaj Ghemawat (Harvard)etc. Ted Koppel interviews Friedman and Joseph Stiglitz, who ofcourse doesnt find a mention in Friedman's book.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/opinion/25friedman-transcript.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
The small, but interesting book, by Aronica and Ramdoo, "The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman's New York Times Bestseller," offers an interesting counterperspective to Friedman's.
It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. The authors point to the fact that there isn't a single table or data footnote in Friedman's entire book.
"Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution," says Aronica.
You may want to see www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman's
"The World is Flat".
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html
Post a Comment