Change Leaders, not Light Bulbs
In a presentation at MIT and replayed on Academic Earth, Pullitzer Prize winning columnist Thomas Friedman discusses his book, The World is Flat. He discusses the competitive impacts of globalization, the evolution of the “Flat World Platform,” and the need for the U.S. to lead the clean energy revolution.
Before you take a look at the 45-minute video, here are my main five takeaways from Friedman’s presentation:
- Global economic competition has been flattened in the last decade. (06:10) According to Friedman, “From the year 2000 to the present, [competition] was shrinking the world from size small to size tiny and flattening the global economic playing field at the same time. Only what’s really new, really different, really exciting, and really terrifying, is that this era of globalization is certainly not spearheaded by countries, and it’s not exclusively spearheaded by companies anymore. This era of globalization is spearheaded by individuals.” During these times of mass media and mass communication, we are also witnessing a new dawn of mass competition on a global level.
- Friedman’s four “Key Flateners” consist of the PC, Netscape, the “Work-flow Revolution,” and Uploading. (07:20) Everyone’s familiar with the power of the PC, but the Netscape browser brought the Internet to life and it’s successful 1995 IPO boosted investment in fiber optic cable all over the world. This led to greater world-wide collaboration and eventually, to today’s YouTube and Wikipedia.
- Iron rule of business on the Flat World Platform: Whatever can be done, will be done. (17:48) “The only question left is, will it be done by you, or to you?”
- The way the U.S. is going to stay on top is to start a real Green Revolution (32:50). We all like to think we are becoming more energy efficient and making progress in the fight against global warming, but Friedman brings up an important point about this Green “Revolution”. He says, “Have you ever been to a revolution where no one got hurt? This is not revolution, this is a party.” (36:55) Now, Friedman’s not suggesting an uprising and installing an authoritarian regime. Rather, he’s stating that for true fundamental change in clean energy, companies who fail to innovative will disappear.
- The problem with the term “green,” is that is has always been named by its opponents. (42:16) Green has been labeled “liberal, tree-hugging, sissy, girly-man, unpatriotic, vaguely French.” This term needs to be rebranded to mean what it truly stands for: “geo-political, geo-strategic, economic, capitalistic, entrepreneurial, patriotic.” As Friedman says, “Green is the new red, white, and blue.”
Pretty powerful stuff.
- Matt
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