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Friedman describes three convergences that have changed the playing field. The second one describes new technologies combined with new ways of doing business and how it creates a bigger impact. Friedman uses SouthWest Airlines as an example and this article is about five businesses that have changed because of technology - travel being one of them.

Convergence 1 - (pg 204 of 3.0 edition, Friedman) "The convergence of the ten flatteners had created a whole new platform. It is a global, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration. This platform enables individuals, groups, companies and universities anywhere in the world to collaborate - for the purposes of innovation, production, education, research, entertainment, and, alas, war-making - like no creative platform ever before" This website provides free online courses in a variety of topics. It collaborates with Universities, Libraries Museums, and Professional Associations across the world to provide these resources. It is really free learning, the only fee is if you want a Certification of Participation at the end. Otherwise it is a really great online set up for learning, that goes week by week (much like our D2L, or eConestoga) with activities, readings, articles, discussion boards, videos etc.

Convergence 1 - (pg 204 of 3.0 edition, Friedman) "The convergence of the ten flatteners had created a whole new platform. It is a global, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration. This platform enables individuals, groups, companies and universities anywhere in the world to collaborate - for the purposes of innovation, production, education, research, entertainment, and, alas, war-making - like no creative platform ever before" This website offers courses from "top universities and organizations worldwide". It allows students to listen to lectures, take quizzes, submit assignments and receive peer feedback. These can be taken from anywhere in the world and are taken at your own pace in a blended learning environment.

This article has a distinctly different view of the fall of the Berlin Wall than Friedman does. While Friedman saw the fall of the walk to be a great equalizer, Jean-Pierre Lehman states that other walls went up in its place.

Interesting article written in April 2013, when RBC was outsourcing jobs and there was much hype in the media about it.  The author makes some interesting points which I have highlighted for you to read.  Firstly, commenting on the fact that Indian workers are actually as well qualified or more qualified than Canadian workers to get the job done.  Friedman mentions this in his book when talking about his visits to Bangalore.  She notes that when businesses boost profit this is good for the economy because it means they will invest it. However, it was noted by Stanford in Economics for Everyone, that this is not always the case, and the amount of profit being spent on luxury goods rather than investment is currently increasing.  Interesting note the author makes about us vs them.  She mentions that if the jobs had been moving somewhere else in Canada, would the reaction have been just as passionate?  It is important to ensure that we are looking at cultural and racial issues here and taking these into account.   Lastly, she comments that on how we have to allow "the natural forces of capitalism to work".  Stanford also mentions how economists will often refer to capitalism as "natural" and that this is not true.  It is one economic system (which has been created by man) which we currently use, but it is not the only one that can exist, and it certainly did not exist before man did.  It is not natural like the seasons.  

Every dog has its day, and the same applies to economic theory. Today's dog is neo-liberalism, a policy framework developed by economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, which found political expression under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

One of the main themes this week in the book "Economics For Everyone" is the term neoliberalism. Take a look at this article by the globe and mail. It talks extensively about how privatization, free trade and deregulation are changing society.

This article is part review and part thought-provoker in relation to education and Friedman's Flat world. The article primarily reviews the flattening forces, in very little detail, but throws a twist in at the end as it talks specifically about the education system. It is suggested that classrooms become "flat" as well so that everyone is given the same chance to be involved.

This article by Charles Fishman echoes more of what Friedman calls 'Multiple Identity Disorder' in a flattening world. We as individuals are trying to sort out "the tensions among our identities as consumers, employees, citizens, taxpayers, and shareholders." This article pulls the covers off of Wal-Mart, revealing some of the business partnerships they have had with companies like Vlasic, Lovable, Levi Strauss, and MasterLock- and how those companies have lost huge profits, and in the case of Vlasic, gone bankrupt because of their partnership with Wal-Mart. But, says Fishman, for suppliers, "the only thing worse than doing business with Wal-Mart may be not doing business with Wal-Mart". In a flattened world where one company has so much power, suppliers have few options if they want to stay afloat. Wal-Mart is taking its business to foreign companies at an accelerated rate. And as consumers with lower incomes due to the off-shoring of jobs, we also feel that we have little choice: we have to buy the cheapest brand. Seems that the Flattened world has also flattened individual choice.

The P2P sharing site, Pirate Bay, recently was raided by Swedish police, again, for copyright violations. File sharing, whether 'illegal' downloading or corporate information, is one of Friedman's flatteners, allowing free information sharing and information repositories to flourish. The article discusses whether Pirate Bay, one of the world's largest file sharing search sites, will ever come back after such a seizure.

Salman Sakir's article is relevant to the issues raised in Friedman's book The World is Flat in which Friedman in a sense laments over the impact of globalization upon the developed countries, the USA for him, because the developing countries like Brazil and Asian countries like China and India have a massive work labour influence upon the West. Sakir focuses on both the positive and negative aspects of globalization, one of the five forces in Gratton's The Shift and a form of global economy as discussed by Stanford in his Economics for Everyone. Because of low wage and easy availability of experts/labour in the developing countries, foreign investments have been attracted by those Asian and developing countries where the jobs have been created for the locals. On the other hand, the citizens of the developed counters of the West and the North America have consumed the products from the developing countries in a reasonably lower price. Poverty ratio has been decreased in the developing countries which have also been integrated by the phenomenon of globalization. These are positive impacts. But in the developed countries, manufacturing industries have been moved out. so unemployment rate is ever increasing, Sakir highlights these aspects of globalization in this article.

The arguments, perspectives and content in this article are very much supportive to understand what Friedman elaborates in his book The World is Flat. Because of new technoogies, the developing countries and Asian countries like China and India are emerging as dominant world economies. "By relocating some parts of international supply chains, globalization has been affecting the price of goods, job patterns, and wages almost everywhere."

I thought this was a particularly interesting website as it touches on a lot of things that Friedman has mentioned in his book; including the focus on this weeks readings on education and a knowledge-based economy. It has articles outlining how China is overtaking the U.S in terms of how much money is spent on science and technology funding for example, showing how the developing countries are catching up with us in terms of their high-skilled, more innovative work.

A self- assessment tool that assesses a person's strengths and areas for improvement in regards to continuous learning. Friedman emphasizes in chapters 8 and 9 the importance of continuous learning and ongoing education in order to reach career related goals and strive for self improvement.

This article looks at how Canada's economy is failing apart while highlighting that other countries like China are booming. It talks about things like people living beyond their means and a lack of business investment as well as other factors that are contributing to the economy problem. I thought this was a great article for this week since we are ending with Friedman and Stanford. Both of their thoughts can be applied to this article.

This article is an interview with the author. It gives a bit more background about the book and the author. As well, it provides more detail about the author's viewpoint, which is useful for understanding the text. Annotated link: https://diigo.com/071dt2

I chose this article because Friedman discusses in these chapters how the glob population is exploding and countries such as China and India have populations who are catching up to the Western World in terms of their skills. This article shows how this is already happening as Canada is actively seeking skilled professionals to enter the country to live and work here

This is a short article from the Globe and Mail addressing the concerns of "Cloud Computing" in the business world, which is relevant as one of Friedman's flatteners. It also links to chapter three through the second topic in terms of horizontal business where you are able to do more yourself, the same principle is true with cloud computing - more can be done in-house with its use limiting the need for other tech/people.

This article echos Friedman in touching on how smartphones have converged so many platforms/task/activities that they have changed the way we live and work.

The starting premise about Columbus in The World Is Flat bothered me a lot. There were many people who knew the world was round before him. Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Eratosthenes and Aristotle calculated and reasoned that the world was not flat - either round or at least a dome. Also, to anyone looking for a ship, the top of a mast appears first over a horizon, like something coming over a hill. It would make sense for people to assume that the world was round. In terms of who 'proved' the earth was round and that you could go all the way around and get back to the same point, Magellan's crew was the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522, definitively 'proving' what many already believed. I've seen repeatedly that Columbus' actual argument was that the world was smaller than people thought, so he thought he could find a sea route from Europe across the Pacific to India. Instead, he ran into what later became the Americas. Hopefully, Friedman will address these issues and will see his viewpoint changed by his experiences in parallel with the Columbus story.