Tuesday, April 26, 2005
IBM Chief to aid esprit de corps
Faces In The News
Palmisano Vows 'Aggressive Action' On IBM Woes
Greg Levine, 04.26.05, 4:32 PM ET
NEW YORK - Doers and doings in business, entertainment and technology:
"Execution" might be a double-edged sword at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ). The technology behemoth struggling with its own weight posted a shortfall in its first-quarter earnings. On Tuesday, Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano addressed that harsh reality, as he spoke to investors at the firm's annual meeting. The CEO vowed that his firm was "taking aggressive action" to scourge its problems. The shortfall had been attributed to hiccups in would-be deal-closings at the quarter's end. Palmisano said sheepishly that "we attribute most of that [failure to close] to our own execution," according to The Associated Press. He did not detail such actions as might be taken, but merely said that IBM was "restructuring parts of our operations to reduce bureaucracy and move more of our people and resources out to the field, closer to clients." The CEO did specify one action that ought to aid esprit de corps: The leader and some 50 other top IBM execs will defer their own compensation increases "until we get our business back on track," Palmisano pledged. But others should not expect this belt-tightening to restrict them--yet--as he said that other employees would get raises as planned. Also Tuesday, IBM said it would allocate an additional $5 billion toward share buybacks, and had upped its dividend to 20 cents per common share, from 18 cents.
IBM Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano told shareholders gathered at the annual meeting here that the company was "taking aggressive action" to remedy problems that led to a first-quarter earnings shortfall.
The Armonk, N.Y., technology company had trouble closing deals at the end of the quarter, and "we attribute most of that to our own execution," Palmisano said.
He didn't specify what actions might be taken, but said the company was "restructuring parts of our operations to reduce bureaucracy and move more of our people and resources out to the field, closer to clients."
Analysts expect International Business Machines Corp. to cut jobs, particularly in lagging regions of Western Europe. Palmisano did say that he and about 50 other top executives had agreed to defer their own compensation increases "until we get our business back on track."
He added that other employees would get raises as planned. IBM's earnings shortfall, announced earlier this month, sent the company's stock price reeling and led to broader concerns that corporate demand for information technology was sagging.
Also Tuesday, IBM said it would allocate an additional $5 billion toward share repurchases and had increased its dividend to 20 cents per common share, from 18 cents. The company gave no timetable for the buybacks.
Shareholders presented six proposals on issues ranging from executive compensation to off-shoring of jobs. All failed, though a proposal that executive bonuses be calculated without regard for the impact of pension income on bottom-line results garnered 38.1 percent of votes cast.
One proposal, to account for the expense the company incurs when it issues stock options to employees, was rendered moot by IBM's decision to do so in the first quarter and withdrawn.
IBM's 12 director nominees were also elected at the annual meeting.
IBM also said Tuesday it had acquired Healthlink Inc., a closely held Houston-based health-care consultancy. The companies didn't disclose the purchase price.
IBM shares rose $1.36, or 1.8 percent, to $75.98 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Palmisano Vows 'Aggressive Action' On IBM Woes
Greg Levine, 04.26.05, 4:32 PM ET
NEW YORK - Doers and doings in business, entertainment and technology:
"Execution" might be a double-edged sword at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people ). The technology behemoth struggling with its own weight posted a shortfall in its first-quarter earnings. On Tuesday, Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano addressed that harsh reality, as he spoke to investors at the firm's annual meeting. The CEO vowed that his firm was "taking aggressive action" to scourge its problems. The shortfall had been attributed to hiccups in would-be deal-closings at the quarter's end. Palmisano said sheepishly that "we attribute most of that [failure to close] to our own execution," according to The Associated Press. He did not detail such actions as might be taken, but merely said that IBM was "restructuring parts of our operations to reduce bureaucracy and move more of our people and resources out to the field, closer to clients." The CEO did specify one action that ought to aid esprit de corps: The leader and some 50 other top IBM execs will defer their own compensation increases "until we get our business back on track," Palmisano pledged. But others should not expect this belt-tightening to restrict them--yet--as he said that other employees would get raises as planned. Also Tuesday, IBM said it would allocate an additional $5 billion toward share buybacks, and had upped its dividend to 20 cents per common share, from 18 cents.
IBM Chief Executive Samuel J. Palmisano told shareholders gathered at the annual meeting here that the company was "taking aggressive action" to remedy problems that led to a first-quarter earnings shortfall.
The Armonk, N.Y., technology company had trouble closing deals at the end of the quarter, and "we attribute most of that to our own execution," Palmisano said.
He didn't specify what actions might be taken, but said the company was "restructuring parts of our operations to reduce bureaucracy and move more of our people and resources out to the field, closer to clients."
Analysts expect International Business Machines Corp. to cut jobs, particularly in lagging regions of Western Europe. Palmisano did say that he and about 50 other top executives had agreed to defer their own compensation increases "until we get our business back on track."
He added that other employees would get raises as planned. IBM's earnings shortfall, announced earlier this month, sent the company's stock price reeling and led to broader concerns that corporate demand for information technology was sagging.
Also Tuesday, IBM said it would allocate an additional $5 billion toward share repurchases and had increased its dividend to 20 cents per common share, from 18 cents. The company gave no timetable for the buybacks.
Shareholders presented six proposals on issues ranging from executive compensation to off-shoring of jobs. All failed, though a proposal that executive bonuses be calculated without regard for the impact of pension income on bottom-line results garnered 38.1 percent of votes cast.
One proposal, to account for the expense the company incurs when it issues stock options to employees, was rendered moot by IBM's decision to do so in the first quarter and withdrawn.
IBM's 12 director nominees were also elected at the annual meeting.
IBM also said Tuesday it had acquired Healthlink Inc., a closely held Houston-based health-care consultancy. The companies didn't disclose the purchase price.
IBM shares rose $1.36, or 1.8 percent, to $75.98 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Mark Jen Speaks
April 21, 2005Another news sighting… BusinessWeek :)Filed under: work, technology — markjen @ 4:37 pmLooks like I’m in the BusinessWeek cover story article about blogging.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Two weeks later, Google fired Jen. And that’s when the 22-year-old became a big story. Google was blogbusted for overreacting and for sending an all-too-clear warning to the dozens of bloggers still at the company. A Google official says the company has lots of bloggers and just expects them to use common sense. For example, if it’s something you wouldn’t e-mail to a long list of strangers, don’t blog it.
Not to beat the point to death, but how do you define common sense? A bunch of people are saying how their companies have “blog smart” policies; but my question to them is: how do you define common sense or being smart? Without any clear definitions, what do you do when someone violates your subjective definitions?
On that note, here’s a draft of the public communications policy we’re putting together at Plaxo. Please leave feedback and help us improve it. Oh, and if you’re also putting together a policy for your company, feel free to take what we have and repurpose it.
By the way, if anyone from BW is reading this post, send me a copy please! (You can find my address in my Plaxo profile )
Comments (0)April 20, 2005I’ll be back? Maybe, but not anytime soon…Filed under: work, technology — markjen @ 11:00 amI’ve been reading the Mini-Microsoft blog for a while now and the author makes some very good points. I don’t think any of the suggestions will ever get implemented, but hey, someone’s gotta point out the emperor’s new clothes.
The latest post includes this little tidbit:
As folks left for start-ups, Microsofties would give them a cheery goodbye and (if they were good) say (once they were out of earshot), “They’ll be back.”
Now folks are leaving to relish the passion of creating and shipping great software. And I haven’t heard anyone mutter, “They’ll be back.” I’ve seen far more moments of wistful envy.
When I left Microsoft, quite a few people told me straight up to my face that I’d be back - they didn’t even wait until I was out of earshot . Indeed, one day, I might be. But in the meantime, I’m loving the experience of working at a fast paced, nimble start-up.
On a related note, quite a few Microsofties claimed that although start-ups seemed to ship software faster, the Microsoft way is the most effective, having been refined over almost 30 years. They may be right on that note as well, but I’m not the type that just takes someone else’s word for it.
I do see a lot of promising stuff coming out of MSN though; I’m an avid watcher of the MSN/Google/Y! war, may the best solution - or at least best marketed one - win!
Comments (0)April 15, 2005Plaxo == PrivacyFiled under: work, technology — markjen @ 9:41 am My pubsub picked up this semi-recent post on Plaxo by The 463. All I have to say is: Amen!
I know many people get the heebee jeebees when they find out that Plaxo helps them keep their contacts up to date. It’s easy to see why. Tons of services out there ask for your contact information and promptly add you to spam lists. Everyone’s been burned by a shady e-tailer, online offer or some cool new service.
Plaxo is legit. We are not in the business of spamming, identity theft or selling information. We have an address. Contact me if you’d like to visit.
It’s upsetting to see all the naysayers who didn’t get all the facts first. By the way, for the conspiracy theororists out there:
Here’s how Plaxo makes moneyHere’s how we protect your dataand, we even have a contingency plan for if we get acquired or go underWant to see how Plaxo stacks up? Check out our privacy matrix and judge for yourself.
By the way Judith, David Coursey changed his mind about Plaxo
UPDATE: Apparently, Judith changed her mind too, I only found the negative post in my Google search. Sorry Judith, my bad
Comments (1)April 10, 2005Meeting yet another legend, Doc SearlsFiled under: work, technology — markjen @ 2:57 pmThis past Wednesday, I met Doc Searls at a small seminar hosted by BitePR that we were both speaking at - needless to say, his chat blew mine away.
Doc imparted quite a few nuggets during his talk, here are the ones that caught my attention:
Companies have identities - they have souls. The founders and leaders instill values that become the core of the company. Doc asserts that this is why acquisitions oftentimes fail. “The head is chopped off, the body can’t survive.” He also points to Carly Fiorina’s recent outing as HP’s CEO. In that case, she didn’t embody the core values that Helwitt and Packard instilled decades ago. Take a look at Apple, Steve Jobs had to come back to “reinvent” the company. In reality, he didn’t reinvent, he simply reverted the company back to the values he instilled at the begining.Companies can’t speak, their people need to speak. This is so true and one of the big reasons why most companies should get their employees blogging. Look at Microsoft. As little as two years ago, people everywhere in the tech community regarded Microsoft as “the evil empire”. Enter Scoble and the other 3000 bloggers there. Since Microsoft has embraced the community, there has been a seachange in the way the company is perceived. Only Linux zealots still truly believe that Microsoft is an evil empire. Most rational people now have a window into the people at the company and realize that Microsoft is nothing more than 50,000 people under a corporate flag trying to serve customers and make money.Relationship, conversation, transaction. Doc pointed out that in the US, markets are defined by transactions. When you think about “the market”, you think about Wall Street and eBay. It’s all about the transactions. Contrast that with how commerce works in the rest of the world. Markets are places where vendors and customers build relationships; and to build the relationship, they engage in conversation. Only after the relationship and conversation have been established do they think about the transaction.How does this all tie together? Well, for one, blogging is one tool by which companies can display their identities and create relationships. At the end of the day, company XYZ can spend $50 million on an branding campaign and not have much to show for it. Meanwhile, a buzz in the blogosphere and across the Internet can be started for free and will carry orders of magnitude more weight in customers’ minds. Hey CMOs, chew on that before you splurge on your next superbowl ad!
Quote of the talk: “With [blogging], I’m not pushing big rocks uphill, I’m rolling snowballs downhill.”
Well said Doc.
Comments (0)Want to blast your employer? Here’s how to do it and not get caught! ;)Filed under: general, work, technology — markjen @ 2:15 pmI’m still very much of the opinion that personal blogs and corporations can learn to live together, but if you must have an anonymous blog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a guide for blogging anonymously. They’ve got quite a few good tips in there, especially things like whistle blowing and sharing political opinions. I thought the following excerpt was especially interesting:
Some states have laws that may protect an employee or applicant’s legal off-duty blogging, especially if the employer has no policy or an unreasonably restrictive policy with regard to off-duty speech activities. For example, California has a law protecting employees from “demotion, suspension, or discharge from employment for lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer’s premises.” These laws have not been tested in a blogging context. If you are terminated for blogging while off-duty, you should contact an employment attorney to see what rights you may have.
Obviously, blogging during personal time is lawful conduct (assuming that you don’t violate confidentiality agreements and the such). Sharing your opinions and experiences is also lawful conduct. Thus, can a company demote, suspend or discharge an employee for blogging during non-work hours? Hmm… I wonder if/when this stuff will get challenged in court.
I mean, think about Niall Kennedy’s recent episode. Technically, he was blogging during non-work hours and sharing the content he did is completely legal. Would it be unlawful for Technorati to have reprimanded Niall?
As for me, I was content to just let it pass. I’m not one for getting involved in long, drawn out, legal battles. And besides, my incident put me in touch with a lot of cool people, I was quickly educated about the up and coming world of blogging, and to top it all off, I found an awesome job in short time.
Comments (5)March 29, 2005Plaxo’s Communication (Blogging) PolicyFiled under: general, work, technology — markjen @ 5:32 pmSince joining Plaxo, I’ve been on a team that’s working to define our policy regarding employees that want to participate in public communication. We wanted to include blogging, message boards, e-mail groups and any other media by which people are able to share ideas nowadays. Here’s what we came up with; have a gander at it and feel free to give feedback through the comments or e-mail me: mark @t plaxo.com.
Plaxo Public Internet Communication PolicyThe following policy applies to all employees and contractors of Plaxo, and covers all publicly accessible communications via the Internet relating to Plaxo. This includes, but is not limited to: blogs, discussion forums, newsgroups, and e-mail distribution lists.
OVERVIEWThis company depends upon not only the strong formal competencies of its workers (programming abilities, writing skills, etc.), but their “soft skills” as well. Specifically, the fabric of this company is sustained by a sense of camaraderie and trust.
While we encourage open communication both internally and externally in all forms, we expect and insist that such communication does not substantively demean our environment. This means that constructive criticism — both privately and publicly — is welcome, but harsh or continuous disparagement is frowned upon.
Externally communicating about aspects of the company that are part of your non-disclosure agreement (partnership deals, earnings, upcoming unannounced features, etc.) is ALWAYS forbidden, however, and grounds for immediate termination and legal action.
In a nutshell, be prudent. Ask yourself: “Would this public expression regarding Plaxo impair my ability to work with my colleagues on a friendly basis? Would it give a leg up to our competition? Would it make our current or upcoming partners uncomfortable?” If you could answer yes to any of those questions, please avoid this communication.
Additionally, you should first express with your management and co-workers any Plaxo concerns you may have. Voicing concerns about Plaxo publicly without first communicating such concerns to your management and co-workers is counterproductive and inadvisable.
SPECIFIC POLICIESYour public communications concerning Plaxo must not violate any guidelines set forth in your employee handbook, whether or not you specifically mention your employee or contractor status.You may participate in Plaxo-related public communications on company time. However, if doing so interferes with any of your work duties and/or responsibilities, Plaxo reserves the right to disallow such participation.You must include the following disclaimer on published public communications if you identify yourself as a Plaxo employee or if you regularly or substantively discuss Plaxo publicly: “The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of [your name]. Content published here is not read or approved by Plaxo before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Plaxo.”You may not communicate any material that violates the privacy or publicity rights of another.You may not attack personally fellow employees, authors, customers, vendors, or shareholders. You may respectfully disagree with company actions, policies, or management.You may not disclose any sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or financial information about the company. This includes revenues, profits, forecasts, and other financial information, any information related to specific authors, brands, products, product lines, customers, operating units, etc. You may not disclose any information about any specific customer. Further detail is provided in the “Security and Confidentiality” section of your employee handbook.You may not post any material that is obscene, defamatory, profane, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to another person or any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, comments regarding Plaxo, Plaxo employees, Plaxo’s partners and Plaxo’s competitors.Failure to follow these policies may result in disciplinary action, up to and including discharge. Only a written document signed by the President of Plaxo can approve an exception of any of the above policies.
Additionally, here are some guidelines you may wish to follow for your own protection. This is not a comprehensive list and Plaxo will not indemnify you from legal action if you follow these guidelines.
If you think you will get in trouble directly or indirectly because of any communication you are about to make, please discuss it with your manager first.Remember that you are not anonymous. Even if you write anonymously or under a pseudonym, your identity can still be revealed. You should communicate as if you are doing so under your own name. Indeed, it is recommended that you do communicate using your real name.You will probably be read or heard by people who know you. Post as if everyone you know reads or hears every word.You are personally legally responsible for any content you publish. Be aware of applicable laws regarding publishing your content or regarding the content itself before you post. This includes adhering to applicable copyright laws.Comments (38)March 10, 2005work is crazy and i’m liking itFiled under: work — markjen @ 10:30 pmwith the exception of yesterday, i’ve been staying quite late at work. there’s just so much to do! i’ve got tons of stuff to ramp up on, we’re actively developing new stuff and i’m trying to get to know everyone as soon as possible. between all that, i’ve been putting in 10-12 hour days - not counting the time i spend checking e-mails before i head to work and when i work remote after i get home. hey, working at a high-intensity start-up isn’t for everyone - but it sure fits me just fine
why am i so jazzed? first off, everything in the system at plaxo is subject to change. if something’s not working, we’ll see how we can fix it; if things are working well, we’ll try to make it work better. none of this “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” crap. think we’re crazy? go see what’s made toyota a leader in the global auto industry. in a recent interview with fortune magazine, toyota’s ceo likened the growth of the company to pushing a cart uphill - he felt that if the company stopped for even a moment, the cart would come flying back down the hill, taking them along with it.
secondly, at plaxo, everyone is in it together. i’m not the only one who’s got the drive and motivation to stay late and get stuff done. at microsoft, forget about it. most people pretty much do 9 to 5 nowadays, unless there is a major deadline coming soon. at google, a few people would stay late, but the “campus feel” of pulling late nights and getting stuff done was missing. during the two short weeks i was at google, i’d leave around 8 or 9 and i’d see maybe a few people on my way out. sure, there were a few diehards at the googolplex, but i got the feeling that most people were just staying for the free dinner and checking out.
lastly, we’re actually listening to customers and using feedback and metrics to enhance their experiences. we don’t hail from a grand vision at the top and plan out features that won’t get shipped until 2008. we take real customer feedback and implement it into the system as soon as we can get the bits out the door. we try different things and empirically figure out what works and what doesn’t. it’s almost like a large scale science experiment, where the outcome is a better product and happy users.
for those who are wondering what’s in the works, check out this article on SFGate. for those too lazy to click through, here are the interesting parts:
… “Ten years ago, people were afraid of buying anything on the Internet,” said Golub, who knows a thing or two about Internet security from his days at VeriSign. “Largely, Plaxo has a perception problem. Plaxo is far safer than most of what is done online.”
So, how you gonna make money? “We’ve started to introduce ways to make money,” said Golub, who added the firm has plenty of seed money left but wouldn’t specify how much. “We’re creating premium services. Cell-phone synching. Address book optimizers that eliminate all duplicates in your system. And premium support. But there will always be a free service.”
anyways, needless to say, some people’s wishes will be answered soon. for those who had other requests, give us some time, we’re getting to it as fast as we can
Comments (3)March 8, 2005what is plaxo?Filed under: work — markjen @ 8:47 pma lot of people have been wondering what plaxo does. by now, most people have, at some time or another, gotten a request to update their contact information from a friend through plaxo. oftentimes, as plaxo spreads through a social group, those who join plaxo last end up getting sent a large number of these contact info update requests. these people naturally - and unfortunately - mistake plaxo for a spam company
what plaxo actually does is harness the power of social networking to keep your contacts up to date. if you and all of your friends are signed up for plaxo, when someone moves, they only need to update their info in plaxo. plaxo then automatically sends the updated info to everyone in the group - to make it even smoother, the people in the group don’t need to do anything; their address books are just always up to date. for me, the only contact info i have left for most of my college friends is an e-mail address. fortunately, with just an e-mail address, i can quickly reconnect with all of my friends and keep in touch effortlessly.
the best part is, if you use outlook or outlook express, plaxo has a client plug-in. this plug-in will automatically keep your outlook contacts up to date too. there are also cool features that help you keep your calendar, tasks and notes synced up. if you have multiple computers, you can install plaxo on all of them and your information can be synced automatically.
they also have a really cool web interface and an IE toolbar in the works - it’s got integrated yahoo search too, so you don’t need a search toolbar anymore (don’t worry, they haven’t put in an autolink feature… yet ;P).
what about privacy concerns? well, plaxo, unlike other social networks, is very concerned about privacy. first of all, you choose what information other people can see and get updated from you. also, no one ever knows who is in your address book unless you tell them they are. plaxo isn’t a spamhouse so they aren’t interested in selling your information; plus, even though you only get e-mailed by plaxo when one of your friends requests it, you can still opt-out and you won’t receive any more e-mails from plaxo.
hope that answers most questions. if you want to keep in touch with me, just add my e-mail to your plaxo account (it’s 99zeros at gmail).
for the doubters out there, don’t worry, i haven’t drunk too much corporate kool-aid; check out the product and i think you’ll see why i am so excited to be working here
Comments (22)March 7, 2005hello plaxo!Filed under: work — markjen @ 5:38 pmtoday is my first day of work at plaxo.
as many people have guessed, i’ve been interviewing for the past month. when i accepted the job at google, i thought i’d be able to escape the hectic interviewing process for a while - at least 2 or 3 years. but as life would have it, i only escaped for 2 weeks
after i was let go, i went around networking with a lot of people. along the way, i met jeremy zawodny, robert scoble, david sifry, joyce park, russell beattieand many others. they were all extremely supportive of helping me find a new job - thanks for all your support. they’ve also been responsible for helping me find and explore a bunch of awesome opportunities.
additionally, as the news broke of what had happened to me, recruiters started contacting me. this was a very unique experience; while most job seekers have to go to great lengths to get a foot in the door, i was being aggressively pursued. in this regard, i would have to say that i was extremely - and unexpectedly - blessed. God really does provide in difficult times.
then came the interviews! while interviewing these past few weeks, i’ve learned a lot about different corporate cultures. i used to evaluate the job environment just by gut feel; now i know to ask very specific questions regarding how open the company is, how it likes to communicate and what the corporate dynamics are like. i’ve always thought of interviewing as a two way street, both the employer and potential employee checking for the optimal fit. now, i realize that interviewing can serve as a deep thin-slice of a company. in other words, checking a company’s website gives you a broad overview while going through an interview loop with a company gives you an opportunity to get in-depth knowledge.
anyways, enough commentary and on to the results! as most people expected, i interviewed with the big tech companies: microsoft, yahoo and amazon. i also interviewed or chatted with a ton of start-ups (including places like technorati, filangy, etc.). in the end, i was looking for a very specific mix of attributes that would constitute the perfect job for me. the company had to have:
commitment and transparency to customersa passion for revolutionizing the end-user experiencean open environment where people are free to be different and fosters creative expressionthe ability to be nimble, ship solutions quickly, and adjust to market changesextremely talented people and cohesive, productive teamsawesome mentorship opportunitiesafter getting quite a few offers, i sat down to consider my options. in the end, plaxo had everything i was looking for and more. as a bonus, they fully support my blogging activities as well - they recognize the power of keeping the door open to the community through blogs.
i’m super excited to be at plaxo. for those who are wondering, the HR orientation presentation was approximately 5 minutes. now that’s efficiency
Comments (35)March 5, 200599 zeroes but my job ain’t one - hit me!Filed under: work — markjen @ 9:18 ama microsoftie was inspired to write a remix of jay-z’s song “99 problems” in light of events that have happened to me. not all of the song is completely accurate, but i would say it’s definitely entertaining
Comments (6)
Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Two weeks later, Google fired Jen. And that’s when the 22-year-old became a big story. Google was blogbusted for overreacting and for sending an all-too-clear warning to the dozens of bloggers still at the company. A Google official says the company has lots of bloggers and just expects them to use common sense. For example, if it’s something you wouldn’t e-mail to a long list of strangers, don’t blog it.
Not to beat the point to death, but how do you define common sense? A bunch of people are saying how their companies have “blog smart” policies; but my question to them is: how do you define common sense or being smart? Without any clear definitions, what do you do when someone violates your subjective definitions?
On that note, here’s a draft of the public communications policy we’re putting together at Plaxo. Please leave feedback and help us improve it. Oh, and if you’re also putting together a policy for your company, feel free to take what we have and repurpose it.
By the way, if anyone from BW is reading this post, send me a copy please! (You can find my address in my Plaxo profile )
Comments (0)April 20, 2005I’ll be back? Maybe, but not anytime soon…Filed under: work, technology — markjen @ 11:00 amI’ve been reading the Mini-Microsoft blog for a while now and the author makes some very good points. I don’t think any of the suggestions will ever get implemented, but hey, someone’s gotta point out the emperor’s new clothes.
The latest post includes this little tidbit:
As folks left for start-ups, Microsofties would give them a cheery goodbye and (if they were good) say (once they were out of earshot), “They’ll be back.”
Now folks are leaving to relish the passion of creating and shipping great software. And I haven’t heard anyone mutter, “They’ll be back.” I’ve seen far more moments of wistful envy.
When I left Microsoft, quite a few people told me straight up to my face that I’d be back - they didn’t even wait until I was out of earshot . Indeed, one day, I might be. But in the meantime, I’m loving the experience of working at a fast paced, nimble start-up.
On a related note, quite a few Microsofties claimed that although start-ups seemed to ship software faster, the Microsoft way is the most effective, having been refined over almost 30 years. They may be right on that note as well, but I’m not the type that just takes someone else’s word for it.
I do see a lot of promising stuff coming out of MSN though; I’m an avid watcher of the MSN/Google/Y! war, may the best solution - or at least best marketed one - win!
Comments (0)April 15, 2005Plaxo == PrivacyFiled under: work, technology — markjen @ 9:41 am My pubsub picked up this semi-recent post on Plaxo by The 463. All I have to say is: Amen!
I know many people get the heebee jeebees when they find out that Plaxo helps them keep their contacts up to date. It’s easy to see why. Tons of services out there ask for your contact information and promptly add you to spam lists. Everyone’s been burned by a shady e-tailer, online offer or some cool new service.
Plaxo is legit. We are not in the business of spamming, identity theft or selling information. We have an address. Contact me if you’d like to visit.
It’s upsetting to see all the naysayers who didn’t get all the facts first. By the way, for the conspiracy theororists out there:
Here’s how Plaxo makes moneyHere’s how we protect your dataand, we even have a contingency plan for if we get acquired or go underWant to see how Plaxo stacks up? Check out our privacy matrix and judge for yourself.
By the way Judith, David Coursey changed his mind about Plaxo
UPDATE: Apparently, Judith changed her mind too, I only found the negative post in my Google search. Sorry Judith, my bad
Comments (1)April 10, 2005Meeting yet another legend, Doc SearlsFiled under: work, technology — markjen @ 2:57 pmThis past Wednesday, I met Doc Searls at a small seminar hosted by BitePR that we were both speaking at - needless to say, his chat blew mine away.
Doc imparted quite a few nuggets during his talk, here are the ones that caught my attention:
Companies have identities - they have souls. The founders and leaders instill values that become the core of the company. Doc asserts that this is why acquisitions oftentimes fail. “The head is chopped off, the body can’t survive.” He also points to Carly Fiorina’s recent outing as HP’s CEO. In that case, she didn’t embody the core values that Helwitt and Packard instilled decades ago. Take a look at Apple, Steve Jobs had to come back to “reinvent” the company. In reality, he didn’t reinvent, he simply reverted the company back to the values he instilled at the begining.Companies can’t speak, their people need to speak. This is so true and one of the big reasons why most companies should get their employees blogging. Look at Microsoft. As little as two years ago, people everywhere in the tech community regarded Microsoft as “the evil empire”. Enter Scoble and the other 3000 bloggers there. Since Microsoft has embraced the community, there has been a seachange in the way the company is perceived. Only Linux zealots still truly believe that Microsoft is an evil empire. Most rational people now have a window into the people at the company and realize that Microsoft is nothing more than 50,000 people under a corporate flag trying to serve customers and make money.Relationship, conversation, transaction. Doc pointed out that in the US, markets are defined by transactions. When you think about “the market”, you think about Wall Street and eBay. It’s all about the transactions. Contrast that with how commerce works in the rest of the world. Markets are places where vendors and customers build relationships; and to build the relationship, they engage in conversation. Only after the relationship and conversation have been established do they think about the transaction.How does this all tie together? Well, for one, blogging is one tool by which companies can display their identities and create relationships. At the end of the day, company XYZ can spend $50 million on an branding campaign and not have much to show for it. Meanwhile, a buzz in the blogosphere and across the Internet can be started for free and will carry orders of magnitude more weight in customers’ minds. Hey CMOs, chew on that before you splurge on your next superbowl ad!
Quote of the talk: “With [blogging], I’m not pushing big rocks uphill, I’m rolling snowballs downhill.”
Well said Doc.
Comments (0)Want to blast your employer? Here’s how to do it and not get caught! ;)Filed under: general, work, technology — markjen @ 2:15 pmI’m still very much of the opinion that personal blogs and corporations can learn to live together, but if you must have an anonymous blog, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has a guide for blogging anonymously. They’ve got quite a few good tips in there, especially things like whistle blowing and sharing political opinions. I thought the following excerpt was especially interesting:
Some states have laws that may protect an employee or applicant’s legal off-duty blogging, especially if the employer has no policy or an unreasonably restrictive policy with regard to off-duty speech activities. For example, California has a law protecting employees from “demotion, suspension, or discharge from employment for lawful conduct occurring during nonworking hours away from the employer’s premises.” These laws have not been tested in a blogging context. If you are terminated for blogging while off-duty, you should contact an employment attorney to see what rights you may have.
Obviously, blogging during personal time is lawful conduct (assuming that you don’t violate confidentiality agreements and the such). Sharing your opinions and experiences is also lawful conduct. Thus, can a company demote, suspend or discharge an employee for blogging during non-work hours? Hmm… I wonder if/when this stuff will get challenged in court.
I mean, think about Niall Kennedy’s recent episode. Technically, he was blogging during non-work hours and sharing the content he did is completely legal. Would it be unlawful for Technorati to have reprimanded Niall?
As for me, I was content to just let it pass. I’m not one for getting involved in long, drawn out, legal battles. And besides, my incident put me in touch with a lot of cool people, I was quickly educated about the up and coming world of blogging, and to top it all off, I found an awesome job in short time.
Comments (5)March 29, 2005Plaxo’s Communication (Blogging) PolicyFiled under: general, work, technology — markjen @ 5:32 pmSince joining Plaxo, I’ve been on a team that’s working to define our policy regarding employees that want to participate in public communication. We wanted to include blogging, message boards, e-mail groups and any other media by which people are able to share ideas nowadays. Here’s what we came up with; have a gander at it and feel free to give feedback through the comments or e-mail me: mark @t plaxo.com.
Plaxo Public Internet Communication PolicyThe following policy applies to all employees and contractors of Plaxo, and covers all publicly accessible communications via the Internet relating to Plaxo. This includes, but is not limited to: blogs, discussion forums, newsgroups, and e-mail distribution lists.
OVERVIEWThis company depends upon not only the strong formal competencies of its workers (programming abilities, writing skills, etc.), but their “soft skills” as well. Specifically, the fabric of this company is sustained by a sense of camaraderie and trust.
While we encourage open communication both internally and externally in all forms, we expect and insist that such communication does not substantively demean our environment. This means that constructive criticism — both privately and publicly — is welcome, but harsh or continuous disparagement is frowned upon.
Externally communicating about aspects of the company that are part of your non-disclosure agreement (partnership deals, earnings, upcoming unannounced features, etc.) is ALWAYS forbidden, however, and grounds for immediate termination and legal action.
In a nutshell, be prudent. Ask yourself: “Would this public expression regarding Plaxo impair my ability to work with my colleagues on a friendly basis? Would it give a leg up to our competition? Would it make our current or upcoming partners uncomfortable?” If you could answer yes to any of those questions, please avoid this communication.
Additionally, you should first express with your management and co-workers any Plaxo concerns you may have. Voicing concerns about Plaxo publicly without first communicating such concerns to your management and co-workers is counterproductive and inadvisable.
SPECIFIC POLICIESYour public communications concerning Plaxo must not violate any guidelines set forth in your employee handbook, whether or not you specifically mention your employee or contractor status.You may participate in Plaxo-related public communications on company time. However, if doing so interferes with any of your work duties and/or responsibilities, Plaxo reserves the right to disallow such participation.You must include the following disclaimer on published public communications if you identify yourself as a Plaxo employee or if you regularly or substantively discuss Plaxo publicly: “The opinions expressed here are the personal opinions of [your name]. Content published here is not read or approved by Plaxo before it is posted and does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Plaxo.”You may not communicate any material that violates the privacy or publicity rights of another.You may not attack personally fellow employees, authors, customers, vendors, or shareholders. You may respectfully disagree with company actions, policies, or management.You may not disclose any sensitive, proprietary, confidential, or financial information about the company. This includes revenues, profits, forecasts, and other financial information, any information related to specific authors, brands, products, product lines, customers, operating units, etc. You may not disclose any information about any specific customer. Further detail is provided in the “Security and Confidentiality” section of your employee handbook.You may not post any material that is obscene, defamatory, profane, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to another person or any other person or entity. This includes, but is not limited to, comments regarding Plaxo, Plaxo employees, Plaxo’s partners and Plaxo’s competitors.Failure to follow these policies may result in disciplinary action, up to and including discharge. Only a written document signed by the President of Plaxo can approve an exception of any of the above policies.
Additionally, here are some guidelines you may wish to follow for your own protection. This is not a comprehensive list and Plaxo will not indemnify you from legal action if you follow these guidelines.
If you think you will get in trouble directly or indirectly because of any communication you are about to make, please discuss it with your manager first.Remember that you are not anonymous. Even if you write anonymously or under a pseudonym, your identity can still be revealed. You should communicate as if you are doing so under your own name. Indeed, it is recommended that you do communicate using your real name.You will probably be read or heard by people who know you. Post as if everyone you know reads or hears every word.You are personally legally responsible for any content you publish. Be aware of applicable laws regarding publishing your content or regarding the content itself before you post. This includes adhering to applicable copyright laws.Comments (38)March 10, 2005work is crazy and i’m liking itFiled under: work — markjen @ 10:30 pmwith the exception of yesterday, i’ve been staying quite late at work. there’s just so much to do! i’ve got tons of stuff to ramp up on, we’re actively developing new stuff and i’m trying to get to know everyone as soon as possible. between all that, i’ve been putting in 10-12 hour days - not counting the time i spend checking e-mails before i head to work and when i work remote after i get home. hey, working at a high-intensity start-up isn’t for everyone - but it sure fits me just fine
why am i so jazzed? first off, everything in the system at plaxo is subject to change. if something’s not working, we’ll see how we can fix it; if things are working well, we’ll try to make it work better. none of this “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” crap. think we’re crazy? go see what’s made toyota a leader in the global auto industry. in a recent interview with fortune magazine, toyota’s ceo likened the growth of the company to pushing a cart uphill - he felt that if the company stopped for even a moment, the cart would come flying back down the hill, taking them along with it.
secondly, at plaxo, everyone is in it together. i’m not the only one who’s got the drive and motivation to stay late and get stuff done. at microsoft, forget about it. most people pretty much do 9 to 5 nowadays, unless there is a major deadline coming soon. at google, a few people would stay late, but the “campus feel” of pulling late nights and getting stuff done was missing. during the two short weeks i was at google, i’d leave around 8 or 9 and i’d see maybe a few people on my way out. sure, there were a few diehards at the googolplex, but i got the feeling that most people were just staying for the free dinner and checking out.
lastly, we’re actually listening to customers and using feedback and metrics to enhance their experiences. we don’t hail from a grand vision at the top and plan out features that won’t get shipped until 2008. we take real customer feedback and implement it into the system as soon as we can get the bits out the door. we try different things and empirically figure out what works and what doesn’t. it’s almost like a large scale science experiment, where the outcome is a better product and happy users.
for those who are wondering what’s in the works, check out this article on SFGate. for those too lazy to click through, here are the interesting parts:
… “Ten years ago, people were afraid of buying anything on the Internet,” said Golub, who knows a thing or two about Internet security from his days at VeriSign. “Largely, Plaxo has a perception problem. Plaxo is far safer than most of what is done online.”
So, how you gonna make money? “We’ve started to introduce ways to make money,” said Golub, who added the firm has plenty of seed money left but wouldn’t specify how much. “We’re creating premium services. Cell-phone synching. Address book optimizers that eliminate all duplicates in your system. And premium support. But there will always be a free service.”
anyways, needless to say, some people’s wishes will be answered soon. for those who had other requests, give us some time, we’re getting to it as fast as we can
Comments (3)March 8, 2005what is plaxo?Filed under: work — markjen @ 8:47 pma lot of people have been wondering what plaxo does. by now, most people have, at some time or another, gotten a request to update their contact information from a friend through plaxo. oftentimes, as plaxo spreads through a social group, those who join plaxo last end up getting sent a large number of these contact info update requests. these people naturally - and unfortunately - mistake plaxo for a spam company
what plaxo actually does is harness the power of social networking to keep your contacts up to date. if you and all of your friends are signed up for plaxo, when someone moves, they only need to update their info in plaxo. plaxo then automatically sends the updated info to everyone in the group - to make it even smoother, the people in the group don’t need to do anything; their address books are just always up to date. for me, the only contact info i have left for most of my college friends is an e-mail address. fortunately, with just an e-mail address, i can quickly reconnect with all of my friends and keep in touch effortlessly.
the best part is, if you use outlook or outlook express, plaxo has a client plug-in. this plug-in will automatically keep your outlook contacts up to date too. there are also cool features that help you keep your calendar, tasks and notes synced up. if you have multiple computers, you can install plaxo on all of them and your information can be synced automatically.
they also have a really cool web interface and an IE toolbar in the works - it’s got integrated yahoo search too, so you don’t need a search toolbar anymore (don’t worry, they haven’t put in an autolink feature… yet ;P).
what about privacy concerns? well, plaxo, unlike other social networks, is very concerned about privacy. first of all, you choose what information other people can see and get updated from you. also, no one ever knows who is in your address book unless you tell them they are. plaxo isn’t a spamhouse so they aren’t interested in selling your information; plus, even though you only get e-mailed by plaxo when one of your friends requests it, you can still opt-out and you won’t receive any more e-mails from plaxo.
hope that answers most questions. if you want to keep in touch with me, just add my e-mail to your plaxo account (it’s 99zeros at gmail).
for the doubters out there, don’t worry, i haven’t drunk too much corporate kool-aid; check out the product and i think you’ll see why i am so excited to be working here
Comments (22)March 7, 2005hello plaxo!Filed under: work — markjen @ 5:38 pmtoday is my first day of work at plaxo.
as many people have guessed, i’ve been interviewing for the past month. when i accepted the job at google, i thought i’d be able to escape the hectic interviewing process for a while - at least 2 or 3 years. but as life would have it, i only escaped for 2 weeks
after i was let go, i went around networking with a lot of people. along the way, i met jeremy zawodny, robert scoble, david sifry, joyce park, russell beattieand many others. they were all extremely supportive of helping me find a new job - thanks for all your support. they’ve also been responsible for helping me find and explore a bunch of awesome opportunities.
additionally, as the news broke of what had happened to me, recruiters started contacting me. this was a very unique experience; while most job seekers have to go to great lengths to get a foot in the door, i was being aggressively pursued. in this regard, i would have to say that i was extremely - and unexpectedly - blessed. God really does provide in difficult times.
then came the interviews! while interviewing these past few weeks, i’ve learned a lot about different corporate cultures. i used to evaluate the job environment just by gut feel; now i know to ask very specific questions regarding how open the company is, how it likes to communicate and what the corporate dynamics are like. i’ve always thought of interviewing as a two way street, both the employer and potential employee checking for the optimal fit. now, i realize that interviewing can serve as a deep thin-slice of a company. in other words, checking a company’s website gives you a broad overview while going through an interview loop with a company gives you an opportunity to get in-depth knowledge.
anyways, enough commentary and on to the results! as most people expected, i interviewed with the big tech companies: microsoft, yahoo and amazon. i also interviewed or chatted with a ton of start-ups (including places like technorati, filangy, etc.). in the end, i was looking for a very specific mix of attributes that would constitute the perfect job for me. the company had to have:
commitment and transparency to customersa passion for revolutionizing the end-user experiencean open environment where people are free to be different and fosters creative expressionthe ability to be nimble, ship solutions quickly, and adjust to market changesextremely talented people and cohesive, productive teamsawesome mentorship opportunitiesafter getting quite a few offers, i sat down to consider my options. in the end, plaxo had everything i was looking for and more. as a bonus, they fully support my blogging activities as well - they recognize the power of keeping the door open to the community through blogs.
i’m super excited to be at plaxo. for those who are wondering, the HR orientation presentation was approximately 5 minutes. now that’s efficiency
Comments (35)March 5, 200599 zeroes but my job ain’t one - hit me!Filed under: work — markjen @ 9:18 ama microsoftie was inspired to write a remix of jay-z’s song “99 problems” in light of events that have happened to me. not all of the song is completely accurate, but i would say it’s definitely entertaining
Comments (6)
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Our editors pick the nation's top 10
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Bear Mountain State Park - New York, N.Y.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Fredericksburg, Texas
Fort Stevens State Park - Astoria, Ore.
Golden Gate Canyon State Park - Golden, Colo.
Henry W. Coe State Park - Morgan Hill, Calif.
Malibu Creek State Park - Malibu, Calif.
McKinney Falls State Park - Austin, Texas
Mohawk Trail State Forest - Charlemont, Mass.
Mount Tamalpais State Park - Mill Valley, Calif.
Pocahontas State Park - Chesterfield, Va.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Bear Mountain State Park - New York, N.Y.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Fredericksburg, Texas
Fort Stevens State Park - Astoria, Ore.
Golden Gate Canyon State Park - Golden, Colo.
Henry W. Coe State Park - Morgan Hill, Calif.
Malibu Creek State Park - Malibu, Calif.
McKinney Falls State Park - Austin, Texas
Mohawk Trail State Forest - Charlemont, Mass.
Mount Tamalpais State Park - Mill Valley, Calif.
Pocahontas State Park - Chesterfield, Va.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Cape Cod - Mass.
Chicago - Ill.
Cleveland - Ohio
The Hamptons - N.Y.
Key West - Fla.
Los Angeles - Calif.
Monterey and Carmel - Calif.
Newport - R.I.
Portland - Ore.
Salt Lake City - Utah
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Cape Cod - Mass.
Chicago - Ill.
Cleveland - Ohio
The Hamptons - N.Y.
Key West - Fla.
Los Angeles - Calif.
Monterey and Carmel - Calif.
Newport - R.I.
Portland - Ore.
Salt Lake City - Utah
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Austin, Texas
Boston, Mass.
Chicago, Ill.
Las Vegas, Nev.
Nashville, Tenn.
New Orleans, La.
New York, N.Y.
Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
San Francisco, Calif.
Seattle, Wash.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Catalina Island, Calif.
Fire Island, N.Y.
Galveston, Texas
Hilton Head, S.C.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Key West, Fla.
Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
Maui, Hawaii
San Juan Islands, Wash.
South Padre Island, Texas
Bear Mountain State Park - New York, N.Y.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Fredericksburg, Texas
Fort Stevens State Park - Astoria, Ore.
Golden Gate Canyon State Park - Golden, Colo.
Henry W. Coe State Park - Morgan Hill, Calif.
Malibu Creek State Park - Malibu, Calif.
McKinney Falls State Park - Austin, Texas
Mohawk Trail State Forest - Charlemont, Mass.
Mount Tamalpais State Park - Mill Valley, Calif.
Pocahontas State Park - Chesterfield, Va.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Bear Mountain State Park - New York, N.Y.
Enchanted Rock State Natural Area - Fredericksburg, Texas
Fort Stevens State Park - Astoria, Ore.
Golden Gate Canyon State Park - Golden, Colo.
Henry W. Coe State Park - Morgan Hill, Calif.
Malibu Creek State Park - Malibu, Calif.
McKinney Falls State Park - Austin, Texas
Mohawk Trail State Forest - Charlemont, Mass.
Mount Tamalpais State Park - Mill Valley, Calif.
Pocahontas State Park - Chesterfield, Va.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Cape Cod - Mass.
Chicago - Ill.
Cleveland - Ohio
The Hamptons - N.Y.
Key West - Fla.
Los Angeles - Calif.
Monterey and Carmel - Calif.
Newport - R.I.
Portland - Ore.
Salt Lake City - Utah
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Cape Cod - Mass.
Chicago - Ill.
Cleveland - Ohio
The Hamptons - N.Y.
Key West - Fla.
Los Angeles - Calif.
Monterey and Carmel - Calif.
Newport - R.I.
Portland - Ore.
Salt Lake City - Utah
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Austin, Texas
Boston, Mass.
Chicago, Ill.
Las Vegas, Nev.
Nashville, Tenn.
New Orleans, La.
New York, N.Y.
Raleigh-Durham, N.C.
San Francisco, Calif.
Seattle, Wash.
Our editors pick the nation's top 10:
Catalina Island, Calif.
Fire Island, N.Y.
Galveston, Texas
Hilton Head, S.C.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Key West, Fla.
Martha's Vineyard, Mass.
Maui, Hawaii
San Juan Islands, Wash.
South Padre Island, Texas
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Prediction: India, China will be economic giants (Part II)
April 3, 2005
It's a Flat World, After All
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''
And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste.
I wish I could say I saw it all coming. Alas, I encountered the flattening of the world quite by accident. It was in late February of last year, and I was visiting the Indian high-tech capital, Bangalore,
working on a documentary for the Discovery Times channel about outsourcing. In short order, I interviewed Indian entrepreneurs who wanted to prepare my taxes from Bangalore, read my X-rays from Bangalore, trace my lost luggage from Bangalore and write my new software from Bangalore. The longer I was there, the more upset I became -- upset at the realization that while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, globalization had entered a whole new phase, and I had missed it. I guess the eureka moment came on a visit to the campus of Infosys Technologies, one of the crown jewels of the Indian outsourcing and software industry. Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys C.E.O., was showing me his global video-conference room, pointing with pride to a wall-size flat-screen TV, which he said was the biggest in Asia. Infosys, he explained, could hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So its American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. That's what globalization is all about today, Nilekani said. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, G.M.T., India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.
''Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,'' Nilekani explained. ''What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.'' At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they ''created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.''
At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, ''Tom, the playing field is being leveled.'' He meant that countries like India were now able to compete equally for global knowledge work as never before -- and that America had better get ready for this. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the potholed road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: ''The playing field is being leveled.''
''What Nandan is saying,'' I thought, ''is that the playing field is being flattened. Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!''
Here I was in Bangalore -- more than 500 years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, looking for a shorter route to India using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round -- and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was telling me that the world was flat, as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world -- the fact that we had made our world flat!
This has been building for a long time. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.
''Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want,'' said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. ''That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left field. As bioscience becomes more computational and less about wet labs and as all the genomic data becomes easily available on the Internet, at some point you will be able to design vaccines on your laptop.''
Andreessen is touching on the most exciting part of Globalization 3.0 and the flattening of the world: the fact that we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. We've tasted some of the downsides of that in the way that Osama bin Laden has connected terrorist knowledge pools together through his Qaeda network, not to mention the work of teenage hackers spinning off more and more lethal computer viruses that affect us all. But the upside is that by connecting all these knowledge pools we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South. Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born a B student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston, because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not really take advantage of his or her talent. They could not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray.
When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate. This is going to get interesting. We are about to see creative destruction on steroids.
How did the world get flattened, and how did it happen so fast?
It was a result of 10 events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000. Let me go through them briefly. The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space. ''The Berlin Wall was not only a symbol of keeping people inside Germany; it was a way of preventing a kind of global view of our future,'' the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. And the wall went down just as the windows went up -- the breakthrough Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system, which helped to flatten the playing field even more by creating a global computer interface, shipped six months after the wall fell.
The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level. Suddenly more people could connect with more other people from more different places in more different ways than ever before.
No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. ''India had no resources and no infrastructure,'' said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. ''It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.'' India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. ''But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,'' Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ''it was the foreigners who benefited.'' India got a free ride.
The first time this became apparent was when thousands of Indian engineers were enlisted to fix the Y2K -- the year 2000 -- computer bugs for companies from all over the world. (Y2K should be a national holiday in India. Call it ''Indian Interdependence Day,'' says Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy analyst at Johns Hopkins.) The fact that the Y2K work could be outsourced to Indians was made possible by the first two flatteners, along with a third, which I call ''workflow.'' Workflow is shorthand for all the software applications, standards and electronic transmission pipes, like middleware, that connected all those computers and fiber-optic cable. To put it another way, if the Netscape moment connected people to people like never before, what the workflow revolution did was connect applications to applications so that people all over the world could work together in manipulating and shaping words, data and images on computers like never before.
Indeed, this breakthrough in people-to-people and application-to-application connectivity produced, in short order, six more flatteners -- six new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate on work and share knowledge. One was ''outsourcing.'' When my software applications could connect seamlessly with all of your applications, it meant that all kinds of work -- from accounting to software-writing -- could be digitized, disaggregated and shifted to any place in the world where it could be done better and cheaper. The second was ''offshoring.'' I send my whole factory from Canton, Ohio, to Canton, China. The third was ''open-sourcing.'' I write the next operating system, Linux, using engineers collaborating together online and working for free. The fourth was ''insourcing.'' I let a company like UPS come inside my company and take over my whole logistics operation -- everything from filling my orders online to delivering my goods to repairing them for customers when they break. (People have no idea what UPS really does today. You'd be amazed!). The fifth was ''supply-chaining.'' This is Wal-Mart's specialty. I create a global supply chain down to the last atom of efficiency so that if I sell an item in Arkansas, another is immediately made in China. (If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner.) The last new form of collaboration I call ''informing'' -- this is Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, which now allow anyone to collaborate with, and mine, unlimited data all by themselves.
So the first three flatteners created the new platform for collaboration, and the next six are the new forms of collaboration that flattened the world even more. The 10th flattener I call ''the steroids,'' and these are wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). What the steroids do is turbocharge all these new forms of collaboration, so you can now do any one of them, from anywhere, with any device.
The world got flat when all 10 of these flatteners converged around the year 2000. This created a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration on research and work in real time, without regard to geography, distance or, in the near future, even language. ''It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that made what you call the flattening of the world possible,'' said Craig Mundie, the chief technical officer of Microsoft.
No, not everyone has access yet to this platform, but it is open now to more people in more places on more days in more ways than anything like it in history. Wherever you look today -- whether it is the world of journalism, with bloggers bringing down Dan Rather; the world of software, with the Linux code writers working in online forums for free to challenge Microsoft; or the world of business, where Indian and Chinese innovators are competing against and working with some of the most advanced Western multinationals -- hierarchies are being flattened and value is being created less and less within vertical silos and more and more through horizontal collaboration within companies, between companies and among individuals.
Do you recall ''the IT revolution'' that the business press has been pushing for the last 20 years? Sorry to tell you this, but that was just the prologue. The last 20 years were about forging, sharpening and distributing all the new tools to collaborate and connect. Now the real information revolution is about to begin as all the complementarities among these collaborative tools start to converge. One of those who first called this moment by its real name was Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O., who in 2004 began to declare in her public speeches that the dot-com boom and bust were just ''the end of the beginning.'' The last 25 years in technology, Fiorina said, have just been ''the warm-up act.'' Now we are going into the main event, she said, ''and by the main event, I mean an era in which technology will truly transform every aspect of business, of government, of society, of life.''
As if this flattening wasn't enough, another convergence coincidentally occurred during the 1990's that was equally important. Some three billion people who were out of the game walked, and often ran, onto the playing field. I am talking about the people of China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Central Asia. Their economies and political systems all opened up during the course of the 1990's so that their people were increasingly free to join the free market. And when did these three billion people converge with the new playing field and the new business processes? Right when it was being flattened, right when millions of them could compete and collaborate more equally, more horizontally and with cheaper and more readily available tools. Indeed, thanks to the flattening of the world, many of these new entrants didn't even have to leave home to participate. Thanks to the 10 flatteners, the playing field came to them!
It is this convergence -- of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes for horizontal collaboration -- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early 21st century. Sure, not all three billion can collaborate and compete. In fact, for most people the world is not yet flat at all. But even if we're talking about only 10 percent, that's 300 million people -- about twice the size of the American work force. And be advised: the Indians and Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top. What China's leaders really want is that the next generation of underwear and airplane wings not just be ''made in China'' but also be ''designed in China.'' And that is where things are heading. So in 30 years we will have gone from ''sold in China'' to ''made in China'' to ''designed in China'' to ''dreamed up in China'' -- or from China as collaborator with the worldwide manufacturers on nothing to China as a low-cost, high-quality, hyperefficient collaborator with worldwide manufacturers on everything. Ditto India. Said Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, ''You don't bring three billion people into the world economy overnight without huge consequences, especially from three societies'' -- like India, China and Russia -- ''with rich educational heritages.''
That is why there is nothing that guarantees that Americans or Western Europeans will continue leading the way. These new players are stepping onto the playing field legacy free, meaning that many of them were so far behind that they can leap right into the new technologies without having to worry about all the sunken costs of old systems. It means that they can move very fast to adopt new, state-of-the-art technologies, which is why there are already more cellphones in use in China today than there are people in America.
If you want to appreciate the sort of challenge we are facing, let me share with you two conversations. One was with some of the Microsoft officials who were involved in setting up Microsoft's research center in Beijing, Microsoft Research Asia, which opened in 1998 -- after Microsoft sent teams to Chinese universities to administer I.Q. tests in order to recruit the best brains from China's 1.3 billion people. Out of the 2,000 top Chinese engineering and science students tested, Microsoft hired 20. They have a saying at Microsoft about their Asia center, which captures the intensity of competition it takes to win a job there and explains why it is already the most productive research team at Microsoft: ''Remember, in China, when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.''
The other is a conversation I had with Rajesh Rao, a young Indian entrepreneur who started an electronic-game company from Bangalore, which today owns the rights to Charlie Chaplin's image for mobile computer games. ''We can't relax,'' Rao said. ''I think in the case of the United States that is what happened a bit. Please look at me: I am from India. We have been at a very different level before in terms of technology and business. But once we saw we had an infrastructure that made the world a small place, we promptly tried to make the best use of it. We saw there were so many things we could do. We went ahead, and today what we are seeing is a result of that. There is no time to rest. That is gone. There are dozens of people who are doing the same thing you are doing, and they are trying to do it better. It is like water in a tray: you shake it, and it will find the path of least resistance. That is what is going to happen to so many jobs -- they will go to that corner of the world where there is the least resistance and the most opportunity. If there is a skilled person in Timbuktu, he will get work if he knows how to access the rest of the world, which is quite easy today. You can make a Web site and have an e-mail address and you are up and running. And if you are able to demonstrate your work, using the same infrastructure, and if people are comfortable giving work to you and if you are diligent and clean in your transactions, then you are in business.''
Instead of complaining about outsourcing, Rao said, Americans and Western Europeans would ''be better off thinking about how you can raise your bar and raise yourselves into doing something better. Americans have consistently led in innovation over the last century. Americans whining -- we have never seen that before.''
Rao is right. And it is time we got focused. As a person who grew up during the cold war, I'll always remember driving down the highway and listening to the radio, when suddenly the music would stop and a grim-voiced announcer would come on the air and say: ''This is a test. This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.'' And then there would be a 20-second high-pitched siren sound. Fortunately, we never had to live through a moment in the cold war when the announcer came on and said, ''This is a not a test.''
That, however, is exactly what I want to say here: ''This is not a test.''
The long-term opportunities and challenges that the flattening of the world puts before the United States are profound. Therefore, our ability to get by doing things the way we've been doing them -- which is to say not always enriching our secret sauce -- will not suffice any more. ''For a country as wealthy we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness,'' says Dinakar Singh, the Indian-American hedge-fund manager. ''We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means. It would be a nice coincidence if all the things that were true before were still true now, but there are quite a few things you actually need to do differently. You need to have a much more thoughtful national discussion.''
If this moment has any parallel in recent American history, it is the height of the cold war, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leapt ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down and many other people can now compete and collaborate with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme Communism, namely Russia, China and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely China, India and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state, and the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.
Meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic and focused a response as did meeting the challenge of Communism. It requires a president who can summon the nation to work harder, get smarter, attract more young women and men to science and engineering and build the broadband infrastructure, portable pensions and health care that will help every American become more employable in an age in which no one can guarantee you lifetime employment.
We have been slow to rise to the challenge of flatism, in contrast to Communism, maybe because flatism doesn't involve ICBM missiles aimed at our cities. Indeed, the hot line, which used to connect the Kremlin with the White House, has been replaced by the help line, which connects everyone in America to call centers in Bangalore. While the other end of the hot line might have had Leonid Brezhnev threatening nuclear war, the other end of the help line just has a soft voice eager to help you sort out your AOL bill or collaborate with you on a new piece of software. No, that voice has none of the menace of Nikita Khrushchev pounding a shoe on the table at the United Nations, and it has none of the sinister snarl of the bad guys in ''From Russia With Love.'' No, that voice on the help line just has a friendly Indian lilt that masks any sense of threat or challenge. It simply says: ''Hello, my name is Rajiv. Can I help you?''
No, Rajiv, actually you can't. When it comes to responding to the challenges of the flat world, there is no help line we can call. We have to dig into ourselves. We in America have all the basic economic and educational tools to do that. But we have not been improving those tools as much as we should. That is why we are in what Shirley Ann Jackson, the 2004 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, calls a ''quiet crisis'' -- one that is slowly eating away at America's scientific and engineering base.
''If left unchecked,'' said Jackson, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T., ''this could challenge our pre-eminence and capacity to innovate.'' And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services and companies that has been the source of America's horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries. This quiet crisis is a product of three gaps now plaguing American society. The first is an ''ambition gap.'' Compared with the young, energetic Indians and Chinese, too many Americans have gotten too lazy. As David Rothkopf, a former official in the Clinton Commerce Department, puts it, ''The real entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement.'' Second, we have a serious numbers gap building. We are not producing enough engineers and scientists. We used to make up for that by importing them from India and China, but in a flat world, where people can now stay home and compete with us, and in a post-9/11 world, where we are insanely keeping out many of the first-round intellectual draft choices in the world for exaggerated security reasons, we can no longer cover the gap. That's a key reason companies are looking abroad. The numbers are not here. And finally we are developing an education gap. Here is the dirty little secret that no C.E.O. wants to tell you: they are not just outsourcing to save on salary. They are doing it because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers.
These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors' conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is ''obsolete.'' As Gates put it: ''When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations. . . . The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.''
We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''
I repeat, this is not a test. This is the beginning of a crisis that won't remain quiet for long. And as the Stanford economist Paul Romer so rightly says, ''A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.''
Thomas L. Friedman is the author of ''The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,'' to be published this week by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and from which this article is adapted. His column appears on the Op-Ed page of The Times, and his television documentary ''Does Europe Hate Us?'' will be shown on the Discovery Channel on April 7 at 8 p.m.
It's a Flat World, After All
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''
And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste.
I wish I could say I saw it all coming. Alas, I encountered the flattening of the world quite by accident. It was in late February of last year, and I was visiting the Indian high-tech capital, Bangalore,
working on a documentary for the Discovery Times channel about outsourcing. In short order, I interviewed Indian entrepreneurs who wanted to prepare my taxes from Bangalore, read my X-rays from Bangalore, trace my lost luggage from Bangalore and write my new software from Bangalore. The longer I was there, the more upset I became -- upset at the realization that while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, globalization had entered a whole new phase, and I had missed it. I guess the eureka moment came on a visit to the campus of Infosys Technologies, one of the crown jewels of the Indian outsourcing and software industry. Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys C.E.O., was showing me his global video-conference room, pointing with pride to a wall-size flat-screen TV, which he said was the biggest in Asia. Infosys, he explained, could hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So its American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. That's what globalization is all about today, Nilekani said. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, G.M.T., India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.
''Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,'' Nilekani explained. ''What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.'' At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they ''created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.''
At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, ''Tom, the playing field is being leveled.'' He meant that countries like India were now able to compete equally for global knowledge work as never before -- and that America had better get ready for this. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the potholed road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: ''The playing field is being leveled.''
''What Nandan is saying,'' I thought, ''is that the playing field is being flattened. Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!''
Here I was in Bangalore -- more than 500 years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, looking for a shorter route to India using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round -- and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was telling me that the world was flat, as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world -- the fact that we had made our world flat!
This has been building for a long time. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.
''Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want,'' said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. ''That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left field. As bioscience becomes more computational and less about wet labs and as all the genomic data becomes easily available on the Internet, at some point you will be able to design vaccines on your laptop.''
Andreessen is touching on the most exciting part of Globalization 3.0 and the flattening of the world: the fact that we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. We've tasted some of the downsides of that in the way that Osama bin Laden has connected terrorist knowledge pools together through his Qaeda network, not to mention the work of teenage hackers spinning off more and more lethal computer viruses that affect us all. But the upside is that by connecting all these knowledge pools we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South. Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born a B student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston, because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not really take advantage of his or her talent. They could not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray.
When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate. This is going to get interesting. We are about to see creative destruction on steroids.
How did the world get flattened, and how did it happen so fast?
It was a result of 10 events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000. Let me go through them briefly. The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space. ''The Berlin Wall was not only a symbol of keeping people inside Germany; it was a way of preventing a kind of global view of our future,'' the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. And the wall went down just as the windows went up -- the breakthrough Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system, which helped to flatten the playing field even more by creating a global computer interface, shipped six months after the wall fell.
The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level. Suddenly more people could connect with more other people from more different places in more different ways than ever before.
No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. ''India had no resources and no infrastructure,'' said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. ''It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.'' India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. ''But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,'' Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ''it was the foreigners who benefited.'' India got a free ride.
The first time this became apparent was when thousands of Indian engineers were enlisted to fix the Y2K -- the year 2000 -- computer bugs for companies from all over the world. (Y2K should be a national holiday in India. Call it ''Indian Interdependence Day,'' says Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy analyst at Johns Hopkins.) The fact that the Y2K work could be outsourced to Indians was made possible by the first two flatteners, along with a third, which I call ''workflow.'' Workflow is shorthand for all the software applications, standards and electronic transmission pipes, like middleware, that connected all those computers and fiber-optic cable. To put it another way, if the Netscape moment connected people to people like never before, what the workflow revolution did was connect applications to applications so that people all over the world could work together in manipulating and shaping words, data and images on computers like never before.
Indeed, this breakthrough in people-to-people and application-to-application connectivity produced, in short order, six more flatteners -- six new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate on work and share knowledge. One was ''outsourcing.'' When my software applications could connect seamlessly with all of your applications, it meant that all kinds of work -- from accounting to software-writing -- could be digitized, disaggregated and shifted to any place in the world where it could be done better and cheaper. The second was ''offshoring.'' I send my whole factory from Canton, Ohio, to Canton, China. The third was ''open-sourcing.'' I write the next operating system, Linux, using engineers collaborating together online and working for free. The fourth was ''insourcing.'' I let a company like UPS come inside my company and take over my whole logistics operation -- everything from filling my orders online to delivering my goods to repairing them for customers when they break. (People have no idea what UPS really does today. You'd be amazed!). The fifth was ''supply-chaining.'' This is Wal-Mart's specialty. I create a global supply chain down to the last atom of efficiency so that if I sell an item in Arkansas, another is immediately made in China. (If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner.) The last new form of collaboration I call ''informing'' -- this is Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, which now allow anyone to collaborate with, and mine, unlimited data all by themselves.
So the first three flatteners created the new platform for collaboration, and the next six are the new forms of collaboration that flattened the world even more. The 10th flattener I call ''the steroids,'' and these are wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). What the steroids do is turbocharge all these new forms of collaboration, so you can now do any one of them, from anywhere, with any device.
The world got flat when all 10 of these flatteners converged around the year 2000. This created a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration on research and work in real time, without regard to geography, distance or, in the near future, even language. ''It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that made what you call the flattening of the world possible,'' said Craig Mundie, the chief technical officer of Microsoft.
No, not everyone has access yet to this platform, but it is open now to more people in more places on more days in more ways than anything like it in history. Wherever you look today -- whether it is the world of journalism, with bloggers bringing down Dan Rather; the world of software, with the Linux code writers working in online forums for free to challenge Microsoft; or the world of business, where Indian and Chinese innovators are competing against and working with some of the most advanced Western multinationals -- hierarchies are being flattened and value is being created less and less within vertical silos and more and more through horizontal collaboration within companies, between companies and among individuals.
Do you recall ''the IT revolution'' that the business press has been pushing for the last 20 years? Sorry to tell you this, but that was just the prologue. The last 20 years were about forging, sharpening and distributing all the new tools to collaborate and connect. Now the real information revolution is about to begin as all the complementarities among these collaborative tools start to converge. One of those who first called this moment by its real name was Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O., who in 2004 began to declare in her public speeches that the dot-com boom and bust were just ''the end of the beginning.'' The last 25 years in technology, Fiorina said, have just been ''the warm-up act.'' Now we are going into the main event, she said, ''and by the main event, I mean an era in which technology will truly transform every aspect of business, of government, of society, of life.''
As if this flattening wasn't enough, another convergence coincidentally occurred during the 1990's that was equally important. Some three billion people who were out of the game walked, and often ran, onto the playing field. I am talking about the people of China, India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Central Asia. Their economies and political systems all opened up during the course of the 1990's so that their people were increasingly free to join the free market. And when did these three billion people converge with the new playing field and the new business processes? Right when it was being flattened, right when millions of them could compete and collaborate more equally, more horizontally and with cheaper and more readily available tools. Indeed, thanks to the flattening of the world, many of these new entrants didn't even have to leave home to participate. Thanks to the 10 flatteners, the playing field came to them!
It is this convergence -- of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes for horizontal collaboration -- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early 21st century. Sure, not all three billion can collaborate and compete. In fact, for most people the world is not yet flat at all. But even if we're talking about only 10 percent, that's 300 million people -- about twice the size of the American work force. And be advised: the Indians and Chinese are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top. What China's leaders really want is that the next generation of underwear and airplane wings not just be ''made in China'' but also be ''designed in China.'' And that is where things are heading. So in 30 years we will have gone from ''sold in China'' to ''made in China'' to ''designed in China'' to ''dreamed up in China'' -- or from China as collaborator with the worldwide manufacturers on nothing to China as a low-cost, high-quality, hyperefficient collaborator with worldwide manufacturers on everything. Ditto India. Said Craig Barrett, the C.E.O. of Intel, ''You don't bring three billion people into the world economy overnight without huge consequences, especially from three societies'' -- like India, China and Russia -- ''with rich educational heritages.''
That is why there is nothing that guarantees that Americans or Western Europeans will continue leading the way. These new players are stepping onto the playing field legacy free, meaning that many of them were so far behind that they can leap right into the new technologies without having to worry about all the sunken costs of old systems. It means that they can move very fast to adopt new, state-of-the-art technologies, which is why there are already more cellphones in use in China today than there are people in America.
If you want to appreciate the sort of challenge we are facing, let me share with you two conversations. One was with some of the Microsoft officials who were involved in setting up Microsoft's research center in Beijing, Microsoft Research Asia, which opened in 1998 -- after Microsoft sent teams to Chinese universities to administer I.Q. tests in order to recruit the best brains from China's 1.3 billion people. Out of the 2,000 top Chinese engineering and science students tested, Microsoft hired 20. They have a saying at Microsoft about their Asia center, which captures the intensity of competition it takes to win a job there and explains why it is already the most productive research team at Microsoft: ''Remember, in China, when you are one in a million, there are 1,300 other people just like you.''
The other is a conversation I had with Rajesh Rao, a young Indian entrepreneur who started an electronic-game company from Bangalore, which today owns the rights to Charlie Chaplin's image for mobile computer games. ''We can't relax,'' Rao said. ''I think in the case of the United States that is what happened a bit. Please look at me: I am from India. We have been at a very different level before in terms of technology and business. But once we saw we had an infrastructure that made the world a small place, we promptly tried to make the best use of it. We saw there were so many things we could do. We went ahead, and today what we are seeing is a result of that. There is no time to rest. That is gone. There are dozens of people who are doing the same thing you are doing, and they are trying to do it better. It is like water in a tray: you shake it, and it will find the path of least resistance. That is what is going to happen to so many jobs -- they will go to that corner of the world where there is the least resistance and the most opportunity. If there is a skilled person in Timbuktu, he will get work if he knows how to access the rest of the world, which is quite easy today. You can make a Web site and have an e-mail address and you are up and running. And if you are able to demonstrate your work, using the same infrastructure, and if people are comfortable giving work to you and if you are diligent and clean in your transactions, then you are in business.''
Instead of complaining about outsourcing, Rao said, Americans and Western Europeans would ''be better off thinking about how you can raise your bar and raise yourselves into doing something better. Americans have consistently led in innovation over the last century. Americans whining -- we have never seen that before.''
Rao is right. And it is time we got focused. As a person who grew up during the cold war, I'll always remember driving down the highway and listening to the radio, when suddenly the music would stop and a grim-voiced announcer would come on the air and say: ''This is a test. This station is conducting a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.'' And then there would be a 20-second high-pitched siren sound. Fortunately, we never had to live through a moment in the cold war when the announcer came on and said, ''This is a not a test.''
That, however, is exactly what I want to say here: ''This is not a test.''
The long-term opportunities and challenges that the flattening of the world puts before the United States are profound. Therefore, our ability to get by doing things the way we've been doing them -- which is to say not always enriching our secret sauce -- will not suffice any more. ''For a country as wealthy we are, it is amazing how little we are doing to enhance our natural competitiveness,'' says Dinakar Singh, the Indian-American hedge-fund manager. ''We are in a world that has a system that now allows convergence among many billions of people, and we had better step back and figure out what it means. It would be a nice coincidence if all the things that were true before were still true now, but there are quite a few things you actually need to do differently. You need to have a much more thoughtful national discussion.''
If this moment has any parallel in recent American history, it is the height of the cold war, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leapt ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down and many other people can now compete and collaborate with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme Communism, namely Russia, China and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism, namely China, India and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state, and the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.
Meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic and focused a response as did meeting the challenge of Communism. It requires a president who can summon the nation to work harder, get smarter, attract more young women and men to science and engineering and build the broadband infrastructure, portable pensions and health care that will help every American become more employable in an age in which no one can guarantee you lifetime employment.
We have been slow to rise to the challenge of flatism, in contrast to Communism, maybe because flatism doesn't involve ICBM missiles aimed at our cities. Indeed, the hot line, which used to connect the Kremlin with the White House, has been replaced by the help line, which connects everyone in America to call centers in Bangalore. While the other end of the hot line might have had Leonid Brezhnev threatening nuclear war, the other end of the help line just has a soft voice eager to help you sort out your AOL bill or collaborate with you on a new piece of software. No, that voice has none of the menace of Nikita Khrushchev pounding a shoe on the table at the United Nations, and it has none of the sinister snarl of the bad guys in ''From Russia With Love.'' No, that voice on the help line just has a friendly Indian lilt that masks any sense of threat or challenge. It simply says: ''Hello, my name is Rajiv. Can I help you?''
No, Rajiv, actually you can't. When it comes to responding to the challenges of the flat world, there is no help line we can call. We have to dig into ourselves. We in America have all the basic economic and educational tools to do that. But we have not been improving those tools as much as we should. That is why we are in what Shirley Ann Jackson, the 2004 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, calls a ''quiet crisis'' -- one that is slowly eating away at America's scientific and engineering base.
''If left unchecked,'' said Jackson, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from M.I.T., ''this could challenge our pre-eminence and capacity to innovate.'' And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services and companies that has been the source of America's horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries. This quiet crisis is a product of three gaps now plaguing American society. The first is an ''ambition gap.'' Compared with the young, energetic Indians and Chinese, too many Americans have gotten too lazy. As David Rothkopf, a former official in the Clinton Commerce Department, puts it, ''The real entitlement we need to get rid of is our sense of entitlement.'' Second, we have a serious numbers gap building. We are not producing enough engineers and scientists. We used to make up for that by importing them from India and China, but in a flat world, where people can now stay home and compete with us, and in a post-9/11 world, where we are insanely keeping out many of the first-round intellectual draft choices in the world for exaggerated security reasons, we can no longer cover the gap. That's a key reason companies are looking abroad. The numbers are not here. And finally we are developing an education gap. Here is the dirty little secret that no C.E.O. wants to tell you: they are not just outsourcing to save on salary. They are doing it because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers.
These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors' conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is ''obsolete.'' As Gates put it: ''When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations. . . . The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.''
We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''
I repeat, this is not a test. This is the beginning of a crisis that won't remain quiet for long. And as the Stanford economist Paul Romer so rightly says, ''A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.''
Thomas L. Friedman is the author of ''The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,'' to be published this week by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and from which this article is adapted. His column appears on the Op-Ed page of The Times, and his television documentary ''Does Europe Hate Us?'' will be shown on the Discovery Channel on April 7 at 8 p.m.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Popes and Royals Lie in Vatican Grottoes
Popes and Royals Lie in Vatican Grottoes
Tue Apr 5, 3:01 PM ET
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer
VATICAN CITY - The grottoes where John Paul II will be buried form a cramped underground cemetery beneath St. Peter's Basilica where pontiffs throughout the ages, royals and even an emperor have been laid to rest.
Adorned with mosaics, frescoes, sculptures and crypts, the grottoes lie at the very heart of Christianity, near the site of St. Peter's burial. They are part of underground layers that also include ancient Christian sarcophagi and relics from an ancient basilica upon which St. Peter's has been built.
John Paul's entombment Friday will follow a funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square that is expected to draw heads of government and state, including President Bush, as well as millions of pilgrims. It will be a ceremony filled with centuries-old traditions and elaborate rituals.
The pontiff expressed a wish to be buried in the ground, as opposed to being placed in an above-ground tomb, Archbishop Piero Marini, the Vatican's master of ceremonies for liturgical celebrations, said Tuesday.
A white silk veil will be placed on John Paul's face, while a prayer is read, Marini said. The pontiff will be clad in liturgical vestments and will wear his white bishop's miter on his head.
The body of the pope is placed inside three coffins encased within each other. After the funeral, the first wooden coffin will be placed in a zinc coffin, which will in turn be placed in a wooden casket.
Buried with the pope will be a small bag of commemorative medals issued over the course of his 26-year pontificate, as well as a sealed document featuring a brief description — in Latin — of John Paul's life.
After the funeral, the pope's body is carried through the "door of death" on the left side of the main altar in St. Peter's basilica. A single bell is tolled.
Stairs near the St. Longinius statue near Bernini's canopy lead to the grottoes — a low-ceilinged, crammed space of narrow passageways that lie between the level of the existing basilica and the old Constantine one.
Along a corridor are several crypts holding pontiffs' tombs, mostly marble sarcophagi topped by sculptures of the dead popes. Queen Cristina of Sweden, who abdicated after converting to Catholicism, and Emperor Otto II are also buried there.
John Paul's place in the grottoes will be the crypt where Pope John XXIII lay before he was brought onto the main floor of the basilica. John XXIII was moved after his 2000 beatification because so many pilgrims wanted to visit his tomb.
Unlike the ornate sarcophagi in which many of his predecessors were laid to rest, John Paul's tomb will be a simple stone slab featuring his name and dates of birth and death.
Tue Apr 5, 3:01 PM ET
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer
VATICAN CITY - The grottoes where John Paul II will be buried form a cramped underground cemetery beneath St. Peter's Basilica where pontiffs throughout the ages, royals and even an emperor have been laid to rest.
Adorned with mosaics, frescoes, sculptures and crypts, the grottoes lie at the very heart of Christianity, near the site of St. Peter's burial. They are part of underground layers that also include ancient Christian sarcophagi and relics from an ancient basilica upon which St. Peter's has been built.
John Paul's entombment Friday will follow a funeral Mass in St. Peter's Square that is expected to draw heads of government and state, including President Bush, as well as millions of pilgrims. It will be a ceremony filled with centuries-old traditions and elaborate rituals.
The pontiff expressed a wish to be buried in the ground, as opposed to being placed in an above-ground tomb, Archbishop Piero Marini, the Vatican's master of ceremonies for liturgical celebrations, said Tuesday.
A white silk veil will be placed on John Paul's face, while a prayer is read, Marini said. The pontiff will be clad in liturgical vestments and will wear his white bishop's miter on his head.
The body of the pope is placed inside three coffins encased within each other. After the funeral, the first wooden coffin will be placed in a zinc coffin, which will in turn be placed in a wooden casket.
Buried with the pope will be a small bag of commemorative medals issued over the course of his 26-year pontificate, as well as a sealed document featuring a brief description — in Latin — of John Paul's life.
After the funeral, the pope's body is carried through the "door of death" on the left side of the main altar in St. Peter's basilica. A single bell is tolled.
Stairs near the St. Longinius statue near Bernini's canopy lead to the grottoes — a low-ceilinged, crammed space of narrow passageways that lie between the level of the existing basilica and the old Constantine one.
Along a corridor are several crypts holding pontiffs' tombs, mostly marble sarcophagi topped by sculptures of the dead popes. Queen Cristina of Sweden, who abdicated after converting to Catholicism, and Emperor Otto II are also buried there.
John Paul's place in the grottoes will be the crypt where Pope John XXIII lay before he was brought onto the main floor of the basilica. John XXIII was moved after his 2000 beatification because so many pilgrims wanted to visit his tomb.
Unlike the ornate sarcophagi in which many of his predecessors were laid to rest, John Paul's tomb will be a simple stone slab featuring his name and dates of birth and death.
