[Sparky99]

Brian had posted on the front page a reference to Tom Friedman's "The World Is Flat". I read this book (available from ereader) when it first came out and thought it was my best read of the summer. Friedman gives some pretty convincing arguments for why things are the way they are in this "global economy".

Friedman starts off by describing ten "flatteners" that have changed the way business is done. These range from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the invention of the PC, open source software, the internet, connecting the world with broadband pipes and the "dot com" bust of the late 90's. He goes on to describe how the convergence of these flatteners act in a synergistic way, allowing businesses anywhere in the world to be more responsive and more competitive than traditional businesses.

Friedman provides plenty of examples and anecdotes - from your US tax returns being prepared in India, to a fast food restaurant in the American mid-west that uses a call center over seas to take hamburger orders, to Colin Powell sending cell phone text messages to his foreign secretary counterparts in negotiations at the UN.

If you want to hear a good argument as to why the price of gasoline has gone through the roof or why things are so cheap at Wal-Mart, or why out-sourcing and off shoring is a good thing and what you need to do to survive it, take a look at this book.

I'm really not a shill for Friedman. I don't agree with a lot of his columns in the NY Times, but I really enjoyed this book.

My next read is going to be Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner. Also available from ereader.com