After reading Thomas Friedman’s article, It's a Flat World, After All, I was reminded of an essay that I wrote about six months ago. The topic was how technology affected me. In the essay I pointed out that ‘the day of self-taught workers’ was gone. Looking at this “flat world” view only reinforces my thoughts on this.
For the U.S. to survive in a truly global economic arena will not only require, but demand, that the U.S. has enough skilled and knowledgeable workers, and designers, to keep pace with other countries.
So, any young Americans that might read this: Do not think you can just cruise along and have job security. You must strive for excellence!
The following is the URL to Friedman’s article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03DOMINANCE.html
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That was the most interesting article I've read in a long time. I actually read ALL of it. That's something I seldom do.
ReplyDeleteThe more I read, the more I kept thinking... "The world was once flat and we were afraid we would fall off the edge. Then the world was round and safe. Now the world is flat again and once more, new and dangerous." More importantly, ready to explored once again.
It seems that we were once one of the few countries with a good Economy. Now we are sharing (or competing) the Economy with the rest of the world. The Economy hasn't gotten small, it's just spread out across more areas, we have a smaller piece of the Economy now.
On page three, THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN referred to VoIP by saying, "voice over Internet protocol (VoIP)." For those that don't know what VoIP is, it using an Internet Connection as a Telephone, "Voice over Internet".
VoIP has been around for ten or more years. I was experimenting with it way back when, long before the big communication companies decided to cash in on it. Currently, a lot of people are using VoIP without even knowing it. It has been integrated by the phone companies into everyday life.
How we used VoIP in the beginning was to buy a cheap ($20) headset with a microphone. We had a small computer program that allowed us to use the computer to call another person that also had this same program. Then, we could talk for free. Long distance didn't exist anymore, we could talk to anybody anywhere anytime. All they needed was a computer, an Internet Connection, a headset and the same software program.