How flat is flat? Why Thomas Friedman’s flattening theory is not watertight
Content of the presentation Introduction to Thomas Friedman’s theory Introduction to our theory The unflatteners Target goup Product description How to reach the target group Questions
The vision
Thomas L. Friedman ‘The World Is Flat’ Globalization in the 21st century 10 ‘flatteners’
Friedman’s 10 flatteners Wall comes down, Windows comes up Netscape browser Opensourcing Insourcing Outsourcing Informing Offshoring Supply chain management Work flow software Steroids
Unflatteners Some elements will prevent the world from actually becoming "flat". In order to acquire absolute globalization, these unflatteners will have to be overcome.
Unflatteners Poverty USA vs. World Economy Half flat world Middle East Digital Divide Suppression Tribalization
Poverty Main cause of global inequality Third world and Fourth world Different priorities
Poverty As long as 1 out of 2 children live in poverty and only 6 billion dollars is spend on education in developing countries “compared to 780 billion on war”, there will be no flat world.
USA vs. World Economy Global economy as complex system One crisis will have consequences everywhere What if the US dollar collapses?
USA vs. World Economy What is actually necessary is a combination of measures in different countries in order to straighten the imbalance in the world economy.
Half flat world Twilight zone between flat and unflat ‘You can see but you can’t touch’ Local governments fail
Middle East Walls, wars, terrorism Terrorism attacks important requirement for flat world: trust Cultural diversity
Middle East “Should there be another attack on the United States of the magnitude of 9/11, or worse, walls would go up everywhere and the flattening of the world would be set back for a long, long time.”
Digital Divide Connected to global network or not ‘Have nots’ and ‘want nots’
Suppression Governmental: Google.cn Family: Islamic culture Other
Tribalization Future tellers Cultural and personal identities are strong Extreme: disagreement could lead to wars
The product
Target group People interested in: Globalization Thomas Friedman's Theories Digital revolutions The unflatteners
Target group People who are: concerned with society familiar with modern technology
Target group We want to attract those people by: bringing up to date news interactivity
Product description The targets for our product: Interest visitors in theory of unflatteners Inform visitors about our vision Let visitors form an own opinion Give visitors a possibility to express their thoughts Joining in with the internet trends of web 2.0 and user generated content
Product description Website Text and podcasts, supported with images Comment function Submit podcasts Interactive environment
How to reach the target group Obtaining a high position in search engines Starting affiliates with.... oThomas Friedman oNY Times oprominent review websites oeducational platforms Placing links on Wikipedia
Questions?