Vakgroep Informatietechnologie INTEC ICT en de Kennismaatschappij Paul Lagasse Vakgroep Informatietechnologie

Vakgroep Informatietechnologie INTEC 3. Triple Convergence, the Great Sorting Out and Free Trade

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 3 Triple Convergence T. L. Friedman The convergence of the ten flatteners had created a whole new platform. It is a global, Web-enabled platform for multiple forms of collaboration. This platform enables individuals, groups, companies and universities anywhere in the world - for the purposes of innovation, production, education, research, entertainment, and, alas, war-making - like no creative platform ever before. This platform now operates without regard to geography, distance, time, and, in the near future, even language.

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 4 Triple Convergence T. L. Friedman Going forward, this platform is going to be at the center of everything. Wealth and power will increasingly accrue to those countries, companies, individuals, universities, and groups who get three basic things right: the infrastructure to connect with this flat-world platform, the education to get more of their people innovating on, working off, and tapping into this platform, and, finally, the governance to get the best out of this platform and cushion its worst side effects.

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 5 Triple Convergence One needs new business processes and new types of skill to go with them. One needs the emergence of a large cadre of managers, innovators, business consultants, business schools, designers, IT specialists, CEO’s, and workers to get comfortable with and develop this sort of horizontal type of collaboration and value creation processes and habits that could take advantage of this new, flatter playing field. T. L. Friedman Why did IT not lead to more productivity growth right away?

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 6 Triple Convergence In 1985 the total population of the global economic world was 2.5 billion (North America, Western Europe, Japan and a few countries from Latin America and East Asia). In 2000 as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economic opening up of India and the shift to market capitalism of China, the global economic world expanded to encompass 6 billion people. These societies we are melding with have a very high ethic of education and work. T. L. Friedman Doubling of population of global economic world

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 7 Triple Convergence 25 % of Indian population is younger than 25 years. Average talent in New York used to have better life than genius in Bombay. No longer. Bill Gates: “ Now I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie ”. Boeing has 1000 aeronautical engineers working in Moscow design office. T. L. Friedman Doubling of population of global economic world Dot Com boom and bust were just the end of the beginning

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 8 Triple Convergence T. L. Friedman It is this triple convergence-of new players, on a new playing field, developing new processes and habits for horizontal collaboration- that I believe is the most important force shaping global economics and politics in the early twent-first century. Giving so many people access to all these tools of collaboration, along with the ability through search engines and the Web to access billions of pages of raw information, ensures that the next generation of innovations will come from all over Planet Flat. The scale of the global community that is soon going to be able to participate in all sorts of discovery and innovation is something the world has simply never seen before.

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 9 The Great Sorting Out Move from a primarely vertical command and control system for creating value to more horizontal connect and collaborate value creation model. Marx’s Communist Manifesto (1848) : “ …capitalism as a force that would dissolve all feudal, national, and religious identities, giving rise to a universal civilisation governed by market imperatives. Which frictions, barriers, and boundaries are mere sources of waste and inefficiency, and which are sources of identity and belonging that we should try to protect? T. L. Friedman

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 10 The Great Sorting Out Case : India versus Indiana. Case : Sanyo plant in Arkansas and Wal Mart. Companies have never had more freedom and less friction in the way of assigning research, low-end manufacturing, and high-end manufacturing anywhere in the world. Management, shareholders and investors are largely indifferent to where their profits come from or even where the employment is created. Case : Lenovo T. L. Friedman There is almost nothing about Globalization that is not good for capital

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 11 The Great Sorting Out There is almost nothing about Globalization that is not good for capital The Economist

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 12 The Great Sorting Out T. L. Friedman More and more, politics in the flat world will consist of asking which values, frictions, and fats are worth preserving – which should in Marx’s language be kept solid – and which must be left to melt away into the air.

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 13 Free Trade If you believe that human wants and needs are infinite, then there are infinite industries to be created, infinite businesses to be started, and infinite jobs to be done, and the only limiting factor is human imagination. If horses could have voted there never would have been cars. We will do fine in a flat world with free trade provided we continue to churn out knowledge workers who are able to produce idea-based goods that can be sold globally. There may be a limit to the number of good factory jobs in the world, but there is no limit to the number of idea-generated jobs in the world. T. L. Friedman When you lose your job the unemployment rate is not 7.8 % but 100 %

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 14 Free Trade Competition from emerging economies has helped to hold inflation down The Economist

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 15 Free Trade The Economist The new Titans

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 16 Free Trade The Economist How long will emerging economies continue to finance America’s spendthrift habits?

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 17 Free Trade The Economist The new Titans

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 18 Free Trade The Economist The new Titans

ICT en de Kennismaatschappij 2007 © Paul Lagasse 19 Free Trade The Economist The new Titan