Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century – notes
[Part I] How the World Became Flat [1]
1. While I Was Sleeping [3]
- “The Monitor is Burning?” [21]
- Flatburgers and Fries [40]
2. The Ten Forces That Flattened the World [48]
- Flattener #1: 11/9/89. When the Walls Came Down and the Windows Went Up [48]
- Flattener #2: 8/9/95. When Netscape Went Public [56]
- Flattener #3: Workflow Software. Let’s Do Lunch: Have Your Application Talk to My Application [71]
- Genesis: The Flat World Platform Emerges [80]
- Flattener #4: Open-sourcing. Self-Organizing Collaborative Communities [81]
- Flattener #5: Outsourcing. Y2K [103]
- Flattener #6: Offshoring. Running with Gazelles, Eating with Lions [114]
- Flattener #7: Supply-chaining. Eating Sushi in Arkansas [128]
- Too Much of a Good Thing [136]
- Flattener #8: Insourcing. What the Guys in Funny Brown Shorts Are Really Doing [141]
- Flattener #9: In-Forming. Google, Yahoo!, MSN Web Search [150]
- Flattener #10: The Steroids. Digital, Mobile, Personal, and Virtual [159]
3. The Triple Convergence [173]
- Convergence I [176]
- Convergence II [177]
- Convergence III [181]
- How Do You Say “Zippie” in Chinese? [191]
- From Russia with Love [194]
- The Other Triple Convergence [197]
4. The Great Sorting Out [201]
- India versus Indiana: Who Is Exploiting Whom? [205]
- Where Do Companies Stop and Start? [208]
- From Command and Control to Collaborate and Connect [212]
- Multiple Identity Disorder [214]
- Who Owns What [217]
- Death of the Salesmen [219]
[Part II] America and the Flat World [223]
5. America and Free Trade: Is Ricardo Still Right? [225]
6. The Untouchables [237]
7. The Quiet Crisis [250]
- Dirty Little Secret #1: The Numbers Gap [256]
- Dirty Little Secret #2: The Ambition Gap [260]
- Dirty Little Secret #3: The Education Gap [265]
8. This Is Not a Test [276]
- Leadership [280]
- Muscles [284]
- Good Fat: CushionsWorth Keeping [293]
- Social Activism [297]
- Parenting [303]
[Part III] Developing Countries and the Flat World [307]
9. The Virgin of Guadalupe [309]
- Introspection [312]
- I Can Get It for You Wholesale [313]
- I Can Get It for You Retail [316]
- Culture Matters: Glocalization [324]
- The Intangible Things [329]
[Part IV] Companies and the Flat World [337]
10. How Companies Cope [339]
- Rule #1: When the world goes flat – and you are feeling flattened – reach for a shovel and dig inside yourself. Don’t try to build walls. [340]
- Rule #2: And the small shall act big . . . One way small companies flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really big. And the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach farther, faster, wider, and deeper [345]
- Rule #3: And the big shall act small . . . One way that big companies learn to flourish in the flat world is by learning to act really small by enabling their customers to act really big. [350]
- Rule #4: The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaborations within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation – whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing – are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone. [352-3]
- Rule #5: In a flat world, the best companies stay healthy by getting regular chest X-rays and then selling the results to their clients. [356]
- Rule #6: The best companies outsource to win, not to shrink. They outsource to innovate faster and more cheaply in order to grow larger, gain market share, and hire more and different specialists – not to save money by firing more people. [360]
- Rule #7: Outsourcing isn’t just for Benedict Arnolds. It’s also for idealists. [363]
[Part V] Geopolitics and the Flat World [369]
11. The Unflat World [371]
- Too Sick [375]
- Too Disempowered [382]
- Too Frustrated [391]
- Too Many Toyotas [407]
12. The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention: Old-Time versus Just-in-Time [414]
- Infosys versus al-Qaeda [429]
- Too Personally Insecure [436]
Conclusion: Imagination [439]
13. 11/9 Versus 9/11 [441]
- eBay [453]
- India [456]
- The Curse of Oil [460]
- Just One Good Example [463]
- From Untouchables to Untouchables [464]
Acknowlegments [471]
Index [475-488]