Is the world that flat?

Here I am, a typical Dutch guy, working in our office in India. Where our Indian programmers are working with customers in Holland, Germany and Sweden. Where a designer from our office in Odessa (Ukraine) provides me with a design for, let’s say, a website for someone in the UK. The next moment I’m chatting with colleagues from the office in Moldova. Then I have a Skype interview with an intern from Germany. And a photographer from New York asked me about the offer I made for her new website.

Back home I´m chatting with friends from Copenhagen. And through Facebook I keep in touch with a girl from Florida whom I met during my study Italian in Perugia a few years ago. In the weekend I meet tourists from Vienna, Tokyo, Toronto and London. The world is flat, Thomas Friedman once wrote. And it seems he is right about that. Technology took away the geographic barriers around us. That´s why we are constantly connected with everyone. Through telephone, internet, chat, webcam, Skype, etc…

What´s left are the cultural differences. Because what use is messenger if someone you want to meet, doesn’t show up. Or how well can you tell from a video conference what an Indian means by wiggling his head, which can either be yes or no or in some cases, I don´t know. I must say, after living here for two years now, it’s not so hard to see the difference after all. I even start doing it. And if someone doesn’t show up, you learn to believe that everything ends up well anyway, and you start to go with the flow.(Uhu, tough for a real Dutchy)

If you open the newspaper, it seems that half the world has woken up, sat down behind a computer and does everything faster, smarter, better and most important, cheaper than you. Although I am convinced that this trend is very real and is happening as we speak, it is good to add some perspective to the speed at which this happens. The image that is described in ‘The world is flat’ of a tsunami of cheap professional labor, looks very remote when in the beginning of Bridge I had to explain the office boy for the fourth time how a file folder works (a real one, not a digital one) or when I caught him with a document for financial administration which was turned upside down and he was happily working in it (because devoted they are). I was planning to send him to a course in office 2007 but I think it´s more convenient to start with a course office 1964. Later I learned from experience that we don’t need an office boy and our financial administration is in good hands now, with Rashmi the bookkeeper. And by learning how to pick the right people from the big amount of cv’s we get, we manage to attract a very professional team with lovely people.

Other issues I bumped into in this flat world are the lack of infrastructure. To be honest, sometimes the thought enters my mind, how it is possible that India is called the call centre of America. When the next moment I try to jump out of the window, because we have the third power cut this day in the office. Luckily we have bars in front of the windows, so the change of permanent damage is none. Then the roads; all important roads in the city are permanently blocked during the day. (I think I read about 12 books during my Riksja drive from home to the office). Again you learn not to panic, which means our solution is that most of our people come to the office on a bike and our snoring generator is our biggest friend.

But still. Even if we are ‘ahead’ off India, this gap is getting smaller and smaller. Cynics say that only 0,1% of the people in India are experienced in IT, only they forget that this means there are more than 1 million experts in whole India. And there will be even more the coming years, as the Indian see that technology gives them the opportunity to improve their living conditions. And the opportunities are there. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will equal if not surpass many technological institutes in Europe. If I can download legal lectures about MIT for free, an Indian can do this as well. And most information about Open Source software is available on the internet for free. Google and Wikipedia make it possible to find the information you need. Information gets cheaper (even free) and easy to get, which means with the right will, you can learn everything. Even how to handle a file folder.

Recommended lecture: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat

What´s left are the cultural differences. Because what use is messenger if someone you want to meet, doesn’t show up. Or how well can you tell from a video conference what an Indian means by wiggling his head, which can either be yes or no or in some cases, I don´t know. I must say, after living here for two years now, it’s not so hard to see the difference after all. I even start doing it. And if someone doesn’t show up, you learn to believe that everything ends up well anyway, and you start to go with the flow.(Uhu, tough for a real Dutchy)

If you open the newspaper, it seems that half the world has woken up, sat down behind a computer and does everything faster, smarter, better and most important, cheaper than you. Although I am convinced that this trend is very real and is happening as we speak, it is good to add some perspective to the speed at which this happens. The image that is described in ‘The world is flat’ of a tsunami of cheap professional labor, looks very remote when in the beginning of Bridge I had to explain the office boy for the fourth time how a file folder works (a real one, not a digital one) or when I caught him with a document for financial administration which was turned upside down and he was happily working in it (because devoted they are). I was planning to send him to a course in office 2007 but I think it´s more convenient to start with a course office 1964. Later I learned from experience that we don’t need an office boy and our financial administration is in good hands now, with Rashmi the bookkeeper. And by learning how to pick the right people from the big amount of cv’s we get, we manage to attract a very professional team with lovely people.

Other issues I bumped into in this flat world are the lack of infrastructure. To be honest, sometimes the thought enters my mind, how it is possible that India is called the call centre of America. When the next moment I try to jump out of the window, because we have the third power cut this day in the office. Luckily we have bars in front of the windows, so the change of permanent damage is none. Then the roads; all important roads in the city are permanently blocked during the day. (I think I read about 12 books during my Riksja drive from home to the office). Again you learn not to panic, which means our solution is that most of our people come to the office on a bike and our snoring generator is our biggest friend.

But still. Even if we are ‘ahead’ off India, this gap is getting smaller and smaller. Cynics say that only 0,1% of the people in India are experienced in IT, only they forget that this means there are more than 1 million experts in whole India. And there will be even more the coming years, as the Indian see that technology gives them the opportunity to improve their living conditions. And the opportunities are there. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) will equal if not surpass many technological institutes in Europe. If I can download legal lectures about MIT for free, an Indian can do this as well. And most information about Open Source software is available on the internet for free. Google and Wikipedia make it possible to find the information you need. Information gets cheaper (even free) and easy to get, which means with the right will, you can learn everything. Even how to handle a file folder.

Recommended lecture: http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat