Skype Conference Call - "The World is Flat"

I first want to start out by saying that this Skype thing is pretty neat.  I had already had experience with ichat on my mac and loved that.

This blog entry is a review of a conference call with Leanne Hawn, Geri Scalf and myself.  We discussed the first part of "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. 

The anecdotal story we shared of evidence that the world was indeed flat, was about a trip to the Tennessee Valley Fair last month and noticing how strange and out of place it seemed for a farmer to be using a cellphone in the midst of his cows like he had had one for 100 years. 

We had a quite lengthy conversation regarding outsourcing.  We all agreed that it is a much larger world force then any of us had imagined.  We talked about some of the book's examples such as accounting and radiology.  It is so far reaching and what impact does this have on American jobs?

We discussed how computer skills are so vital in today's world and that technology has made us lazier.
We also discussed how we felt students' key basic skills are missing.and we agreed that  students need those tech skills but they also need to be able to read and write and do some math in order to be technological sound.  The trick is to find that balance.  We did feel that the flattening of the world allowed some small businesses to act big and compete globally. 

The discussion then lead to the ten flatteners.  We all agreed that things such as Skype and so much other stuff that is free and available to us is amazing.  All of this, along with  fiber optics, is why places such as India can compete.  The Berlin Wall opened the dam and the world became even flatter.  We talked about conveniences of emailing and texting (the steroids) and how it is a way to have evidence of bits of information. Being able to email and text from your phone makes people accessible.  We also briefly discussed and agreed how powerful companies like Walmart and UPS have become. 

We ended our session by discussing what we felt were the most and least relevant issues.  We were quick to agree that the outsourcing was in our eyes the most relevant thing.  It was an opening of our eyes to how many things are oversees and that we have to step up to be able to compete.  We could not come up with a least relevant topic.  We felt it was difficult to decide what was least relevant and that everything we discussed had relevance and that is what creates the big picture.  Everything coming together working hand in hand to make the world flat.