An Optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations
Words: Ramya Srinivasan Images: Various Sources
Thomas L. Friedman is a three time Pulitzer winner and a columnist with The New York Times. Other than his extremely popular ‘The World Is Flat’, which was a timely commentary on globalization, he has penned other books such as ‘The Lexus and The Olive Tree’ and ‘From Beirut to Jerusalem’. He has extensively reported on global issues, war, terrorism and climate change.
So, when a person with his experience comes out with a book, you sit up and take notice, and look forward to his insights. In ‘Thank You for Being Late’, he talks about the accelerating forces; he
calls them – Moore’s Law (technological advancements),The Market (globalization)and Mother Nature (climate changes). These three forces are changing at a hard-to-cope pace impacting one another and placing us at one of the most important inflection points in history.
Friedman sets off to understand this interconnected world. He quotes Marie Curie: “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” He adapts an exploratory style, an intention to understand rather than to explain. This is his strength and curse, as he distils complex ideas into words and anecdotes for everyone to understand. At the same time, he goes on and on sometimes, giving an overdose of his style.
2007 – The Game Changer
In the most interesting part of the book, he explains the various technological innovations that happened, especially in the year 2007. While Moore’s law (the processing power will double every two years), was initially created in the context of semiconductors, Friedman explains how it is getting extended to other areas of technology as well. From iPhone and sensors to Hadoop ushering in the era of Big Data to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn tapping the power of Big Data, from AT&T and Qualcomm’s innovative ways of addressing scale and complexity to the cloud and GitHub, he traces all the cutting-edge changes that occurred in the last decade.
Friedman also explains globalization and the climate in a similar manner.“Globalization has always been everything and its opposite – it can be incredibly democratizing and it can concentrate incredible power in giant multinationals… the smallest voices can now be heard everywhere …with big brands not able to swamp everything anywhere,” he says.
As Friedman, in his characteristic style, travels across the world and talks to several industry leaders, you get a glimpse of their thought process and how some of the complex problems in the world are solved.
Strategies to Cope with the Acceleration
How is the world responding to all these changes? Certainly, not that well. It is all “just too damned fast,” says Friedman.
“Smartphone technology gave riseto Uber, but before the world figures out how to regulate ridesharing, self-driving cars will have made these regulations obsolete,” he says describing the ‘catchme-if-you-can’ pace. He quotes a McKinsey study, “US economy as a whole is only reaching 18 percent of its digital potential.” He acknowledges that we have hardly managed to convert this “supernova” into actual productivity.
But this is where the optimist in him surfaces. All is going to be well, although figures don’t show that. All is going to be well, although the political scenario is grim.
It is a bit hard to buy this optimism. But, he does present a lengthy case.
He explains how the next generation has to “invent” their job, not “find” one, and how they need to learn new skills (“average is not enough”) to bridge the gap between the digitized sectors and the rest of the economy. He refers to how the difference between opposing cultures, ones that can absorb these changes well and the ones that are threatened by this, will determine the shape of history in current times. And, he talks about the importance of values, moral compass, and the need for strong families and healthy communities.
In Need of Tough Editing
One of the frustrating aspects of the book is its verbosity, with quotes stretching more than needed and anecdotes extending beyond the line of interest. There is repetition of concepts and even phrases (such as “connectivity became fast, free, easy for you, and ubiquitous, while complexity became fast, free, easy for you, and invisible”).
For example, he takes the metaphor of ‘Mother Nature as a mentor’ just too far. Sample this:
“Mother Nature believes in the vital importance of topsoil – the top layer of soil in which all plants and trees sink their roots and derive their primary nutrients to grow into the world. Think about our planet. It is really just one big rock covered by an incredibly thin layer composed of the subsoil and the topsoil.”
Similarly, the Minnesota stories, while heart-warming and personal, could have definitely been trimmed. With some stringent editing, this book could have turned out to be more emphatic and less laborious.
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