Internet2 has partnered to transfer real time data between China and New South Wales. Crossing the globe merging multiple countries and processing huge amounts of data. Very cool to see advanced research and education networks grabbing 512 megs per second (per telescope — seven total) and streaming it live to Shanghai. More info here and here
Tags: Internet2, bandwidth, network, astronomy, China, trends
Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and What We Can Do to Get It Back from John Kao is a timely read. To say I enjoyed his lessons how America is losing it’s innovation lead was not pleasant experience, yet the book is highly engaging.
There are timely lessons in this book from the $100 laptop and more importantly the exodus of top American talent. No surprise that top talent from India is returning home after attending college in America as globalization brings new opportunities to India.
You may be surprised to learn how Kao documents the loss of top Americans heading overseas. That’s native-born Americans leaving our best institutions (and their home country) to work in new innovation centers with more creative, less political conditions.
The list includes Paul Saffo from Stanford, John Seely Brown from Xerox PARC, Peter Schwartz from Global Business Network and Rita Colwell, former head of the National Science Foundation and current professor of biological sciences at the University of Maryland.
Stanford’s Laptop Orchestra will perform via Internet2 to Beijing, over 6,000 miles away via HD video and audio in a performance marking the annual Pan-Asian Music Festival in Palo Alto on Tuesday May 5th.
Tags: Internet2, laptop, orchestra, community, globalization, trends
Suzanne Berger and MIT’s Industrial Performance Center wrote a book after concluding a five year study of the new global economy How We Compete: What Companies Around the World Are Doing to Make it in Today’s Global Economy.
If you want to learn more about globalization, this is a necessary addition to your bookshelf. Today companies must compete.
The study moves beyond the often discussed Dell approach to manufacturing. Lessons from auto and textile industries are included and should not be missed. How America can compete against the global marketplace?
Students entering the real world after school makes this book mandatory reading before graduating … from high school. By the time your set to graduate from college — it may be too late.
Companies that need to compete are shifting production … sometimes to very interesting locations for very interesting business reasons. Understanding this process and the major impacts of globalization will help us all prepare for tomorrow’s shifting economic climate. There are powerful lessons from many industries that have shifted into a highly competitive marketplace with a global reach. In doing so, these companies now compete with global brands.
Globalization can be very complicated. This book suggests very intriguing lessons from companies who need to compete are outsourcing their products, production lines or selected low end solution simply to survive against the competition.
We have a lot to learn from the Japanese and the Italians!
Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East by Clyde Prestowitz is a good companion to Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat regarding globalization. At times I felt the chapters could have been written by both authors. Ultimately they complement the globalization story.
Prestowitz was counselor to the Secretary of Commerce during the Reagan Administration and is Founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute, a thinktank in Washington DC.
Globalization is certainly not new and some issues addressed by Prestowitz may be hard to wrap around completely, but he provides an overview of what has been accelerating … offshoring. To no surprise the destination is China and India. Released in 2005 Prestowitz could not have considered the Mattel lead paint product recalls fiasco just two months old as consequences of globalization. Or was that just bad management on Mattel’s part?
The shift in wealth and power also focuses on banking and oil. Two chapters focus on this impact for China and India … and America along with the EU. What is an example of the impact on America: 100,000+ new cars are registered every month in Bejing? I would like to see the numbers for Bangalore. Think of a billion new drivers wanting to see their country, visit family and travel to see friends.