Today Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America is available.
The 1.0 release was a very interesting read (my review here) and I’m looking forward to the update.
Check out Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 online in PDF format.
Most recognize Fareed Zakaria from his CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS. His book The Post-American World is an enjoyable read. The bottom line: The US is not falling behind but rather (quite simply) the world is catching up. Some amazing technologies are lifting the citizens of the poorest third world countries.
The biggest elephant called out in his book is America’s educational system. It needs a much required re-boot in order to compete against tomorrow’s globalized students who have access to free, powerful computing tools including Linux, or new technology like water pumps in Africa. He references Tom Friedman‘s The World is Flat: a Brief History of the Twenty-First Century which I found to be a great read as well.
Zakaria is able to simply convey that America remains the top country for innovation, technology and intellectual property but India and China are catching up fast by introducing more of their citizens to the global economy. India is first only in population growth while their level of poverty slowly dropped.
While true to some extent the reader may be surprised to see the detail about how splintered Al-Qaeda has become. In Iraq for example the aim of this terrorist group has moved from targeting American and Israel to fighting other Muslim warlords and religious groups for control of Al-Qaeda’s future.
It should be noted Zakaria also addresses the issues of global climante and energy. But to again point to Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America not a lot of new ideas or information.
Overall Zakaria’s book is a gentle wake up call for America and is much smoother on the American reader than Mark Steyn’s America Alone. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan while critical, reveals Al-Qaeda‘s struggle since 9/11 to deliver any significant violence on American soil. Why? Zakaria’s position is that Bin Laden has been so tightly curtailed, his organization still under a microscope has evolved into a communications company and is no longer a true terrorist organization.
Just finished reading Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson. I very much enjoyed his previous book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. (review here) The first time I read about this idea was an article he wrote in his 2008 Wired article. Have to admit I was skeptical. Free invites you to learn about new “radical sales techniques” that have actually been around for some time, but could not take off without the influence of the global internet economy.
And YES you can read his book for free online at Scribd and at Google Books. You can also download a full unabridged 6 hour audiobook for free — or purchase a 3 hour abridged copy. Get it?
Like me, if you have not been paying close attention to the Free Economy, there is much to learn from this book.
Anderson traces the history of “free” products (Gillette razor blades in 1895 and even Jello) and services and intelligently outlines how “free” is driving sales in our culture today. Even in our current economic recession.
He introduces the idea by recalling a famous announcement from Monty Python, who’s pirated movies were already on YouTube. They decided to establish their own YouTube channel, place higher quality clips online with links to their DVD products….and placed a hilarious insult letter to all their fans.
Even though they were placing movies online for free, fans purchased their DVDs at Amazon, driving them to the #2 sales rank with an increased sales volume of 23,000%. That’s no typo: a 23,000% sales jump! Clearly Free can work.
Anderson has done great research to help explain (he calls them “sidebars” in the book) to help you see where you have already run across “free” in your daily life including radical ideas including air travel, cars, silverware, textbooks and even a university education.
Its all in the timing. The global economic crisis has placed my latest read Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization into a pretty unique light. Regardless of the delay in the US economy the impact of globalization, technology and good old corporate espionage has impacted the world’s stage in manufacturing and distribution.
From aspirin to automobiles with computer technology stolen right in the middle. Author Pat Choate, an economist was the 1994 University of Oklahoma Arthur Barto Adams Alumni Fellow. He has also written Agents of Influence: How Japan Manipulates America’s Political and Economic System.
The core arguments focus on the use of historical legal patents and technological advances of foreign companies competing against American interests by stealing. Today its known as corporate espionage. The end result: the US government does not protect companies in today’s global marketplace.
This book will leave most Americans frustrated. Globalization has changed the way people and business must evolve to simply stay in business. The auto industry is a timely example of how America lost this business to global competition.
The old assumptions in American business do not work today. When you innovate and invent, patents will protect your dedication and hard work against competitors around the globe. How wrong Choate proves this idea is today.
Hot Property will quickly show you how far from the truth the real-world works … against you. Reminds me of T-shirts I see around the Univ. Wisconsin-Madison campus: “Don’t let school get in the way of your education”.Choate illustrates how major American companies like GM, Microsoft and Cisco are powerless to stop Chinese counterfeiters. To remain a “favorable company” in the Chinese market, American companies sacrifice their own development, technology and employees while trying to gain business in China. It is somewhat amazing to see the RIAA use it’s legal arm against elderly Americans for downloading an MP3 file but turn a blind eye to the stunning levels of piracy in China.
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.