Book: Hot, Flat, and Crowded - Thomas L. Friedman - HC $2.07 - FREE SHIPPING.

Quote from peppermint : Seriously.. http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/...round.html

Yeah, seriously. I think the biggest mistake a lot of people make is only listening to ideas from people with whom they agree politically. I don't have to agree with Freidman's politics to be fascinated by his book. How boring life would be if I only read the thoughts and ideas of those with whom I agree? Too many people forget that amidst the opinions with which they may disagree there are often facts that are well worth consideration and thought.

As it happens, I don't think I agree with Freidman's political conclusions based on the facts -- but a lot of the facts in The World is Flat are downright fascinating. The average American probably has very little idea that when they bring their tax return to a major tax prep company that their return is being done by an accountant in India who specializes in their state's tax laws. Or that when they order something from Nike.com, Nike never handles any part of their order -- that UPS runs the Nike website from one of their warehouses......or that when they need an emergency CT scan in the middle of the night, their local hospital is likely paying a physician in Australia or India to read the results of that scan since it's regular business hours in those places and it's a lot cheaper than keeping a local doctor on all night long........or that McDonald's at least was (I'm not sure if they still are) outsourcing drive-through ordering to a call center in Colorado -- so customers in far away states weren't actually talking to someone in their local McDonald's when they came through the drive through. If that information doesn't fascinate you, then you're probably much more informed than the average person. Throw politics aside -- Freidman enlightened me to the ways the games are changing. What that means politically and economically in the long run for people everywhere is something on which everyone can speculate and disagree -- but the scope of the changes is well beyond the simple online shopping and email that most people consider on a daily basis and it's definitely worth thinking about if for nothing else to prepare ourselves to participate in a world that is constantly changing due to the influence of technology.

And perhaps the book was particularly fascinating for me because I work for a foreign company doing a job that, in the past, would have required me to live overseas.....but with the magic of technology, I have the freedom to live and travel wherever I would like. That's led me to 35 countries and most of the states in the USA in the past 4 years -- spending at least a short time living on 4 different continents. And if, 7 years ago when The World is Flat came out, you told me that this is what I'd be doing today, I'd have laughed.

So I'm looking forward to the new things I'm going to learn about in this book --regardless of its political message.