This twenty-first century history book opened my mind to many new ideas. I am definitely going to finish reading the rest of the chapters now that the semester is over. The author Thomas L. Friedman gives endless examples of outsourcing, insourcing, homesourcing, etc. The flattening world is really affecting all levels in nearly all industries.

One of the most interesting forms of flattening that he talks about in his book is the flattening of even one industry with another. He mentions how search engine optimization has become a joint venture between mathematicians and marketing experts. Industry experts in one are crossing over to all sorts of other fields finding new ways to use their existing knowledge, or by expanding their existing knowledge a little. This fits in line with the advice given during lecture to keep our focus fairly broad or at least open to new possibilities.

It would go a bit too far to say that a jack-of-all-trades would be the one to win the game. Being a master of none will still keep you from progressing. It has brought me to have the desire to expand my knowledge especially in this field to other aspects; but also to realize that these same skills and knowledge could be applied to many other types of projects.

In fact, I have even seen that progress while going to school. My current job is as a web manager for a local company that provides a marketing tool to the international market. I started working for people in this market a few years ago with only a homemade Internet programming knowledge. I had a couple of beginning java courses in my portfolio, but in reality I didn’t have real schooling for the types of projects I was working on. Since starting I have never taken any Internet programming type classes at school, nevertheless, my ability to perform in this position has dramatically increased.

One of the considerable factors are definitely the detailed verilog/vhdl and c programming that are part of the core classes in the electrical engineering program at Brigham Young University. I haven’t ever used either of those programming languages in any of my projects for work. But the coding style, thoroughness, creativity, and optimization that are taught in the electrical engineering courses helps me solve problems in different languages. This similar to a missionary going to a foreign mission takes everything he has learned about the gospel in their native language and applying it to the new foreign language they begin using to find converts.

Friedman questions (continuing on the topic of education), “If the jobs of the new middle require you to be a good collaborator, leverager, adapter, explainer, synthesizer, model builder, localizer, or personalizer, and these approaches require you, among other things, to be able to learn how to learn, to bring curiosity and passion to your work, to play well with others, and to nurture your right-brain skills, what does that specifically mean for education?” This question and the pages that followed forced me to re-examine my education. After feeling really good about my education as I outlined previously, I have began to think that it still might not be enough.

I need to begin actively receiving extra education and training on other social and creative aspects of both business and life in general. The employee that has the ability to bring new ideas to the table and keep even ahead of their boss are going to be the ones that keep their jobs here in the United States. As a programmer and designer you are able to wear more hats at the same time and therefore be the one leading the process or at least being a crucial aspect of the lead. Other times when you are not the lead designer, you can be giving suggestions and even going out of your way to make sure things are done in the most innovative way you can conceive.

Another aspect is the hope I have to move up the management ladders and later spend more time managing people then bits and signals. It is a skill that I feel I had in my younger years with my peers at school and on the mission. However, moving into a more heated workplace environment, my clients and employers have banked on my detailed programming ability. If I am to take a more management type roll, it will require more personal effort in pushing in that direction. This requires both acting the part of finding ways to manage where I can, without stepping on anyone’s toes, then allowing the current decision makers to see those qualities.

Nevertheless, Friedman offers one more quote form Bill Gates in his “bottom line” to this topic, “…Some of my best software developers are Japanese. You need to understand things in order to invent beyond them.” Innovation will have to play a critical role in my future and according to this quote the way to get there is with a very fine and thorough understanding of everything leading up to where we trying to go.

Friedman also notes many other advantages I may have over my outsourced job competition. These advantages include living in the United States where we have free capital market, full of both scams and corruption along with securities and honesty. We live in a market where society is excited about innovation and technology, so at least for now the world will continue producing many new products to please the consumers in the United States and later that will trickle into the other global markets.

In conclusion, with jobs being outsourced to China or India, it only changes one thing in my personal plans for my future: Instead of just shooting for the stars, I need to find new ways of shooting to those stars and leading others to shoot towards the stars as well, though not necessarily the same stars every time. With the flattening world, I also need to flatten my focus a little more.

By Steven Hansen