Should Techies Read Tom Friedman?

For those of you who may have missed it, I was away at the end of last week attending a wedding in Phoenix. I had intended to blog on the road, but never got past the good intentions.

For techies, Friedman's message makes no sense. We are all running as fast as we can.

Anyway, yesterday on the flight home, I started reading The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. I'm only about half way through, but since there's a lot there, I thought I might venture some early comments. For anyone who is not familiar with the book, it's basic message is that forces with which all of us in tech are familiar have commoditized (or soon will commoditize) everything that can be digitized. (Friedman even points out that various components of apparently hands-on businesses, like restaurants, can become partially commodized -- for example, the taking of dinner reservations.) Those forces include globalization, the Internet, technical standards, over-investement in communications infrastructures, outsourcing, off-shoring, search engines, etc. -- all of which mutually reinforce each other to create a flat competitive playing field which is (hence, the title) global.

I have two questions, the answers to which should be apparent by the time you finish even a couple of chapters of the book: 1) Who is Friedman talking to? and 2) Should tech types read this?

The answer to question 1 is "smart, well-read generalists who may not have made the connections between trends in tech (probably because they were not aware of them) and what else has been happening in the world." The answer to question 2 is less obvious. Most people in technology know what's been happening in technology. But do we understand its broader societal implications? (Before you answer, read what Karl Marx says on pages 201-202.)

My verdict for now is that if you want to get a great view of technology from the outside in, this is it. Most technology commentary is written by people on the inside who occasionally look out. Friedman makes no pretentions about being a technology expert, but he clearly could be if he wanted to. And it may be better that he's not.

His message to the general reader is: "Learn to run faster." For techies, however, that message makes no sense. We are all running as fast as we can.

So, I think you have to look at the publication of the book itself as a message. And, for techies, this book that informs the general reader about the direction of technology trends is for us a history -- recent history, I grant you, but still a history -- and for technology innovators there's some comfort in that.

Here's why: The crushing dislocations of super-fast commoditization have themselves become commoditized. (And I think we're seeing signs of that in lower growth numbers for commodity players like Wal-Mart and Dell.) And so too have the lessons in Friedman's book — now that they've been repackaged and resold for general consumption.