Pissed over a B ticket.

Module 5

            Well after a much needed break I am back to reading the flat book, I must admit at first I wasn't much of a fan but the author has interesting perspectives and stories to back up his thoughts on the change in technology. I imagine with how fast this develops that much of what he is talking about in the book was already dated old news by the time it was published. Much like his airline ticket story, which is the inspiration for my title, technology and service can literally change overnight without much notice.

What is the Triple Convergence?

            The best way I can answer this question in how Friedman explains it one being a melding of all of the flatteners mentioned in this book up to this point, businesses and individuals alike adopted all of these and implemented them in their daily lives and some even streamlined most processes to get a better result, making business or daily life faster and more efficient. Second, of course being the streamlining and making better use of all of these flatteners in our daily business and personal lives, also that other major Asian and European countries making use of these flatteners and connecting with the western world like never before especially since the end of the Cold War. Third, now that this playing field is leveled out people started to realize the benefit of new technology, connecting, plugging in and playing, downloading and uploading. Friedman talks again about southwest realizing how the world has become tech savvy and the use of millions of networked computers had made it easier to deliver to the customer in a faster and more efficient manner. I would like to think of it today in a the game world as cloud gaming, a big thing that the video game industry is pushing this generation because even with all of the badmouthing between companies I think they could all agree that we are moving from a disc based age to a digital age in home entertainment. So with the use of the cloud I will soon have the ability to share my digital library with my gamer friends in an instant. I suppose this could be a good and bad thing, good being convenience, bad being creating ultimate laziness, soon enough I would not have to leave the couch.

India vs. Indiana

            This is a crazy story and interesting that it was something that had actually happened and I can see how politicians jumped on this like flies on shit just to play the blame game in their next campaign. Truth is there was a legal bid of a job to upgrade the states computer systems to prevent the outsourcing of Indiana jobs, and a major Indian company known for outsourced jobs had won the contract, talking about some bitter irony. Who exploited who? This was not that clear as he had left it to the reader. In my opinion, I don’t know how much India was the exploiter or the exploited, I suppose exploiter, and they exploited the taxpayer’s desire to save money, but doing that IT jobs were lost to India. I will admit this is a hard thing to read between the lines, I would almost say taxpayers were exploited by politicians desire to make one party look better, on one side you have the job creators, and the other the money savers.

Intellectual property and its importance

            What is intellectual property, by doing a little internet research here is a definition: a work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as a manuscript or a design, to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc. This is important because people are constantly sharing new creative ideas on the internet that can quickly be stolen and patent as another’s original work, so there are now laws to govern those properties from being stolen and passed off as someone else’s work, of course this happens a lot in writing classes, even though unethical, at some point a student gets pretty desperate for a good grade so at times will steal from someone else’s writing and pass as their own.

"flat, the world is"---Thomas Friedman

Module 4

            For this week’s entry I interviewed my friend Matt Roberts (Hi Matt.) Matt works for a company called Marketstar and is what’s called a SQL Database Report writer. I guess to better understand what my friend Matt does is to break down what Marketstar as a company is, and what SQL is.

            Marketstar is a part of the Diversified Agency Services (DAS) division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC). Omnicom is a global advertising, marketing and corporate communications company. Omnicom’s branded networks and specialty firms provide advertising, strategic media planning and buying, interactive, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and other specialty communications services to more than 5,000 clients in more than 100 countries and of course Marketstar has offices here in Utah, most notably in Ogden right off of 25^th and Washington. This company holds contracts with the likes of Google, HP, LG, and Ricoh, to name a few. For example Google or these other companies outsources sales, or other marketing and data jobs to companies like Marketstar to handle most of their sales calls and organization among other things.

            SQL (pronounced sequel) short for Structured Query Language, of course I had to do my research to fully understand this computer jargon so from Wikipedia, is a special-purpose programming language designed for managing data held in a relational database management system (RDBMS). SQL is a type of computer language or sequencing to organize different types of data and has been around for some time. Initially developed by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce of IBM in the early 1970’s was designed to manipulate and retrieve data stored in IBM's original quasi-relational database management system.

            With all of the computer lingo aside, I am going to quit boring you and move on to what my friend Matt actually does other than make sure his desk chair does not float away. That being said I will try to make this as interesting as I possibly can, God help us.

 Down in the depths of 25^th and Washington my friend Matt, and his other pimple popping comrades use this computer language to support a Market Analyst (MA.) Basically this hot shot MA comes to these dweebs requesting that they organize data received from clients to be better understood themselves or the rest of us. I had asked Matt, who I have since confirmed by shocking surprise is married, what SQL looked like and what his final result would look like. I did get a chance to see this but could not share his work so I have looked for myself to show you all an example.

To best put it with the work I do, seems that is the best way I understood it, I am a merchandiser and at the end of my reset or refresh of a bay or end cap of product in retail I send pictures and other finished data to corporate. All of this data is then stockpiled and organized by people like my friend Matt so those that do not understand that information can see in their native language. That being said I also get feedback in return asking about bay width, height and depth so the people at corporate offices can then organize another reset to be done and so far and so forth. In short Matt is the middle man that organizes that data for others to understand and use properly.

In a networking sense Matt does not deal with much other than making sure the main computer system does not get bogged down with too much data being sent and received, so others do not experience a lag in the computer network. To use the term flattening and explain how this job fits in that mix, being an outsourced, but necessary step, this career helps streamline the marketing and sales business and make it easier for google and the other companies above to understand and process that data.

"Ich werde meinen Kaffee flach, genau wie mein Mann."--Thomas L. Friedman

Module 3

       If you are confused by my new title, google translate German to English.

What Makes Offshoring different from outsourcing?

            I am going to have to use some examples to answer this question, first, what is the definition of outsourcing? Definition: to send away (some of a company's work) to be done by people outside the company. Basically if I own a company that produces a product with various parts that I can either produce within my company or I could contract with another company to make those smaller parts for my company and have them shipped so I can make my entire product. Of course I would want that particular step to be cheaper rather than make those parts myself. Another example would be finding a cheap plastic toy and noticing made in China printed on the bottom, the company that initially created that toy found it cheaper to have another company in China and pay those people less than half of what they would pay an American to make the same product here. Offshoring is similar in a way that instead of having a contract with another company to make that product for you, it would be your own company going to another place and have them manufacture that product by building and financing the project itself. My example would be Toyota, this is a company based in Japan, but instead of building cars in Japan and having them shipped here to the states. The company then builds its own production facilities and hires its own employees here in the states to build their cars. Companies do this to keep business within the company but also avoid if not lower shipping costs.

Supply Chains and Wal-Mart herpes

            Supply Chaining: the sequence of processes involved in the production and distribution of a commodity. Basically, an ongoing cycle of a product being produced, packaged, shipped to DC, branched out to stores, sold to a consumer, and repeat. Walmart uses this weapon to keep supply up with demand, Freidman explains this from the point of distribution, starting from a Walmart DC product is received from the manufacturer, sorted and packaged in various trucks to go to multiple stores across the country depending on stores demand. Once the consumer purchases said product a signal is transmitted to the manufacturer to make that product and it eventually makes it back to the DC and repeat, but on a much larger scale. Walmart benefits from this to keep shelves stocked and to keep up with the consumer purchasing those items. Walmart does this to help keep prices a bit lower than the competition, of course this has gotten the company into trouble in the past.

Through the eyes of Google

            I use google, you use google, we all use google, anyone remember ask Jeeves? It’s still around, just google it! But how has google affected businesses? Well google, or any search engine, informs people. Its your one stop shop for all of the information in your local library and beyond, all at your fingertips. What google has done to pay for itself and keep it free for us is advertising, letting companies plaster their logo all over as you searched for information of relevance.  By doing this google is paid and kept free to the public, in most cases a typical search links to a company for some sort of product or service you are looking for, thus strengthening said business. Having that power of information had put written text out of such relevance in today’s world. For example, now with the use of a smart phone or a computer, any one person can search for whatever they need, faster than looking up in an encyclopedia, or even the yellow pages.

To recap, Offshoring is a way for a company to create product in another part of the world and keep the production in house. Walmart uses supply chains to keep shelves stocked in a timely manner and google holds the worlds information at our fingertips, including businesses, so be careful when you are calling your boss a douchebag, google search your name and Facebook and they would probably find that post resulting in your termination. Of course with all of that cheap online advertisements, businesses are well known thanks to google. Whether you are settling an argument, looking for a place to eat, finding porn to self-indulge on a lonely Monday evening, or even looking for a friend’s house on maps. Google is there, to please the masses.

“Honey, does this shirt make me look flat?”—Thomas Friedman

Module 2

            If my titles seem a little ridiculous I apologize, but for how many times Friedman refers to a flat world it seems a little redundant, and I would like to continue that redundancy.

            Workflow Software

            Workflow software is something that was developed back in the 90’s while the internet was on the rise. In its beginning stages it was mostly connected pc’s and emails and of course was a way to connect throughout a company or even just in the office. For example in a doctor’s office keeping patients files saved on a network computer hub other physicians and nurses can upload and download those files thus making the business practice in a health care center more efficient, and of course as the companies would expand so would this network of sharing, connecting and emailing. I mentioned a form of this in my last module as the company I work for is Lowes and we in fact have a similar sort of set up through our employee portal, Lowes.net. I mentioned a small portion of this run through IBM called connections, this program is very similar to Facebook in a way that I have my own profile and connect with anyone in the company and we also post project information for all employees to see through blogs and wiki’s. The other parts of Lowes.net help me manage my payroll, health care, job search, work list, and email’s and other Lowe’s news related articles are also posted there. Lowes.net is also interconnected with or genesis POS system so tracking and selling orders for customers can be taken care of in a somewhat seamless manner. We also have design tools to better serve our customers such as the deck building design tool, which with the right measurements, and what product the customer desires, we can design the deck, have a 3D rendering of the deck, and have a list of materials for the customer so they can have a price and location of all materials for them to purchase. Friedman mentions workflow software as being an unnoticed but revolutionary. I could not agree more because with my generation, this is something that we have always had but has developed and gotten better over time and I could not imagine not having these tools and using paper and snail mail.

Open Sourced Software

            Open sourced software (OSS) is also known as community-developed software, is a way for freelance engineers to collaborate and develop software. Truthfully anyone can add to this software and make it better a good example would be the operating system Linux. Linux has various flavors developed by a multitude of software geeks to create or better the platform. Basically online communities that come together and somewhat volunteer to create software and share it in what is called “freeware”. I didn’t know much of Linux or any OSS type software growing up, as I got older I heard more about it through learning about Linux and in today’s environment people use this to develop for android and the apple marketplace. I have since learned about a site called www.xda-developers.com/‎ and through this site there are blogs and wikis to teach me how to root my smart phone or tablet to better work for me. Again, I relate to this with my connections post, I find this very important with today’s life because we can constantly share and update this information where it will be always available.

Outsourcing

            Outsourcing is contracting out of a business process to a third party. I had known what outsourcing was but had to look up the definition to answer what outsourcing was. In Friedman’s book he goes on more in depth of explaining what outsourcing is by using India as an example, and that they train much of their population in school to learn these technical trades in computers and software IT. Thus, jobs had been outsourced to many Indians with their technical trade being in much use. This had been important because it has increased technical expansion in our world and flattening it even more. These are jobs that are in areas that are little known in the United States but specifically trained for in India and if you haven’t noticed by now whenever you make an IT phone call on one of your electronic products, more than likely that on the other line you are connected to a citizen in India. This also came to be more important during the Y2K bug was on the horizon, India had the man power and the knowledge to remedy the software glitch that could in theory crippled our computers because each computer at the time had its internal time clock to end on the eve of 12/31/99 and restart the next morning as 01/01/00 not reading it as the year 2000 but the year 1900. Thanks to outsourcing, what could have been crisis, had been avoided.