Flattener

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Flattener 1 11/9/89Berlin Wall Comes Down
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What caused the wall to crumble?

• U.S.-Soviet arms race caused Soviet Union to go
  bankrupt.
• Mikhail Gorbachevs reforms.
• Information systems improved and destroyed the
  Soviets monopoly on media.
• What was the significance of the Berlin Wall
  coming down?

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Significance of the fall

• Tipped the balance of power across the world
  toward those advocating democratic, consensual,
  free market oriented governance, and away from
  planned economies.
• Technological and economic standards could be
  developed and adopted faster and by more
  countries (i.e. the free movement of best
  practices).

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While the wall was falling

• The Windows-enabled PC, combined with the fall of
  the wall, set in motion the whole flattening
  process.
• Individuals could amass, author, manipulate, and
  diffuse more information.
• The basic platform of a modem connected to a PC
  started to proliferate the global information
  revolution was starting to emerge.

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Flattener 2 The New Age of Connectivity
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Internet Gains Popularity

• 1991 Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide
  Web.
• Tool of connectivity and collaboration that
  allowed ordinary people to access information in
  cyberspace.
• HTML became the standard language of the web.
• 1991-1996 Number of internet users increased
  from 600,000 to 40 million people.

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Netscape

• Created the first browser.
• Made internet accessible to everyone between the
  ages of 5 and 90.
• Promoted open source formatting which allowed
  people to communicate with each other no matter
  what system they were using.
• Open protocols integrated everyones networks.
• Allowed people to concentrate on what they did on
  the internet, not how they connected to the
  internet.

8
Internet Bubble

• Overinvestment in internet companies.
• Drove innovation faster and faster
• Fiber optic cables were laid around the world
• People were first allowed to drive 50 mph, then
  60 mph...then eventually 150 mph on the same
  highways without any fear of accidents. (pg. 76)

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• Excerpt from page 77
• In short, the Apple-PC-Windows phase begat the
  Netscape browsing-e-mail phase, and the two
  together enabled more people to communicate and
  interact with more other people anywhere on the
  planet than ever before.
• What does this mean to you personally?
• What implications does this quote have for
  businesses?

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Flattener 3 Work Flow Software
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The Flat World Begins To Emerge

• As a result of the first two flatteners, work
  started to increase within and between companies
  and continents faster than ever.
• Browsing and e-mail were no longer sufficient.
• People wanted to shape things, design things,
  create things, sell things, buy things, keep
  track of inventories, do somebody elses taxes,
  and read somebody elses X-rays from half a world
  away.

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New Protocols

• Protocols (SMTP, TCP/IP, XML, SOAP, AJAX) were
  developed to standardize and simplify the way
  information flowed between networks.
• People started to concentrate on what they were
  doing instead of how they were doing it.
• Spurred innovation and collaboration.

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A New Business Era

• Example Protime Consulting.
• Created by Justin Lu using Salesforce.com.
• Able to generate more revenue by keeping systems
  costs low, by delivering web based services.
• Salesforce.com allows Lu to market and distribute
  his services globally for a low-cost fee to
  Salesforce.com, instead of investing and
  maintaining his own software.
• What other advantages does a virtual company have
  versus a traditional company?

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Final Thoughts/Opinion

• Do you feel like we are at a turning point in
  history in regards to commerce? Or are we past
  that point? What about in culture/society? Why?