Module 7

Ryan Williams

February 28, 2015

Module 7

            Some countries are doing better than others. Why? Well, not every country in the world is the same, so obviously some countries will be able to do better at something than another country. Maybe a country has a really high population. Since they have some many people, a lot of jobs can be filled. Having a lot of people can be bad too. Just because there are a lot of people doesn’t mean that there will be enough jobs for all the people, this meaning that the more people there are, the more jobless people there will be. With less people, they would need to be more specialized. If they are more specialized, they will be able to earn more money. Other than population, there are other things that can also give countries that advantage over others. Natural resources is one. If a country has a lot of natural resources, then that natural resource can be their top export. If it something fairly rare, then they could make a good amount of money off of it.

            Self-directed consumers are consumers who “customize the price, experience, and service he or she wanted.” Basically, the consumer chooses how much they want to pay for something and not be told what they need to pay for it. Companies are using this to their advantage by getting the consumers to think they need more and more expensive things and the more customized it is, the more expensive it is. They are making their products more and more customizable and more specific for each consumer so they can do just that. I would say that I am a self-directed consumer. When I buy something, sometimes I want it be the same as others, but sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I want it to be as personalized as possible. When I buy a car, I want it to be different, that way when people see it they will either go ‘Wow, that car is so cool!’ or, ‘I bet the dirt around the tires and up to the window has a really cool story.’ Something like that.

            I think that globalization is partially Americanization but partially not. I like the way Friedman put it in the book. “The most popular food in the world is not the Big Mac. It’s pizza. And what is pizza? It is just a flat piece of dough on which every culture puts its own distinctive foods and flavors.” What I think this is saying is that America, in a sense, put a base down, but every country can build whatever they want on that base, but since America put down the base, I see how people could be saying it is Americanization and not globalization. That is probably the best way to put it.

Module 6

Ryan Williams

February 21, 2015

Module 6

            What is free trade? Free trade is a policy in place in international markets where governments do not restrict any imports or exports. Basically, people can send or receive anything they want between countries as long as the product being imported or exported is not produced or created where the product is being imported. I think this is personally important for a few reasons. First off, if a country is producing something and selling it to within their country, then it would be kind of unfair if one of the customers of a company could just import the product from another country. The company producing the product could potentially lose a lot of their business which would be unfair since that company would have been there first.

            What skills and personality traits make a “new middler”? One skill a “new middler” will need is good collaboration. If you cannot work with someone, how are you ever supposed to get anything done? The better you are at collaborating with people, the more efficient you will become. You also need to be a good synthesizer, meaning you need to be good at bringing things together. You need to be a good “explainer”. If you can sell someone something, that’s great. If you can sell someone something but also explain to them what exactly it is doing and how it is helping them or their company, they will better understand why they need it. This could help with sales because the more they understand it, the more they see the reason why they need to buy it from you or use your business to do it for them. If things are changing in your job or things that have to do with your job, you need to be good at adapting to them. If you can’t adapt, then it will become harder and harder to work your job.

            What is CQ + PQ > IQ? CQ + PQ > IQ is basically a formula that says if someone is curious about something and has passion for something that they will be able to gather more knowledge about something compared to someone who just has a higher IQ level. This can be important for some reasons, and could possibly be more important in businesses. Say two people were to go to an interview for the same job. One person is really smart and has a high IQ, but is not very interested in the job. The other person may not be the smartest person around, but they are very curious about the job and their passion is learning to do whatever the job is requiring. What person would you pick? You would obviously go with the person who wants to do that job. This is what I think Friedman is talking about. You would rather have someone who wants to do the job rather than someone who is smarter.

Module 5

Ryan Williams

Module 5

            The triple convergence is the way the ten flatteners that Freidman talked about in the previous chapters come together to create an even flatter global playing field. The first convergence he talks about is how the ten flatteners came together in a way that people would see that things were different after 2000. The second convergence is the skills and business practices coming out of the ten flatteners and making the most of them to use their potential. The third convergence is the 3 billion people that come out onto the flattening playing field. This is important because companies can use all of the convergences to their advantages. Having people able to see things differently could potentially help companies find more creative people. Using the skills from the flatteners could also help companies find new people to work for them. Third, all these people coming out on to the playing field can get a company either workers or consumers.

            From what I got out of this story, it seems that Indiana exploited India. Out of these pages, Indiana wanted something done and they wanted to do it for the best price that they could get their hands on, so they set up a bid. When they set up this bid I think they knew that a company from India would be watching. They would have also known that companies from India would usually do things for cheaper while still keeping great service. This is why I think they set up the bid, trying to exploit a company from India to do their work for cheaper.

            Intellectual property is an invention that belongs to an individual and that individual can get the rewards of the invention but at the same time making this invention available to all. It is important for a few reasons. If someone were to invent something but not have it be intellectual property, any person or company anywhere could take that invention and claim as their own making all the profits off of it that they wanted. With the other person or company owning it, the original inventor would not be able to receive any of the credit or rewards of their own invention. Basically, this is important because it keeps people’s ideas and inventions safe.

            For the reading this week, it did not seem as interesting to me. Probably the most interesting part to me was the part of the company Boeing. What they did was smart, putting out an auction to get the best price for something was genius to me. This is what Indiana did too and I thought it would be considered exploiting, but I guess whoever thinks of it first should be able to receive the rewards.