The Great Sorting Out

1. The Great Sorting Out Chapter 4

2. Short Chapter, Many Implications • implications for managers? • implications for knowledge workers? implication for less educated? (notice that I did not say the uneducated) implications for those who cannot communicate electronically? is another communications revolution coming? spoken word, written word, printed word, digital word, xxxxxx?

3. After the Triple Convergence Comes the Great Sorting Out • does the reference to Marx & Engels (inexorable march of technology and capital remove constraints to global commerce) ring true? • breakdown of ‘localities’? • breakdown of nations? • breakdown of religions? • breakdown of religions?

4. Has Wal-Mart figured out how to defeat communism?

5. How tied to globalization is the need for global consumption?

6. information technology is one face of the technology bundle, just like communications technology is another face • for the questions below, frame your answers in respect to (a) knowledge required by the original communicator, (b) knowledge required by an intermediary communicator, and (c) perception of task • how did the telegraph change written technology (i.e. letter writing)? • how did the phone change written technology?

7. in the great sorting out …. • what is the role/responsibility of participants in the network to be self regulated? • what are the consequences if they do not self regulate? is the fact that boundaries slow change a ‘good thing’ in that it gives those impacted by the globalization change some time to find positive ways to respond to the change?

8. Who is exploiting whom? • is ‘collaboration’ between an American IT professional and an Indian IT professional simply a euphemism for exploiting inexpensive Indian labor? the IT equivalent of a sweatshop making running shoes for Nike?

9. Where Do Companies Start & Stop? • it is true historically and even today that a country is economically as ‘healthy’ as the organizations within it • what happens when companies are as much or more global than international? what are the implications for defining a nation’s economic strength? who cares about the NYSE?

10. From Command and Control to Collaborate and Connect • the big takeaway from these two pages is that the actual work (the task processing) occurs between peers, not between a boss and subordinate • much social ‘adjusting’ is required for communicating among peers to complete a successful task

11. Multiple Identity Disorder • back to Wal-Mart, make sure you read and understand this section of the chapter • Wal-Mart versus Cosco, who is taking a beating as measured in stock value? • what role does insurance play? • who is paying for the insurance?

12. But what is the rebuttal to Wal-Mart bashers? what is the concept of “total cost?”

13. Who Owns What? • knowledge work, research, intellectual property • how much and how long should be reflected in the compensation for these resources? • what mechanism for compensation since we see that governmental regulation is a poor guarantor?

14. Death of the Salesman