ThIn Part 1 we began our reporting and discussion of what initiated the "Economic Globalization" process to frame the contributor's and accelerators supporting a global economy which replaced the "Cold War" territorial stand off by East, West and Third World. These physical and philological barriers separated not only ideals, currency rates and trading partners; but by the differences in economic systems. These systems competed fiercely -- even to the brink of a nuclear war -- when Russia, in 1961, was installing rockets with nuclear warheads in Cuba, considered to be offensive weapons, that could reach most parts of the USA. President Kennedy went toe-to-toe with Russian Communist Party Chairman Nikita Khrushchev to get the already installed nuclear armed missiles removed from Cuba.
The call to "Tear down this wall" by President Reagan was the green light for globalization.
For the generation born after 1980 (Gen Y or Millennial), you may not remember the historic meeting between President Ronald Regan and Russian Communist Party Leader, Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, Iceland in October, 1986. It was the setting for a treaty to begin the decrease of nuclear arms, human rights initiatives by Russia, and setting stage for the end of the Cold War. On June 12, 1987, President Reagan stood before "The Wall" where his memorable phrase was, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall". In three short years after the Reykjavik Summit, , "The Wall" symbolizing the "Cold War" era came crumbling down in November, 1989. The globalization of economies was already underway -- the precursor to a global and increasingly blended workforce. Shortly we had no First, Second or Third World, only the Fast Business World and the Internet was still in its infancy. An open labor market brought many new jobs to counties hungry for investment and growth. Outsourcing became the new cost saving rage for manufacturing and profits rocketed firms to multi-national status.
Ironically, the freedom of nuclear proliferation that transpired after the end of the Cold War during the 1990's was both counterproductive and impeded the growth of a more global economy and more democratic reforms. The continued development of nuclear weapons capabilities -- at great cost to their nations development -- by Pakistan, then India and North Korea was more about RESPECT as a nation to gain a seat on the new world stage. Meanwhile human rights and capitalism which brings greater prosperity to all and greater commerce between nations had been stifled by the internal powers of those countries that filled the vacuum left by the fall of socialism by central governments.
Investors flock to diversified investments to lower risk.Investors flock to diversified investments to lower risk.
As Japan and South Korean first discovered their laxness after great economic success and then financial meltdown, India similarly discovered that a AAA rating from Moody's brought far more investment capital, job creation, dignity and respect than having nuclear capabilities. Unfortunately, many Middle East nations and North Korea haven't yet made that discovery.
Foreign investment badly needed to grow companies and jobs went to nations whose governments were broadening human rights, providing better education and skills to its workforce, and attempting to keep their budgets balanced. Lowering labor costs and risk.
However, democratization of technology, finance and information was yet to be attained which would truly make us a global economy. At the same time it would begin to unravel social engineering that many nations had adopted between WWII and the end of the Cold War.
Democratization of Technology
As a VP of Marketing and Sales for a Scripps-Howard major daily newspaper in 1981, I had a perk of receiving use of the General Manager's company car after the first year he had used it -- a hand me down, but only a year old. What was unusual was that vehicle, usually a loaded Chevy Impala, came with a car phone installed. Now that was a cool perk then. Within the next decade, I was carrying a cell phone. In 1999 I was using a Blackberry making calls, receiving and sending emails, and texting from anywhere to anywhere at anytime.
By 2011, cellular phones are universal, 60 million wireless Tablet PC in use, landline voice calls have been reduced dramatically, and fiber optics continues to expand bandwidth for the ability to connect and move trillions of bytes per second. This was made possible by innovation of and the convergence of core technologies involving miniaturization of the microchip, compression of data technology, digitalization, virtualization of data, digital search retrieval technologies, and "the cloud" or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). In the next generation, WaaS or Workforce-as-a-Service will be as common as SaaS is today.
According to former NBC News President, Lawrence Grossman, as quoted by Thomas Freidman in his book "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", democratization of technology is the process of printing making us all readers, Xeroxing making us all publishers, TV making us all viewers and digitization making us all publishers. The example Freidman used of technology democratization was the remarkable " fifteen year rise from being primarily a low-wage rice producing country to being the world's second-largest producer of pickup trucks and fourth-largest producer of motorcycles." What country was that? Thailand.
Just this past month I've seen ads on selected cable channels and markets aggressively promoting Thailand as a good stable place to invest. Those ads follow an extensive ad campaign by Korean Airlines.
Today's investor herds gather lots of information resultingAny connected device provides collaboration and workflow teaming from anywhere at anytime. from the democratization of technologies to move invests from currency and gold to bonds and mutual funds anytime, from anywhere. They have lots of real-time data and available to them 24/7/365. Remember McDonald's invested millions in site location data collection and analysis to select high potential store locations. How long did it take to see Wendy's, Burger King and KFC built in close proximity? Investment herd followers are similar in tending to follow the investment decisions made from analysis of the same or similar data which we all now have access to from anywhere at anytime. Investments now can be moved by alerts or automation trade values, etc., 24/7 everyday.
You may already know some or all of what you've read and may be asking yourself what does all this have to do with a blended workforce? This series is precisely intended to illustrate how we "got here" in order to have a productive discussion of how to survive and thrive in a world with a rapidly shrinking pool of talent, skills, and educated workers who are doing business at the speed of the Internet in a multi-generational, multi-culture world. Human capital will become of greater value to be competitive "Glocal" economy where events that happen on the other side of the planet, in another industry sector will directly or indirectly impact your business and test your agility and reaction time. Decision making about the deployment of your current and future human capital resources that can separate you from your competition or drown you in the wake of your people decisions -- or lack there of. How to structure an agile, global blended workforce that can "turn-on-a-dime" with a championship mentality is the purpose of this series.
Stay tuned for Part 3! You can refresh your memory of Part 1 and 2 at any time here.
