The world is flat. Not! →
If you read Thomas Friedman’s book: The World is Flat: A brief History of the Twenty-First Century, you’ll learn that its title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors have an equal opportunity.
Leading Innovation Clusters. Source: Juan Alcacer, Harvard Business School and NY University; McKinsey analysis
Nowadays, I hear a lot of people talking about taking the world with their businesses. I am referring especially to technology businesses. All of them get excited about the perspective that we are super connected, that information flows freely and reaching somebody at the other side of the world can be done in just a matter of seconds.
From a consumption perspective it’s easy to see why the world is flat. The Internet allows anyone to access any kind of website and other global distribution channels allow anyone to buy almost any kind of gadget no matter where it has been built.
But what about the perspective of innovation? Where is all this great technological stuff being designed? Take a look at the world map of innovation clusters. You’ll see that even though anyone can consume technology from anywhere around the world, the creation work is being done in just a few places.
The world is flat from the perspective of consumption but not from that of innovation - at least not yet (what do you think?)
