And in the space of two minutes I get two incredibly parallel and yet different emails. One I get from John Kellogg, a friend in LA, is an article from the LA Times about the auto workers in Grand Rapids getting together to bitch about the Delphi buy out plan with GM, with his usual pithy comments.
The other is a couple of links sent to me by my wife, Robyn, from Fast Company. Here is one that provides insight from some serious (and not so serious) thinkers about what is happening in manufacturing, convergence, etc. .... with a great quote in the story from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert....
The biggest news story of our lifetimes is happening around us right now. It is incredibly human and it has tragedy and hope all rolled into one. The story is about rising and falling empires. And the people who live in them. It is an absolute tragedy that the hopes and dreams of heartland people in the US are being shattered by globalization. And it is fantastic that the aspirations of millions of Chinese and Indian people are starting to be met to be able to have better lives. It is equally tragic that the planet is being destroyed to achieve all of this. And the fact that a whole load of fat cats are going to get even fatter is perhaps the greatest irony of all. Shakespeare would have loved it.
But the key point here is that people in the west should be very wary of being drawn into the debate that is starting to be waged in the media, that will attempt to put tariffs on China and/or India. If that happens we are in for a really rocky road.
If we are going to find a way out of this it is going to be through leveraging this Internet thing that we have come to rely on as if it is a part of the natural infrastructure of life.
It is through this that we have the opportunity to create change. Maybe not at the next election, but perhaps at the one after that, or the next. The business models that are being applied to commerce and are either disruptive or destructive, whichever way you view them., will soon be applied to politics. And when they do, change will be effected. The Internet is like a bulldozer. It is the real driver of globalization. It flattens everything in its path.
So here is the Dilbert quote from Scott Adams....
"The world is changing, so Dilbert has to change, or else he'll become
outdated. I have to figure out if Dilbert's going to move to India or
not. The only people who will have jobs in the United States are people
with creative jobs, or something that has to do with communication and
sales. And more people are going to be working at home. That doesn't
work so well for me, because it's hard to write a comic about a guy
sitting at home."
