Thomas Friedman's talk

Thomas Friedman of NewYork Times was at Georgia Tech today giving a highly eloquent and entertaining talk on outsourcing and globalization-the theme of his latest book The World is Flat. Personally, I haven't read Friedman 's columns much on NYTimes, ( I usually read WSJ because of its bent on my favourite topic finance & economics), but he is believed to be a very insightful writer & a tremendous speaker. In his talk , he started out with how he got the idea for his book which he attributed to a conversation he had with his friend Nandan Nilekani, the CEO of Indian outsourcing giant Infosys. Most of his subsequent talk was focused on how the world has become a level playing field with nobody having a location advantage any more. Any job which can be done in sillicon valley can as well be done in Bangalore and with a fraction of the cost. Thus, the world has become a level playing field hence the term 'Flat'. Much of what he said may have a ring of common sensical familiarity to any follower of world news, however it was laced with humour and interesting anecdotes apart from his interesting analogy with a flat world which made this talk a very worthwhile one to attend. I came away really impressed with Friedman's eloquence and the ability to hold audience's attention for a significant time. All in all, a very well spent 90 minutes.