The Untouchables a.k.a. Finding the New Middle

1
The Untouchables(a.k.a. Finding the New Middle)

• Chapter 6

2
Its All About Competition

• for most of the time after the second world war
  until the late sixties, America did not have to
  compete very hard

Why?
the war destroyed most of production capacity of
most of the combatants, surrender agreements, and
sudden enormous demand for mass produced
products
3
Become Untouchable

• untouchable jobs are those that cannot be
  outsourced, digitized, or automated
• describe your job
• how would those people that consume your work
  output describe your level of expertise?
• poor
• good enough
• good
• excellent

4
Three Broad Categories That Cannot be Outsourced

• special people, i.e. world class at what they
  do
• local/anchored, i.e. a job that requires
  face-to-face participation (think of real estate)
• middlers

5
Can Democratic Societies Remain Stable Without
Middlers?

• Friedman argues no, that the bell shaped curve
  of the middle class is what keeps society growing
  together as opposed to growing apart
• an interesting question becomes, is a middle
  class in a flat world something in a nation or
  in an economy?

6
The New Middlers
7
Great Collaborators Orchestrators

• if both the customers as well as the producers
  require an integration of product and services
  components, the linkages between each becomes a
  vital connection
• dont assume that the outsourcers are not
  outsourcing (per se) this key skill this is a
  very flat skill (this is just one of the
  contradictions of a flat world)

8
Great Synthesizers (order out of chaos)

• disparate disciplines need to work together
  (sometimes called mash-ups) a middler needs
  both specialized skills and a good amount of
  generalist
• flat world synthesis involves (a) breaking a
  problem into component pieces, (b) finding ways
  to solve the components in conventional, novel,
  cheap, revolutionary, or some other way, (c) then
  synthesizing a solution to the problem

9

• 2 things about synthesizing
• the componentization of problems leads to
  different solutions (can happen from one instance
  of the solution to another)
• the root expertise changes from creating
  component solutions to being able to create and
  enforce standards followed by mixing and matching

just look at information system/technology
10
Great Explainers

• there are situations where the ability of
  explaining what, how, why, when, where something
  is happening is more valuable than actually
  performing the task look for complex situations

know of an organization that sells products
inexpensively but has advice as the staple sales
ingredient?
can you give examples?
baby aspirin and heart attacks
11
Great Leveragers

• assumes that slack resources exist
• slack resources can be created via more efficient
  processes
• working cheaper (most often by working smarter)
  beats hard work and long hours almost every time
• leveraging (for a firm) frequently requires
  almost continuous training for employees

12
Great Adaptors

• technology workers must become versatilists
• workers cannot assume that their job consists of
  the same tasks from year to year or even week to
  week
• few organizations are so large or specialized
  that they can afford 40 hours per week of a
  narrow specialist
• adapting can be serendipity

13
Green People

• the flat world has led to more people
  participating in the world economy and bringing
  them more wealth than they could have previously
  experienced
• as flat world economy participators consume more
  economic wealth, they also consume more energy
• what are the consequences (for new participants
  and old participants)?

14
Passionate Personalizers (i.e. tailoring)

• how do you make lemonade? remember that part of
  make is delivery to the consumer
• Ive had Chinese food in China and in the U.S.
• Ive had Mexican food in Mexico and the U.S.

Ive had Canadian food
15

• when every one has the same tools to make the
  same physical product, the product promotion,
  selection, billing, delivery, service, etc become
  the key differentiating features
• (and these features can be enhanced with IT)

16

• the big takeaway from this chapter is that ALL of
  the success stories involve learning and adapting
  to the flattening world and finding ways to be
  more productive