Andy Carvin's Waste of Bandwidth

Here's a quick sampler of the new chapters I'm adding to the next edition of The World is Flat. The personal computer, the Internet and workflow software is allowing people to create, share and collaborate in ways that have truly made the world flat. I see it wherever I go.

The first chapter I've added is "IF it's not happening, it's because you're not doing it." I came into the office, turned on my PC and got 5000 emails with the same complaint. A group in Canada called A Dog and 10,000 Dollars had organized it. What do I have to do to make them go away?

Okay, this isn't true, but this happens to CEOs every day. The Internet lets even the smallest groups organize their activism and expose multinationals. If it has merit, they can get these companies to change behavior or beg for mercy. And the praise these companies win when they do the right thing has real benefit.

A few years ago, TXU announced they would create some more energy plants, which would pollute the environment, and they'd do it anyway. So stoptxu.com was formed, creating a national constituency against their plans. All of those efforts paid off when a buyout group offered to buy TXU. But they didn't want to fight the environments, so they invited the protestors to work with them and figure out a way to make the deal climate-friendly. The world's biggest buyout rode on the approval of the only two people at the table who had no money at the table - the environmentalists.

I asked a lobbyist about this. She said: "We were operating under the old rules and the rules changed, but no one bothered to put up a sign."

The people changing the world are online activists, environmentalists, biz school students with a green soul. They have a burning desire to make a difference, and that the flattening of the world makes this possible more than ever before. So I would tell today's people, if it's not happening, it's because you're not doing it.

Next chapter: I traveled the world and looked at social entrepreneurship. "What happens when we all have dogs' hearing?" I flew to France and Germany. I was met by a driver, a young guy of African descent, taking to himself in French through a Bluetooth headset phone. He picked me up and kept talking. He had a movie playing while we drove, and he kept talking on his phone. I was trying to write on my laptop and could barely concentrate, so I put on my ipod, while he drove and talked on his phone. We were together for an hour, doing six different things, but we never talked to each other. He probably had a lot to tell me. A friend of mine at Le Monde said, "I guess the era of foreign correspondents quoting taxi drivers is over."

Tech can make the far feel near, but it can make the near feel far. He might have been talking to parents in Africa, but we didn't talk at all just a few feet from each other. We're so accessible we're inaccessible, another friend has told me.

Before going to Paris I was in San Fran, and a guy w/ the ipod almost got hit by a car driven by a women talking on a cell. The first postmodern news story.

These are downsides. No, I don't mean terrorist websites. You and me, our strangers and friends, and how it's affecting our interactions, dividing us. These tools also interrupt us more than ever before, coarsening our language and discourse. What happens when we can all upload our own content and read what everyone is reading about each of us. Suddenly we can all hear everything about us. What happens when we all have dogs' hearing?

Millions of people are producing content. If you're a public figure, chances are someone is blogging about you. Just check google or technorati. In 2003, there were 60 million references to The World is Flat. Some are praiseworthy, others vitriolic. I don't check it anymore. What happens when all of your neighbors or students have blogs? How thick is your skin? We all become public figures, fair game, newsworthy. What if they upload embarrassing pics of you. What if you dropped some dishes, breaking them, and your neighbors blog that you had a fight with your wife?

School officials see myspace as a real problem. An assistant principal is suing a family because their myspace page suggested she was gay. The students set up a page in her name, said she was gay though she wasn't, then had other students commenting abusive things. Now she's suing the kids and the parents because they weren't supervising the kids. The police determined the computers used were in the home. This is just the beginning of what happens when we get another billion people on the Web.

In the old days, you had to be a moviestar to worry about what was said about you in the National Inquirer. Now we all need to be thinking about our own bad press. Though the Inquirer often crossed the line, they were a company that could be held accountable. Now fast forward. We're all potential journalists and paparazzi, yet lacking the lawyers to protect us. Once it hits the web, it goes worldwide. The dialogue is also two-way and multi-dimensional.

I spent a lot of time in the Mideast. There, often the less benign sides of the flat world that get circulated. I did a film for Discovery, and I was in an Indonesian medressah, interviewing students. I asked them who they supported. A woman stood up. "We don't like Bush, we'd like to vote for Gore, but he's Jewish." But he's not Jewish. "Yes, he is. No. "Yes." Where do you get your news? "From Arab websites."

The rumor about Jews being warned about 9-11 isn't taken seriously here but it's considered fact in many parts of the world. The Internet makes rumors more believable to people. "I read it on the Internet." Like that should settle it. I like to warn people about the Net: "Judgment not included."

One last point: a third chapter. When the world is flat, whatever can be done, will be done - but will it be done by you or to you? In my travels I've seen amazing business models. We were in Peru in June, and our guide told us about a friend who sold dishware on the Internet near Cusco. But he's thinking about having his dishes made in China. And he needs to do it before his neighbor does it. Then I went to Budapest for an event, and a taxi driver told me, if you ever come back, please tell people about my driving service - just go to my website. It showed his entire fleet, his area covered, and it was in three languages, with music. James Baker once said you know you're no longer in power because your limo is yellow and the driver speaks Farsi. And the world is flat when your taxi driver has a website.

The most competition going forward is gonna be between you and your own imagination. Your ability to act upon it has never been more powerful and important. What people imagine - what individuals imagine - not governments or companies. I'm positive about America today. Washington is brain dead - beeeeeeeeeeeeeep - but the country is really alive, particularly in education and energy. Because we have a free market system in those areas. They say China will own the 21st century. Not so fast. We may not dominate, but we won't lose by default either. Like my grandma told me, "Tommy, remember. Never cede the century to a country that censors Google." Thank you very much.