• The Berlin Wall fell on 11/9/89 symbollic of our boundries of information. There was no one reason in particular that caused the fall of the wall. There were many reasons! The fall of the wall exposed differences between capitalism and communism. It caused the world, not just Germany, to begin seeing the world as a single market instead of many smaller systems.
• In the meantime, personal computing was becoming a real thing! Windows 3.0 was introduced and all of a sudden people everywhere had the power to author their own material in digital format. It also eliminated the barrier on the amount of information a person could access.

• Internet and World Wide Web were born!
• The First Web site was launched August 6, 1991 and Netscape went public on August 9, 1995. This event caused the whole world to be wired! Mosaic browser was started in 1993. The National Science Foundation funded Mosaic to build software enabling scientists to connect to other scientists sharing information.
• In the meantime, everyone was buying into this and funding anything that had to do with technology. This was the dot com bubble. More fiber optics were put into place all over the world.

• Automation brings about the need for standards
• Standards on top of standards
• HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP, XML, SOAP
• Interoperability allows for flattening
• Web 2.0
  

• "open-source" anyone who has something to contribute to improve can. Example: Apache, original shareware for Webserver technology
• Two catalysts: (1) intellectual commons movement (from academic/scientific communities--i.e., peer-reviewed science (2) free software movement (from National Center for Supercomputing Apps) Examples: Linux, Firefox
• Microsoft not a fan of free software. Corporation's BIG ? Who will profit?

• 2nd buyer concept - somebody starts something and puts $$ into it; 2nd buyers usually profit when stock goes south
• outsourcing - facotories for US goods are in another country
• India got to ride for free (IIT) Catalyst: Y2K - cost in India was 1/5 of what it would cost in US to deal with Y2K
• India also almost rode the fiberoptic road for free; saved $$ for first world countries and saved 4rd world economy of India
• Latest news: Japan is looking to build a plant in Nebraska; something to do with soybean oil - Will American soil be a location for outsourcing by other countries?

• Catalyst: China joined the World Trade Organization; now produces our products in the same way with cheaper labor, lower taxes, subsidized energy, and lower health costs
• Malaysia, Thailand, Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, Vietnam are engaged in "competitive flattening" or HOW LOW CAN YOU GO!

• Wal-Mart is a prime example of supply-chaining. It is a method of collaborting horizontally--among suppliers, retailers, and customer--to create value.
• Wal-Mart is biggest retailer in world and all it does it "make" a hyperefficient supply chain
• Challenges in developing a global supply chain:
  • Balancing out all factors to get the most reliable, low-cost delivery system
  • Coordinating disruption-prone supply with hard-to-predict demand

• UPS became a huge flatening force
• Reinvented itself as a dynamic supply-chain manager
• UPS will pick it up, repair it, and send it right back to customer
• process called insourcing--a whole new form of collaboration and creating vaue horizontally, made possible by the flat world and flattening it even more

• In-forming is the ability to build and deploy your own personal supply chain--a supply chain of information, knowledge, and entertainment.

• Computing: computational capability, storage capabiltiy, and input/output capability
• Instant messaging: Fil sharing, the peer-to-peer model, allows computer users to share songs, video, and other knds of files with one another online; peer to peer networks
• Breakthroughs in making phone calls over the Internet
• Videoconferencing
• Computer graphics: driven in part by computer games
• New wrireless technologies and devices

Please add your notes here!!!