What does Friedman mean when he says the world is flat?

Question

and how can this concept help us to better understand Globalization and its future?

please help me with two of this question.

thank you

Answer 1

He means that walls have come down and we can more easily see and communicate with others across the globe.

Answer 2

The world due to rapid advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has now a level playing ground for all sorts of commercial and non-commercial players. It does not matter whether you are located in a developed, developing or non developed country to be successful business person, academician, student or a creative person. The odds are same everywhere. ICT is therefore a great leveler. It has smoothened out all the differences between rich and the poor nations.

In such a flat world, Infosys, which does business out of Bangalore, India has equal odds to succeed, as that of IBM headquartered in Armonk, New York, USA. ICT has brought down all barriers to competition and pitched, both the strong and the weak, on to a level playing field. While this may be good for the small and inconsequential, Microsoft for example will not like it, as Bill Gates yells at his employees, "A level playing ground? That will be our demise."

ICT allows you to hide your real identity. Call centre employees in Bangalore quickly learn American accent and seamlessly do business with customers halfway across the globe. Racism and other forms of discrimination will require more ingenious methods to be successful in flat world.

Flat world sets the world free. It creates free software, free technologies, free information and free knowledge. Linux and Wikipedia could succeed only due to ICT enabled flatness of the world. More disruptive thoughts and technologies that germinate freely in a flat world will grow up and challenge the monopolies and cartels that exist today.