Sokanu: The Blog

The internet recently celebrated its 25th birthday.  From its humble beginnings at CERN as a communication network, to the first consumer websites and now into the powerhouse it is today, what an amazing journey it has been on.  

In a matter of two decades, the world has gone from a fairly insular economic model to a globalization model.  Need to make a call across the world?  Skype will do that - for free.  Need to communicate with someone but don't want to phone them?  Send them an email - for free.  Too impatient to wait for a reply?  Use instant messaging - for free.  You get the point.  

We now live in an age where collaboration is instant and efficient.  The border barriers are being broken down rapidly.  People don't know that their customer support calls are being taken in India or Mexico or Panama.  Whereas we used to get things done locally, it no longer makes financial sense. Why pay the local graphic design shop $1000.00 when someone in Romania can do a better job for $50.00?  As we get more and more used to the internet, we become more comfortable with moving our offline needs online.

Amazon and eBay were the first companies to establish amazing online platforms. There are now very few offline auctions, and why would there be?  eBay makes it cheap, easy and efficient.  And guess what?  You have a global marketplace looking at your items, not just a local offline market. Amazon makes it incredibly easy to buy books, CD's and electronics online, for cheaper.  As more and more people become used to buying online and its ease of use, why would they buy offline?  

This is going to create a huge economic problem in the coming years.  Already you can see the problems of crowd-sourcing.  Most logos, designs and web development is now done online on sites like Elance and 99designs.  This is just the beginning.  Most jobs that can be done online for cheaper will be.  No more does a degree guarantee a secure job when you get out of college.  The problem is our standard of living versus the rest of the world.

Here in North America, we live in an amazing time.  We have absolutely everything we need at our disposal.  Our standard of living is phenomenal, but our prices also reflect that. Whereas places around the world that don't have the same standard of living have much lower prices.  It used to be that those people were out of luck.  Too bad, you can't compete in our marketplace.  The internet changed that.  We are now all on an equal playing field.

All someone now needs to do is own a laptop (incredibly cheap), have an internet connection (becoming much more widespread) and they are competing in the global marketplace.  If they have a Paypal account they can be paid online, no local connection needed.  The other issue for North America is that the rest of the world is beginning to realize the power of the internet.  They are hungry.

As a nation, if we don't understand the impact of globalization and what it is going to do to our economy, it is going to be too late.  Many of our current jobs are going to move offshore, to more capable and driven individuals.  As a nation, we need to innovate, and innovate fast.  We need to instill a drive in Generation Y that allows them to excel in the field they are in  We need to understand that we are not just competing against our friend for that job, but rather the entire world.

But this is not a negative thing.  Rather, it is extremely positive.  Because if we do things properly, we will continue to innovate at such a high pace that we will remain global leaders.  But this will only happen if Generation Y happens to find a field that they are passionate about.  We must inspire a nation of up-and-coming workers to find work that they love to do, not because it is a job. Just being a job isn't good enough anymore.  It's time to understand that the only thing seperating us from the rest of the world is finding careers that we are meant to do.  

This is the job of government, the education system, parents and peers.  Only if we shift our mindset will we be able to continue to be global leaders in the sport we call globalization.