Response to Free

I stand by my initial quote, “What an exciting time to be alive”. We are in the middle of a transitional milestone in human history and our actions and decisions of today will determine our course over the next few decades. I enjoy watching the new innovations that are happening everyday as people come to understand the changes around them and choose to take control of them. However, after hearing the concerns of my fellow classmates regarding the future it is clear that there is a need to step out and examine the flow of events rather than be swept away by them.

For my questions this week, the overarching theme was what other options are out there waiting to be explored regarding the integration of Free. Compared to some of the other books we have read this semester, Anderson’s Free really helped bring to light some of the innovations being made and clarified some of the mysteries surrounding the success of certain companies (Google, Wikipedia, etc). While these are good strategies that can be replicated and used to employ some of the population, it is not likely that there will be an equal competitor to those running the show now. Not every Google copy will become a multi-billion dollar corporation; they will probably hover around the 100,000 dollar area which is still a pretty decent salary depending on the scale of the operation.

Unfortunately, many of the strategies in Anderson’s book require training and a skill set that many in the current working population do not have. The push from the Obama Administration to increase our society’s math and science skills reflects this concern. Another part of these strategies that concerns people is that many take an existing market, position, function, etc and either reduce the number of people that are required to perform the job or it has been outsourced to the millions of people willing to voluntarily do that job. I think what people are looking for is news of new corporations hiring people who do not need computer skills or only need a basic understanding of technology. It is much easier to design a building when you know what the land for the base looks like. If something like that can happen I think that will aleviate some of the fears people have, which will increase confidence in the market, thus pushing us forward again.

Despite my concerns, I still believe that there are still a lot of untapped possibilities which may hold the answers we are looking for. There are currently around 200 states in the world and dozens of cultures within each of those countries. The world is nearing a population of 7 billion people. There is no way all possibilities have been explored and more are on the way as we move forward. The flood has already happened; but rather than be swept away we can control which direction the flow will take.

Tags: free