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Thomas Friedman is the author of The World Is Flat and the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times.
According to a very reliable source, Thomas Friedman turns down 93% of speaking invitations. He’s been called “the country’s best newspaper columnist” and named one of “America’s Best Leaders”, besides the 3 Pulitzer Prizes he has received. It’s no coincidence that he spoke to the SLA Annual Conference just a few months for his new book is due to be released, That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back.
Friedman began by describing inventions that were not even in existence a decade ago such as Facebook, 3G, the Cloud and Skype. Several decades ago when the internet browser was born, no one had an inkling of the convergence of technologies that was about to happen. From the laying of fiber optic cables in just 5 short years to the advent of “uploading” and self-publishing electronically, an explosion in the global economy has made Detroit and Dubai next-door neighbors. This inflection point in history is making yesterday’s “average” unacceptable. Routine work is being eliminated in our economy and replaced by technology. College graduates today face the prospect of not getting hired, but rather having to invent their own jobs.
Anything that can be done, will be done. If you don’t do it, someone else will. The only question is, will it be done BY you or TO you? There are now 4.8 billion cell phones on the planet, and connectivity is reaching every corner of the globe. There is no such thing as a local story anymore. Just one tweet by a U.S. Congressman illustrates this point conveniently. Friedman argues that behavior still matters and that our society will come back full circle to old-fashioned values like strong family relationships, honesty, integrity, trust, etc. once the technology smoke has cleared.
My favorite quote of the presentation was “The Internet is an open sewer of untreated and unfiltered information, full of gold nuggets.” Friedman confirmed his appreciation of librarians by saying that after writing 5 books, he knows our value as information professionals and researchers from personal experience.
Mary Odom, HOA President
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