The End of Geography: Information to Outsourcing

“The Internet Age has been hailed as the end of geography” (Castells, 2001).

Many times throughout history an invention or idea spreads over the whole world connecting the peoples and communities of the globe. Ideas advocating for independent thinking from the Enlightenment influenced the American Revolution which influenced the French Revolution. Ideas and movements connect people through ideologies that cause a change of one society as a result of a connection. The internet is unique in its ability of connecting communities of the world into one interconnected web of information, social connections, political connections and an emerging economic interdependence.
The internet was not originally intended for the interconnecting instrument of human communication and information that it has become. The internet in its earliest incarnation was called ARPANET a computer set up by the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1969 (Castells, 2001). The Advanced Research Projects Agency was developed by Defense Department of the United States of America as a way to surpass the Soviet Union intelligence community during the Cold War (Castells, 2001). The idea of the internet was the development of a “decentralized, flexible communication networkâÂ?¦able to survive a nuclear attackâÂ?¦” (Castells, 2001, p. 10). Originally the concept of the internet was a complex military tool of information sharing that would survive a nuclear attack by not has one base. Decentralization meant that there was not a target for destruction or sabotage for enemies.

At the beginning of the creation of the internet, grass roots computer operators were transforming the internet from a military-centered tool to a communications tool. Traditional computer net-workers starting using internet technology with bulletin board systems (BBS) in the late 1970s among college students in Chicago (Castells, 2001). From BBS UNIX connecting people sharing the same system through telephone lines and finally college students at Berkley connected the different systems so that users from different information sharing networks were all connected together (Castells, 2001).

Developing in academic setting the internet was a way to diffuse information in real time with the intent of informing and having an open dialogue of global information. By the end of the 1970s standardized systems were being used so that U.S. citizens were able to connect with citizen in various countries around the world. Later the Internet would jump from military and academic setting to a mass social tool. The internet became a tool for all people to share information and barriers to use were crumbled. The use of internet by the “masses” led to social change. Today physical standing libraries are a relic of the past as information and libraries are accessible on the internet. Susan Sharpless Smith says of the growth of internet based information, “The information environment has become more complex with the growth of online resources” implying that people have the ability to get information from the internet; not just sharing (2006, p.1). Today students have the ability to take place in distance learning where a student can take a class from a university or college from a different state or different country through the internet. Many colleges offer online courses and students never have to set foot upon the campus of the school they are attending. The availability of distance learning is changing education because access is higher than any other time in the history of the world. The internet has allowed for a revolution of information gathering and sharing that transcend any physical location. Today people from New York can find the latest research and information through web-based search engines and tools. People can distribute their information on websites and web pages. People can connect with students around the world and share files through the internet to get the most up-to-date information. The internet even allows for “voice over the internet” where students can transmit their voices like a telephone call over the net (Smith, 2006, p.32).

The internet has become a tool for participating in social and political movements around the globe. An example of how a political/social movement develops over the internet can be seen in the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. The Zapatista movement built support or its cause over the internet from the global community. A internet-based Mexican woman named La Neta gained support for her cause through the internet from the San Francisco Institute of Global Communications (Castells, 2001). Another infamous case of the use of the internet in the development of a social movement was in the Falun Gong movement of China where millions challenged the communist government of China (Castells, 2001). Li Hongzhi, the leader of the spiritual movement against the communist government was living in New York when he started his political/social movement. Hongzhi was able to unit his supporters in a real-time unified protest against their foe. The 1999 protest against the World Trade Organization (WTO) exemplifies the way the internet interconnects people because it brought so many different groups of people together in one cause. The internet allowed the American labor movement, women’s groups, pagan groups, and many other activists groups to have a dialogue to which a large protest was decided through the internet which result in a massive demonstration in Seattle in 1991 (Castells, 2001).

The internet has allowed for individual citizens to be connected through the internet in localized social movements. James Castells states of the interconnectedness of people through the internet “But throughout the world, and particularly in the developing world, hundreds of lesser known experiences brought on-line the interests, concerns, values, and voices of citizen, until then isolated among themselves and from their localized institutions” (2001, p. 144). Internet communities provided information for local associations like BBS and emails (Castells, 2001). The internet also allowed for local groups to share information had they not been online sharing information so easily. One of the key components of the spread of the technology even on a local level is the accessibility and ease of logging onto a computer and the capability to send out mass emails to hundreds of individuals at the same time.

Another social change as a result of the internet is the interconnectedness to individuals working at home to major corporations around the globe. Castells describes the new economic/social change of businesses, “The e-firm, on-line or off-line, is based on a flat hierarchy, a team work system, and open easy interaction between workers and managers across departments and between levels of the firm” (2001, p. 91). These changes in the way businesses run has created worker autonomy where people do not have to be physically in the same place as their company or work. The internet has allowed people to log onto their work from home allowing for more time spends with family. The increase of working at home has also allowed for more free time of workers because of the lack of driving time and the increase of monetary savings form travel. Businesses do not experience peak times for shopping because now people are not tied to a rigid work schedule that developed out of the industrialization of work.

The biggest change in global economic due to the internet is outsourcing. Outsourcing is making the world increasingly smaller and interconnected by the minute. Former MIT professor Michael Treacy says of outsourcing, “But our kids may find out later in their careers, he warned, that no job is sacred, and all work will eventually migrate to the place where it can be done best” (Margulius, 2006, p. 16). Treacy is describing the economic evolution out doing work where it is economically efficient and profitable without the barriers of geographic boundaries or languages. The internet has allowed for work to be transported to all areas of the globe that are connected via the web. Thomas Friedman states of an internet programming system, “And because Apache can be downloaded for free anywhere in the world, people from Russia to South Africa to Vietnam use it to create Web sites” (2005, p. 91). In today’s global economy people in Vietnam can compete with people in the U.S. or South Africa. The internet has eliminated the traditional political boundaries associated with economic success and placed it in the hands of the motivated and cheapest.

Places in the world where workers enjoy high pay are loosing jobs to those who will do the same jobs for cheaper wages. Thus far, approximately 25,000 jobs in the United Kingdom have been lost to outsourcing (BBC, 2006). The BBC goes on to report “The survey said India remained the most popular destination for off shoring, although many companies also based a second centre in countries including South Africa, China and Singapore. Worldwide, Deloitte said it expected 2 million financial services jobs to be outsourced to low-cost countries by 2010” (BBC, 2006). In the next four years UK economists expect to loose at least two million jobs to places that have traditionally not been at the forefront of economic power.

Thomas L. Friedman’s book The World is Flat proclaims that the world has been flattened and everyone placed on an even playing field economically because of the internet. Today there are about 245,000 Indians in call centers alone selling credit cards to Americans and doing other phone-based calling (Friedman, 2005). The United States has outsourced such things as tax preparation to medical imaging processing to customer service jobs to India. As the world becomes flatter computer programs are allowing people from around the world to do small parts of tasks minimizing the costs of jobs. Computer programs allow Indians to do small parts of a job and then sent back to the U.S. for the completion of a task. Medical images are being sent to India when American technicians are going to sleep because it is the morning in India (Friedman, 2005).
Outsourcing has not only affected U.S.-Indian economies, it has transformed Chinese and Japanese economies. Many of the same economic trends in the U.S. and India where a job is broken down into smaller components are being done by the Japanese and being sent to China. Historically the animosity between the two Asian countries has disappeared for the sake of economic prosperity (Friedman, 2006). One way that India has attracted international conglomerates has been the set up of satellite downlink stations in Bangalore so that companies can cheaply connect to the workforce in India (Friedman, 2006).
Off-shoring combined with outsourcing is bringing the world together in the creation of a global economy of interconnectedness. Friedman states of off-shoring where physical production of goods are moved for economic savings, “âÂ?¦by looking for alternative manufacturing center in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, or somewhere else in the developing world” (2006, p. 115) companies can reach out to places of the cheapest labor.

Outsourcing has interconnected the world so that there is a lack of centralization in the economic process, much like the internet itself. The global economy is fast becoming like the medium it has used so adequately. A person in Ohio can send their tax forms to their accountant in their home state and that accountant can send small pieces of the accounting work to India while a business in Japan sends all customer service calls to China are two example of outsourcing that is happening currently in the world. The predictions by economist in mainstream media are that outsourcing will increase and jobs will continue to be transferred to places where work is cheapest is a trend that will continue. Thomas L. Friedman’s book makes it clear that all jobs are subject to outsourcing which means that the world will be connected even further if predictions hold true. In today’s economy, a product or economic step is not done in one geographic place.

The internet which was intended for defense has transformed the world into a flattened equal playing field for economics, social movements and political structures. Countries and people have become dependent on each other for the production of goods and the completion of services. The internet has made the world a smaller place where co-workers can be from South Africa, China, India, and Vietnam. As the new century progresses and more people gain access to the internet and World Wide Web, the world will become more connected and dependent of each other.