The World is Flat 世界是平坦的

The World is Flat

Thomas L Friedman

To Matt and Kay and to Ron

世界是平坦的

——二十一世纪简史

作者：托马斯 L 弗里德曼

翻译：段胜全

此书敬至马特、凯和罗纳

 

译者按

托马斯．弗里德曼（Thomas Friedman）是《纽约时报》(New York Times)外事专栏作家，按照他的观点，我们正生活在3.0版全球化时代，在十大推土机的作用之下，世界变成了平坦的。在此书中他运用了大量的实例，生动了描述了当今世界正在起的变化，并描述了这些变化的动力，也许我们读来有些夸张。

这本书提供给中国读者一个开阔的视野，看待全球化和整个世界经济的方方面面。而撇开书中观点不谈，作者生动诙谐的语言能为读者留下深刻的印象，遗憾的是译者水平有限，时间仓卒，不能在译文中生动再现。

对于有兴趣但无耐心细读英文原著的读者，这篇译文可供浏览和参考之用，如有纰误，请读者留言斧正！

2006年1月27日

Contents

How the World Became Flat

One: While I Was Sleeping / 3

Two: The Ten Forces That Flattened the World / 48

Flattener#l. 11/9/89

Flattener #2. 8/9/95

Flattener #3. Work Flow Software

Flattener #4. Open-Sourcing

Flattener #5. Outsourcing

Flattener #6. Offshoring

Flattener #7. Supply-Chaining

Flattener #8. Insourcing

Flattener #9. In-forming

Flattener #10.

The Steroids 

Three: The Triple Convergence / 173

Four: The Great Sorting Out / 201

America and the Flat World

Five: America and Free Trade / 225

Six: The Untouchables / 237

Seven: The Quiet Crisis / 250

Eight: This Is Not a Test / 276

Developing Countries and the Flat World

Nine: The Virgin of Guadalupe / 309

Companies and the Flat World

Geopolitics and the Flat World

Ten:How Companies Cope

Eleven: The Unflat World / 371

Twelve: The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention / 414

Conclusion: Imagination

Thirteen: 11/9 Versus 9/11 / 441

Acknowledgments I 471 Index I 475

 

目录

世界是如何被碾平的

一：当我熟睡时  

二：碾平这个世界的十大推土机 

第一号推土机：一九八九年柏林墙倒塌

第二号推土机：一九九五年网景（Netscape）浏览器的诞生和先前一系列的计算机技术革命。

第三号推土机：工作流程整合的软件逐渐成熟

第四号推土机：开放原始码运动（open-sourcing）

第五号推土机：业务流程外包（outsourcing）

第六号推土机：境外生产（offshoring）

第七号推土机：供应链

第八号推土机：企业业务内包（insourcing）

第九号推土机：信息搜寻革命（In-forming）

第十号推土机：高科技工具带来的数字化、行动化、个人化、与虚拟实境化（digital, mobile, personal, and virtual）等趋势

三：三重汇合

四：重新定位

美国与扁平的世界

五：美国与三大贸易

六：世界法官

七：平静的危机

八：这不是试验

发展中国家与扁平的世界

九：圣女Guadalupe的童贞

公司与扁平的世界

地缘政治与扁平的世界

十：企业如何应对

十一：不平坦的世界

十二：戴尔的防制冲突的理论

结论：空想

十三：9．11与11．9

 

感谢

索引

 

:::::How the World Became Flat

::::: 世界是如何被碾平的

::::: ONE

While I Was Sleeping

:::::一  当我熟睡时

      Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary,but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that anyone has gone.

      尊敬的国王殿下，一个虔诚的天主教徒，反对伊斯兰教和一切异端邪教，决定派遣我，克里斯托弗．哥伦布，前往印度，去会见他们的王君、人民，了解他们的版图和部署，并设法让他们归属我们神圣的信仰；并且我将不依照惯例向东行进，而是向西，走一条没有人尝试过的路线到达那儿。

      - Entry from the journal of Christopher Columbus on his voyage of 1492 .

      ——摘自克里斯托弗．哥伦布1492年的航海日记

      No one ever gave me directions like this on a golf course before: "Aim at either Microsoft or IBM." I was standing on the first tee at the KGA Golf Club in downtown Bangalore, in southern India, when my playing partner pointed at two shiny glass-and-steel buildings off in the distance, just behind the first green. The Goldman Sachs building wasn't done yet; otherwise he could have pointed that out as well and made it a threesome. HP and Texas Instruments had their offices on the back nine, along the tenth hole. That wasn't all. The tee markers were from Epson, the printer company, and one of our caddies was wearing a hat from 3M. Outside, some of the traffic signs were also sponsored by Texas Instruments, and the Pizza Hut billboard on the way over showed a steaming pizza, under the headline "Gigabites of Taste!"

      “瞄准微软或者IBM。” 我的球友指着第一洞后面远处的两个玻璃与钢结构建筑对我说，当时，我正站在印度南部Bangalore市区的KGA高尔夫球场上，在第一杆的位置。之前从没有人给我这样的指引。Goldman Sachs大厦还没有建好，否则他也会把它算上，三个算一组。HP和德州仪器在后九洞，顺着第十洞的方向。这还不是全部，记分员是来自爱普生打印机公司的，一个球童戴着3M公司的帽子。外面一些交通指示牌是德州仪器赞助的，而路边必胜客的广告牌正呈现着一个热气腾腾的比萨饼，大标题是“无比美味！”

      No, this definitely wasn't Kansas. It didn't even seem like India. Was this the New World, the Old World, or the Next World?

      不，这显然不是堪萨斯州。这也不像是印度。这是新大陆，还是旧大陆，还是下一个大陆？

      I had come to Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, on my own Columbus-like journey of exploration. Columbus sailed with the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria in an effort to discover a shorter, more direct route to India by heading west, across the Atlantic, on what he presumed to be an open sea route to the East Indies-rather than going south and east around Africa, as Portuguese explorers of his day were trying to do. India and the magical Spice Islands of the East were famed at the time for their gold, pearls, gems, and silk-a source of untold riches. Finding this shortcut by sea to India, at a time when the Muslim powers of the day had blocked the overland routes from Europe, was a way for both Columbus and the Spanish monarchy to become wealthy and powerful. When Columbus set sail, he apparently assumed the Earth was round, which was why he was convinced that he could get to India by going west. He miscalculated the distance, though. He thought the Earth was a smaller sphere than it is. He also did not anticipate running into a landmass before he reached the East Indies. Nevertheless, he called the aboriginal peoples he encountered in the new world "Indians." Returning home, though, Columbus was able to tell his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, that although he never did find India, he could confirm that the world was indeed round.

      我去Bangalore市——也就是印度的硅谷，进行一次哥伦布式的探险。哥伦布同Nina、Pinta和Santa Maria一起向西航行穿过大西洋，努力发现一条更短更直接的路线到达印度，因为依据他的推理，大西洋是一个开放海域并通往东部印度，而不必像葡萄牙探险者当年从东南部绕过非洲。印度和东方神奇的香料岛屿当时以黄金、珍珠、珠宝和“软黄金”丝绸闻名于西方。

      在穆斯林力量封锁了前往印度的陆路的时代，发现了这条海上捷径，使得哥伦布与西班牙王室名利双收。哥伦布起航的时候，他显然假定地球是圆的，这样他就坚信自己可以通过向西到达印度。但是他没有算对距离。他认为的地球比实际的要小。在自己真的到达印度之前，他也没有意识到自己到达了一个新大陆。尽管这样，他管他在新大陆“印度”上遇到的土著叫做“印第安人”。

      尽管没有找到印度，回程之后，哥伦布仍可以告诉他的赞助人Ferdinand国王和Isabella王后，他确认世界真的是圆的。

      I set out for India by going due east, via Frankfurt. I had Lufthansa business class. I knew exactly which direction I was going thanks to the GPS map displayed on the screen that popped out of the armrest of my airline seat. I landed safely and on schedule. I too encountered people called Indians. I too was searching for the source of India's riches. Columbus was searching for hardware-precious metals, silk, and spices-the source of wealth in his day. I was searching for software, brainpower, complex algorithms, knowledge workers, call centers, transmission protocols, breakthroughs in optical engineering-the sources of wealth in our day. Columbus was happy to make the Indians he met his slaves, a pool of free manual labor.

      我向东出发前往印度，途经法兰克福。我乘坐汉莎航空公司(联邦德国)的商务航班。我知道我前进的精确方向，这借助于座位扶手伸出的屏幕上的GPS地图。我安全准时的着陆。我也遇到了印度人，我也在寻找印度的财富。哥伦布曾寻找他那个时代的财富——贵金属、丝绸和香料。而我寻找我这个年代的财富——软件、智囊、复合算法、知识工人、呼叫中心、传输协议、光学工程的突破。哥伦布热衷于把他见到的印第安人变成他的奴隶，免费的劳力来源。

      I just wanted to understand why the Indians I met were taking our work, why they had become such an important pool for the outsourcing of service and information technology work from America and other industrialized countries. Columbus had more than one hundred men on his three ships; I had a small crew from the Discovery Times channel that fit comfortably into two banged-up vans, with Indian drivers who drove barefoot. When I set sail, so to speak, I too assumed that the world was round, but what I encountered in the real India profoundly shook my faith in that notion. Columbus accidentally ran into America but thought he had discovered part of India. I actually found India and thought many of the people I met there were Americans. Some had actually taken American names, and others were doing great imitations of American accents at call centers and American business techniques at software labs.

      而我只是来寻找答案，为什么我所遇印度人会吸引我们的业务，为什么他们成为美国和其他工业国家的外包服务和信息技术工作的重要伙伴。哥伦布有三条船超过一百人。而我有两辆敞篷车和来自探索时代频道的一个小队，包括赤脚的印度司机。当我起航时，姑且这么说吧，我也假定世界是圆的，但是我见识的真实的印度却深深的震动了我对此的信仰。哥伦布偶然来到了美国却认为他遇到的是印度人。我真的来到印度后却认为我遇到的很多人都是美国人。有些人居然拥有美国名字，在呼叫中心的人说话十分的像美国口音，在软件园的人做事模仿美国的商务礼仪。

       Columbus reported to his king and queen that the world was round, and he went down in history as the man who first made this discovery. I returned home and shared my discover)' only with my wife, and only in a whisper.

       哥伦布向他的国王和王后报告世界是圆的，并且在历史上作为这个发现的第一人。而我回到家里只向我的妻子分享了我的发现，而且是悄悄话的方式。

     "Honey," I confided, "I think the world is flat."

    “亲爱的”我说，“我认为世界是平坦的。”

     How did I come to this conclusion? I guess you could say it all started in Nandan Nilekani's conference room at Infosys Technologies Limited. Infosys is one of the jewels of the Indian information technology world, and Nilekani, the company's CEO,is one of the most thoughtful and respected captains of Indian industry. I drove with the Discovery Times crew out to the Infosys campus, about forty minutes from the heart of Bangalore, to tour the facility and interview Nilekani. The Infosys campus is reached by a pockmarked road, with sacred cows, horse-drawn carts, and motorized rickshaws all jostling alongside our vans. Once you enter the gates of Infosys, though, you are in a different world. A massive resort-size swimming pool nestles amid boulders and manicured lawns, adjacent to a huge putting green. There are multiple restaurants an* * **bulous health club. Glass-and-steel buildings seem to sprout up like weeds each week. In some of those buildings, Infosys employees are writing specific software programs for American or European companies; in others, they are running the back rooms of major American- and  European-based  multinationals-everything from computer maintenance o specific research projects to answering customer calls routed there from all over the world. Security is tight, cameras monitor the doors, and if you are working for American Express, you cannot get into the building that is managing services and research for General Electric. Young Indian engineers, men and women, walk briskly from building to building, dangling ID badges. One looked like he could do my taxes. Another looked like she could take my computer apart. And a third looked like she designed it!

     我如何得出这个结论？我猜你会说这都得从Nandan Nilekani (印度系统技术有限公司总裁)在公司的会议室说起。Infosys是印度信息技术世界的一个明珠，而Nilekani，这家公司的CEO，是印度产业最有思想最受尊敬的领袖。我带领探索时代频道的小队来到Infosys厂区参观并会见Nilekani，从Bangalore市中心开车到这大约四十分钟。通往Infosys的厂区的是一条坑坑洼洼的路，神圣的牛群、马拉车、三轮摩托就在我们的敞篷车旁横冲直撞。而当你一旦跨进Infosys的大门，就是另外一个世界了。一个大的游泳池处在大石头和修剪一新的草坪环抱之中，紧邻着一大片平整的草地。那里有各种餐厅而且居然有一个健康俱乐部。玻璃与钢结构的建筑像发芽的草一样生长着。在这些建筑中，Infosys的工程师们在为美国或欧洲的公司编写着专门的程序；此外，他们运作着美国和欧洲跨国公司的后勤系统，针对电脑维护的一切问题，去研究解决方案，回答世界各地客户的热线。保安十分的严密，摄像头监控着每扇门，如果你在美国快递工作，你是不能进入为通用电器管理服务和研究的大楼的。年轻的印度工程师，男男女女，戴着ID工号牌，很精神地在大楼之间穿梭。一个像是能做我的税务，另一个像是能拆掉我的电脑，第三个像是她设计了它一样！

     After sitting for an interview, Nilekani gave our TV crew a tour of Info-sys's global conferencing center-ground zero of the Indian outsourcing industry. It was a cavernous wood-paneled room that looked like a tiered classroom from an Ivy League law school. On one end was a massive wall-size screen and overhead there were cameras in the ceiling for teleconferencing. "So this is our conference room, probably the largest screen in Asia-this is forty digital screens [put together]," Nilekani explained proudly, pointing to the biggest flat-screen TV I had ever seen. Infosys, he said, can hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So their American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. "We could be sitting here, somebody from New York, London, Boston, San Francisco, all live. And maybe the implementation is in Singapore, so the Singapore person could also be live here . . . That's globalization," said Nilekani. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the nfosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled US West, US East, GMT, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.  Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world," Nilekani explained. "What happened over the last [few] years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things." At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of software-e-mail, search engines like Google, and  proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore, and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, added Nilekani, they "created a platform where  ntellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced, and put back together again-and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature . . . And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together."

      会见结束后，Nilekani让我们的电视组成员们参观了Infosys的球形会议中心——印度外包工业的核心。这是一个巨大的木质墙面的大厅，像是常春藤法学院的一个扭曲的教室。它的一头是一个超大墙体屏幕，在顶上有摄像头用于远程会议。Nilekani 指着一块我所见过的最大的电视屏幕，骄傲的向我们解释：“这就是我们的会议室，可能是亚洲最大的屏幕——它是由四十块数字屏（拼在一起）组成的。”据他说，Infosys召集它的全球供应链的核心成员进行虚拟会议，可以在任何时间为任何项目通过那个超大的屏幕来完成。这样他们的美国工程师可以在屏幕上同时和他们的印度程序员和亚洲制造商交流。Nilekani说：“我们可以坐在这儿，而在纽约、伦敦、波士顿、旧金山的人，都可以现场直播看到。如果执行是在新加坡，那么新加坡的人也可以在这现场直播看到……这是全球化的。”在屏幕上方有八个时钟，形象的概括Infosy的工作日，即365天每周每天24小时。时钟上标记着“美国西部”、“美国东部”、“格林威治”（标准时间）、“印度”、“新加坡”、“香港”、“日本”、“澳大利亚”。

“外包只是当今世界经济本质的一个维度，” Nilekani解释说，“这几年大量资本投资于科技，特别是在‘泡沫经济时代’，数亿美元投资在了全球宽带联接、海底电缆这样的项目上。”同时，他补充，电脑价格越来越低廉并在全球普及，软件业也爆炸式的增长——电子邮件（E-mail），Google为代表的搜索引擎，和可以分解工作的专门软件：可以把分解完的工作发往波士顿、发往Bangalore、发往北京，使得远程开发十分容易。当这些东西在2000年左右集中出现的时候，Nilekani补充说,它们“创造了一个平台，通过这个平台，智力工作、脑力资本可以被传送到任何地方。它们可以被分解、传输、分配、生产，然后重新组合到一起。——这就为我们的工作特别是纯脑力工作，提供了更多的自由度……而你今天在Bangalore所见则是这些涌现的事物的颠峰表现。”

     We were sitting on the couch outside of Nilekani's office, waiting for the TV crew to set up its cameras. At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, "Tom, the playing field is being leveled." He meant that countries like India are now able to compete for global knowledge work as never before-and that America had better get ready for this. America was going to be challenged, but, he insisted, the challenge would be good for America because we are always at our best when we are being challenged. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: "The playing field is being leveled."

    我们坐在Nilekani办公室的床沿上，等待电视组架好摄像机。Nilekani说了一个成语，形象的比喻了所有这些事物，让我记忆犹新。他对我说：“汤姆，竞技场正在变平坦。” Nilekani是指像印度这样的国家前所未有的具备了参与全球知识经济竞争的能力，而美国最好有所准备。美国将受到挑战，不过他强调，挑战对美国是件好事因为挑战使人保持最佳状态。直到我离开Infosys的厂区沿路返回Bangalore时，我仍在考虑那句成语：“竞技场正在变平坦。”

    What Nandan is saying, I thought, is that the playing field is being flattened .. .Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!

    Nandan所说是指什么？我思考着，竞技场正在变平坦？平坦？平坦？哦我的天，他告诉我世界是平坦的！

     Here I was in Bangalore-more than five hundred years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round-and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was essentially telling me that the world was flat-as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a good thing, as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world-the fact that we had made our world flat!

     这时候我已经在Bangalore市了，——五百多年前，哥伦布用他那个年代不发达的航海术驶过海平面，并且安全返航来证明世界是圆的。——而五百多年后，印度最聪明的毕业于顶尖科技学院掌握了最先进的技术的工程师，却根本告诉我世界是平坦的——就像他用来举行全球会议的大屏幕一样平!更有意思的是，他把这种变化当作好事，比作人类发展的里程碑，印度和全世界的最大机遇——世界变平坦的真相！

     In the back of that van, I scribbled down four words in my notebook: "The world is flat." As soon as I wrote them, I realized that this was the underlying message of everything that I had seen and heard in Bangalore in two weeks of filming. The global competitive playing field was being leveled. The world was being flattened.

     在敞篷车的后排，我在我的笔记本上潦草的写下了六个字“世界是平坦的”。在写下它们的同时，我意识到这是我在Bangalore市拍摄的两周内所有见闻的潜信息。全球化竞争的竞技场正在变平坦，世界正在变平坦。

     As I came to this realization, I was filled with both excitement and dread. The journalist in me was excited at having found a framework to better understand the morning headlines and to explain what was happening in the world today. Clearly, it is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world-using computers, e-mail, networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software. That is what Nandan was telling me. That was what I discovered on my journey to India and beyond. And that is what this book is about. When you start to think of the world as flat, a lot of things make sense in ways they did not before. But I was also excited personally, because what the flattening of the world means is that we are now connecting all the knowledge centers on the planet together into a single global network, which-if politics and terrorism do not get in the way-could usher in an amazing era of prosperity and innovation.

     当我有了这个意识后，我的情绪里充满了激动和担心。做为记者的特性，我为找到了一个框架来更好的理解新闻头条和当今世界的事件而激动不已。很明显，现在越来越多的行业越来越多的人可以实时地和这个星球上的各个角落的人展开合作和竞争，而且竞争的起点比历史上任何一个时代都更加平等。——而工具则是电脑、E-mail、网络、远程会议和不断翻新的软件。这就是Nandan告诉我的，这就是我在印度和更多旅程中发现的，这就是这本书所要说的。当你用世界是平坦的观点来思考的时候，许多事情将豁然开朗。而且做为我个人，我也为此激动不已，因为世界变平坦意味着我们通过一个全球网络将地球上所有的知识岛屿连接到了一起，——无须通过政治和恐怖主义——这将引导着一个繁荣和变革的新时代出现。

     But contemplating the flat world also left me filled with dread, professional and personal. My personal dread derived from the obvious fact that it's not only the software writers and computer geeks who get empowered to collaborate on work in a flat world. It's also al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks. The playing field is not being leveled only in ways that draw in and superempower a whole new group of innovators. It's being leveled in a way that draws in and superempowers a whole new group of angry, frustrated, and humiliated men and women.

     但是用职业或个人的眼光，看着这个平坦的世界，同样使我充满了担心。我个人的担心源自一个很明显的事实：在平坦的世界，不是只有程序员和电脑怪客有合作的权利，这也有本．拉登（al-Qaeda）之类的恐怖主义网络存在。竞技场变平坦不仅仅是由于革新者群体和他们的特权的加入，这个过程同样有愤怒、失落甚至是人类的败类参与进来。

     Professionally, the recognition that the world was flat was unnerving because I realized that this flattening had been taking place while I was sleeping, and I had missed it. I wasn't really sleeping, but I was otherwise engaged. Before 9/11,1 was focused on tracking globalization and exploring the tension between the "Lexus" forces of economic integration and the "Olive Tree" forces of identity and nationalism-hence my 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. But after 9/11, the olive tree wars became all-consuming for me. I spent almost all my time traveling in the Arab and Muslim worlds. During those years I lost the trail of globalization.

     专业地来看，认识到世界是平坦的是底气不足的，因为我意识到在我熟睡的时候世界就被推平了，我错过了它。我的意思是我不是真的睡着了，我是在忙碌中错过了。在9．11之前，我在追踪全球化，和探索经济一体化的Lexus（一种汽车服务的全球标准）力量和油橄榄树绿色壁垒和民族主义力量之间的紧张平衡。——源自我在1999年出的书，《Lexus标准和油橄榄树壁垒》。但是9．11之后，油橄榄树之争全面扩大——消耗着我的精力。我花了几乎全部时间在阿拉伯和穆斯林世界里往来。在那几年功夫，我错过了全球化的踪迹。

     I found that trail again on my journey to Bangalore in February 2004. Once I did, I realized that something really important had happened while I was fixated on the olive groves of Kabul and Baghdad. Globalization had gone to a whole new level. If you put The Lexus and the Olive Tree and this book together, the broad historical argument you end up with is that that there have been three great eras of globalization. The first lasted from 1492-when Columbus set sail, opening trade between the Old World and the New World-until around 1800.1 would call this era Globalization 1.0. It shrank the world from a size large to a size medium. Globalization 1.0 was about countries and muscles. That is, in Globalization 1.0 the key agent of change, the dynamic force driving the process of global integration was how much brawn-how much muscle, how much horsepower, wind power, or, later, steam power-your country had and how creatively you could deploy it. In this era, countries and governments (often inspired by religion or imperialism or a combination of both) led the way in breaking down walls and knitting the world together, driving global integration. In Globalization 1.0, the primary questions were: Where does my country fit into global competition and opportunities? How can I go global and collaborate with others through my country? The second great era, Globalization 2.0, lasted roughly from 1800 to 2000, interrupted by the Great Depression and World Wars I and II. This era shrank the world from a size medium to a size small. In Globalization 2.0, the key agent of change, the dynamic force driving global integration, was multinational companies. These multinationals went global for markets and labor, spearheaded first by the expansion of the Dutch and English joint-stock companies and the Industrial Revolution. In the first half of this era, global integration was powered by falling transportation costs, thanks to the steam engine and the railroad, and in the second half by falling telecommunication costs-thanks to the diffusion of the telegraph, telephones, the PC, satellites, fiber-optic cable, and the early version of the World Wide Web. It was during this era that we really saw the birth and maturation of a global economy, in the sense that there was enough movement of goods and information from continent to continent for there to be a global market, with global arbitrage in products and labor. The dynamic forces behind this era of globalization were breakthroughs in hardware-from steamships and railroads in the beginning to telephones and mainframe computers toward the end. And the big questions in this era were: Where does my company fit into the global economy? How does it take advantage of the opportunities? How can I go global and collaborate with others through my company? The Lexus and the Olive Tree was primarily about the climax of this era, an era when the walls started falling all around the world, and integration, and the backlash to it, went to a whole new level. But even as the walls fell, there were still a lot of barriers to seamless global integration. Remember, when Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, virtually no one outside of government and the academy had e-mail, and when I was writing The Lexus and the Olive Tree in 1998,the Internet and e-commerce were just taking off.

     在2004年2月去Bangalore的旅程中，我重新找到了全球化的踪迹。与此同时，我意识到我紧盯着喀布尔(阿富汗的首都)的油橄榄树和巴格达时，世界发生了多么重要的变化。全球化上升到了一个新的层面。如果你把《Lexus标准和油橄榄树壁垒》（作者的前作）和这本书放在一起，那么关于历史广泛的争议将划上句号：全球化分为3个时代。第一个时代从1942年起——哥伦布起航，新老大陆之间的贸易，——直到1800年。我把这个时代叫做全球化1.0。它把世界由大变成中等大小。全球化1.0围绕国家与力量展开的。那是因为，在全球化1.0的关键因素，推动全球融合的力量大小取决于你的国家力量的多寡和它应用的形式，——人力、马力、风力包括更晚些时候的蒸气力。在这个年代，国家和政府（通常是宗教制或者帝国制或者二者兼具）采用征服的手段将这个世界连接到一起，推动全球化进程。在全球化1.0中，关键问题是：国家哪部分适合全球化的竞争和机会？国家如何和其它国家合作走向世界？

     第二个伟大的时代，全球化2.0，从1800年到2000年，其间被大萧条和一二次世界大战打断过。这个时代把世界由中等大小变小。全球化2.0变化的关键因素，推动全球融合的主要力量是跨国公司。这些跨国公司全球扩展寻求市场和劳动力，他们的先锋是荷兰人和英国人的合资公司和工业革命。在这个时代的前半段，全球化的动力是运输成本的下降，这得力于蒸气机和铁路，而在后半段，动力来自于通讯成本的下降，——得力于电报、电话、个人电脑、卫星通讯、光纤和早期万维网的普及。在这个时代，我们看到了真正全球经济的产生和成熟，因为通过全球产品和劳动力交易，国家之间有足够的物流和信息流来形成全球市场。这个时代的全球化背后的动力是机械硬件的突破——从开始的蒸气船和铁路到最后的电话和大型计算机。而且这个时代最大的问题是：公司如何适应全球化经济？如何在机会中得益？公司如何全球化并与其它公司合作？Lexus标准和油橄榄树壁垒反映了这个时代的颠峰表现，一个壁垒四处倒塌并且融合的时代，它的后续冲击使全球化上升到了一个全新水平。但是即使壁垒倒塌，仍然存在很多全球融合的障碍物。大家应该记得，布什．克林顿1992年当选时，政府和学院以外没有人拥有E-mail，当我1998年写《Lexus标准和油橄榄树壁垒》时，因特网和电子商务才刚刚起步。

     Well, they took off-along with a lot of other things that came together while I was sleeping. And that is why I argue in this book that around the year 2000 we entered a whole new era: Globalization 3.0. Globalization 3.0 is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0-the thing that gives it its unique character-is the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally. And the lever that is enabling individuals and groups to go global so easily and so seamlessly is not horsepower, and not hardware, but software- all sorts of new applications-in conjunction with the creation of a global fiber-optic network that has made us all next-door neighbors. Individuals must, and can, now ask, Where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American individuals and businesses. Even though China actually had the biggest economy in the world in the eighteenth century, it was Western countries, companies, and explorers who were doing most of the globalizing and shaping of the system. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Because it is flattening and shrinking the world, Globalization 3.0 is going to be more and more driven not only by individuals but also by a much more diverse - non-Western, non-white-group of individuals. Individuals from every corner of the flat world are being empowered. Globalization 3.0 makes it possible for so many more people to plug and play, and you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.

     是的，他们起步了——还有其它很多的事物一起——在我熟睡的时候起步了。这就是为什么我在这本书里要论证我们在2000年进入了一个全新的时代：全球化3.0。全球化3.0把世界由小变得更小，同时把它弄平，整得像个操场。全球化1.0的动力是国家全球化，全球化2.0的动力是公司全球化，全球化3.0的动力——也是它的特征——使个人参与到全球竞争合作之中的新生力量。平坦使得个人和团体可以轻松无间的全球化。而这平整的力量不是马力，不是机械力，而是软件——各种各样的程序——全球光纤的连接——光纤网络是我们都成了隔壁邻居。每个人现在都需要也必须回答一个问题，我那方面适合全球化的竞争和合作？我自己又如何同其它人全球化的合作？全球化3.0不同于其它时代，不仅在缩小和整平世界的方式，也在于它赋予个人权力的方式。它也不同于全球化1.0和全球化2.0由欧洲和美国的个人和商业发起。尽管在18世纪实际上是中国经济最发达，但是全球化和修整这个系统的还是西方的国家、公司和探险者。而且将来，这个影响将微乎其微。因为世界正在缩小和变平坦，全球化3.0将为更多的个人所推动——不限于西方，不限于白人。这个平坦的世界的任何一个角度里的人都有权力进入。全球化3.0让更多人参与成为可能，而每一种人类肤色都会出现，组成彩虹。

     (While this empowerment of individuals to act globally is the most important new feature of Globalization 3.0, companies-large and small-have been newly empowered in this era as well. I discuss both in detail later in the book.)

     （虽然个人全球化行为的准许是全球化3.0的最重要的新特征，但是大小公司在这个时代的新的准许也是新特征。我稍后会在这本书里详细分析。）

       Needless to say, I had only the vaguest appreciation of all this as I left Nandan's office that day in Bangalore. But as I sat contemplating these changes on the balcony of my hotel room that evening, I did know one thing: I wanted to drop everything and write a book that would enable me to understand how this flattening process happened and what its implications might be for countries, companies, and individuals. So I picked up the phone and called my wife, Ann, and told her, "I am going to write a book called The World Is Flat." She was both amused and curious-well, maybe more amused than curious! Eventually, I was able to bring her around, and I hope I will be able to do the same with you, dear reader. Let me start by taking you back to the beginning of my journey to India, and other points east, and share with you some of the encounters that led me to conclude the world was no longer round-but flat.

       不用说，我在Bangalore市离开Nandan的办公室时，对所见闻的一切满怀感激。但是当晚当我坐在宾馆阳台凝视这些变化时，我决定了一件事：我要放下一切去写一本书，让我来明白平坦化进程和它与国家、公司和个人的关联。所以我拿起电话打给我的妻子，安，告诉她：“我准备写一本书叫《世界是平坦的》。”她很高兴也很好奇，也许高兴比好奇多吧！最后，我让她信服了，我也希望我同样能说服你，亲爱的读者。让我带你回到我印度东方之旅的开始，来分享这些让我认定世界是平坦的而非圆的的遭遇吧。

      Jaithirth "Jerry" Rao was one of the first people I met in Bangalore and I hadn't been with him for more than a few minutes at the Leela Palace hotel before he told me that he could handle my tax returns and any other accounting needs I had-from Bangalore. No thanks, I demurred, I already have an accountant in Chicago. Jerry just smiled. He was too polite to say it-that he may already be my accountant, or rather my accountant's accountant, thanks to the explosion in the outsourcing of tax preparation.

     Jaithirth "Jerry" Rao（Mphasis软件和呼叫中心公司的主席）是我在Bangalore市遇见的第一人，在Leela皇家酒店，没过几分钟，他就告诉我他可以替我做税务或者其它会计——在Bangalore市。不，谢谢，我谢绝了，我在芝加哥已经有了一个会计。Jerry只是笑着，他非常客气的说，他可以做我的会计或者我会计的会计，感谢预算财务外包的增长。

     "This is happening as we speak," said Rao, a native of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, whose Indian firm, MphasiS, has a team of Indian accountants able to do outsourced accounting work from any state in America and the federal government. "We have tied up with several small and medium-sized CPA firms in America."

     “正如所言，” Rao说，他是个Mumbai市（前孟买市）的当地人，他有个印度公司叫MphasiS，拥有一个印度会计师团队，可以接美国的任何一个州和州政府的外包财务业务。“我们和美国的几家会计公司有捆绑合作。”

      "You mean like my accountant?" I asked. "Yes, like your accountant," said Rao with a smile. Rao's company has pioneered a work flow software program with a standardized format that makes the outsourcing of tax returns cheap and easy. The whole process starts, Jerry explained, with an accountant in the United States scanning my last year's tax returns, plus my W-2, W-4, 1099, bonuses, and stock statements-everything-into a computer server, which is physically located in California or Texas. "Now your accountant, if he is going to have your taxes done overseas, knows that you would prefer not to have your surname be known or your Social Security number known [to someone outside the country], so he can choose to suppress that information," said Rao. "The accountants in India call up all the raw information directly from the server in America [using a password], and they complete your tax returns, with you remaining anonymous. All the data stays in the U.S. to comply with privacy regulations. . . We take data protection and privacy very seriously. The accountant in India can see the data on his screen, but he cannot take a download of it or print it out-our program does not allow it. The most he could do would be to try to memorize it, if he had some ill intention. The accountants are not allowed to even take a paper and pen into the room when they are working on the returns." I was intrigued at just how advanced this form of service outsourcing had become. "We are doing several thousand returns," said Rao. What's more, "Your CPA in America need not even be in their office. They can be sitting on a beach in California and e-mail us and say, 'Jerrv> you are really good at doing New York State returns, so you do Tom's returns. And Sonia, you and your team in Delhi do the Washington and Florida returns.' Sonia, by the way, is working out of her house in India, with no overhead [for the company to pay]. 'And these others, they are really complicated, so I will do them myself."

      “你指像我的会计师那样？”我问。“是的，和你的会计师一样，”Rao笑着说。Rao的公司开发了一个标准化格式的工作流程软件，这使得税务外包工作简单价廉。Jerry解释说，整个流程是先从一个美国的会计师开始，先扫描我去年的税后收入，再加上W-2、W-4、1099、奖金和股票等等，把它们放在一个位于加州或德州的电脑主机上。“那么，你的会计师，如果他要在海外做你的帐目的话，应该知道你不想让别人知道你的姓名（被国外的人知道）。所以他可以选择禁止这部分信息，”Rao说，“在印度的会计师可以（通过密码）直接从美国的主机获取未加工的信息，然后完成税后收入，而且你是保持匿名状态的。根据保密原则，所有的数据都留在美国……我们采用数据保护，保密非常严格。印度的会计师可以在他的屏幕上看到数据，但是不能下载和打印——我们的程序不允许。如果他有恶意的话，他最多试着用脑子记。在做税务返还时，会计师甚至不允许带纸和笔进入房间。”我对这种外包服务的先进形式产生好奇。“我们在进行几千个税务返还。”Rao说。具体点，“在美国的会计师甚至不需要在办公室。他们可以坐在加州的海滩上用e-mail写信给我们，说‘jerrv>你最好做一下纽约政府的返还，再做一下Tom的，Sonia，你和你在德里的小组做华盛顿和佛罗里达的返还’顺便提一下，Sonia在印度公司外的家里工作，无须管理费用（公司要负担的）。‘其它的太复杂了，我自己做’。”

      In 2003, some 25,000 U.S. tax returns were done in India. In 2004, the number was 100,000. In 2005, it is expected to be 400,000. In a decade, you will assume that your accountant has outsourced the basic preparation of your tax returns-if not more.

      在2003年，有25,000美国税务返还是在印度做的。在2004年，这个数字上升到恶劣100,000。在2005年预计会达到400,000。在未来十年，你可以假设你的会计师外包了税务返还的基本预算——也许没那么夸张。

     "How did you get into this?" I asked Rao.

    “你是怎么进入（这个领域）的？”我问Rao。

     "My friend Jeroen Tas, a Dutchman, and I were both working in California for Citigroup," Rao explained. "I was his boss and we were coming back from New York one day together on a flight and I said that I was planning to quit and he said, 'So am I.' We both said, 'Why don't we start our own business?' So in 1997-98, we put together a business plan to provide high-end Internet solutions for big companies. . . Two years ago, though, I went to a technology convention in Las Vegas and was approached by some medium-size [American] accounting firms, and they said they could not afford to set up big tax outsourcing operations to India, but the big guys could, and [the medium guys] wanted to get ahead of them. So we developed a software product called VTR- Virtual Tax Room-to enable these medium-size accounting firms to easily outsource tax returns."

      “我的朋友Jeroen Tas，一个荷兰人，曾和我一起在加州Citigroup公司（全球最大的金融服务集团）工作，”Rao解释，“我是他的上司，一天我和他一同乘坐飞机从纽约赶回来，我说我准备辞职，他说‘我也是！’我们同时说‘我们自己干如何？’所以在1997-98年间，我们合伙展开了一个向大公司提供高端互联网解决方案的商业蓝图……而两年前，我参加了在纳斯维加斯的一个技术大会，接触了一些中型的（美国）税务公司，他们说他承担不起在印度的大的会计外包运作，而大公司可以，但是他们（中型税务公司）想超过他们。所以我们开发了一个软件叫VTR-虚拟税务所——来方便这些中型会计公司外包税务返还。”

     These midsize firms "are getting a more level playing field, which they were denied before," said Jerry. "Suddenly they can get access to the same advantages of scale that the bigger guys always had."

     这些中型公司“得到了更平的竞技场，以前他们被拒之门外，”Jerry说，“突然间他们等比的得到以前大公司才有的好处。”

     Is the message to Americans, "Mama, don't let your kids grow up to be accountants"?I asked.

     这是给美国的信息吗，（告诉它）“妈妈，别人你的孩子长大做会计”？我问。

     Not really, said Rao. "What we have done is taken the grunt work. You know what is needed to prepare a tax return? Very little creative work. This is what will move overseas."

     不尽然，Rao说，“我们只是取走了烦恼的劳动。你需要知道一张纳税单要准备什么吗（不需要。）？不需要创造性工作，将被转往国外。”

      "What will stay in America?" I asked.

      “那美国留下什么呢？”我问。

      "The accountant who wants to stay in business in America will be the one who focuses on designing creative complex strategies, like tax avoidance or tax sheltering, managing customer relationships," he said. "He or she will say to his clients, 'I am getting the grunt work done efficiently far away. Now let's talk about how we manage your estate and what you are going to do about your kids. Do you want to leave some money in your trusts?' It means having the quality-time discussions with clients rather than running around like chickens with their heads cut off from February to April, and often filing for extensions into August, because they have not had the quality time with clients." Judging from an essay in the journal Accounting Today (June 7, 2004), this does, indeed, seem to be the future. L. Gary Boomer, a CPA and CEO of Boomer Consulting in Manhattan, Kansas, wrote, "This past [tax] season produced over 100,000 [outsourced] returns and has now expanded beyond individual returns to trusts, partnerships and corporations . . . The primary reason that the industry has been able to scale up as rapidly as it has over the past three years is due to the investment that these [foreign-based] companies have made in systems, processes and training." There are about seventy thousand accounting grads in India each year, he added, many of whom go to work for local Indian firms starting at $100 a month. With the help of high-speed communications, stringent training, and standardized forms, these young Indians can fairly rapidly be converted into basic Western accountants at a fraction of the cost. Some of the Indian accounting firms even go about marketing themselves to American firms through teleconferencing and skip the travel. Concluded Boomer, "The accounting profession is currently in transformation. Those who get caught in the past and resist change will be forced deeper into commoditization. Those who can create value through leadership, relationships and creativity will transform the industry, as well as strengthen relationships with their existing clients."

      “美国商业留下的会计师将专注于复杂策略的设计，如合理避税或减税，客户关系管理，”他说，“他们会对他们的客户说，‘我让低级工作在远方高效完成。现在让我们谈谈如何管理你的不动产和你孩子的打算。你想托管一部分资金吗？’这意味着工作质量——用时间和客户交流，而不是从二月到四月像没头的鸡一样团团转，到了八月又整理档案，因为他们没有高质量的时间陪客户。”从《今日财会》杂志的一篇文章（6月7日，2004年）里判断，确实是这样，看上去是未来的趋势。L. Gary Boomer，注册会计师， Boomer 咨询公司的总裁（公司地处堪萨斯州曼哈顿市），写道：“刚过去的（税务）旺季产生了超过100,000个（外包）税务返还，现在扩展到个人信用返还，合伙人和公司……这个行业近三年来持续高增长的首要原因要归结于这些（外资）公司在系统、程序和培训上的投资。”印度每年都增加七万左右的会计毕业生，他补充，他们中的大部分在印度本地企业工作，月薪100美金。借助于高速通信，严格训练和标准形式，这些年轻的印度人通过很小的成本就可以迅速彻底的转变成初级的西方会计师。部分的印度会计公司甚至通过远程会议的形式着手他们在美国公司的市场，无须出差。Boomer推断，“会计职业正在转变。顽固守旧抵抗变革的人将在大量普及化中越陷越深。而通过领导、关系和创造力创造财富的人将改变这个行业，并能加强他们与客户的关系。”

     What you're telling me, I said to Rao, is that no matter what your profession-doctor, lawyer, architect, accountant-if you are an American, you better be good at the touchy-feely service stuff, because anything that can be digitized can be outsourced to either the smartest or the cheapest producer, or both. Rao answered, "Everyone has to focus on what exactly is their value-add."

     你告诉我的这些，我对Rao说，是不管你是什么职业——医生、律师、建筑师、会计师——只要你是美国人，你最好擅长人际互动服务素材，因为任何可以数字化的东西都可能外包，物美或价廉，或价廉物美。Rao回答说，“每个人都关注他们追价值这块。”

    But what if I am just an average accountant? I went to a state university. I had a B+ average. Eventually I got my CPA. I work in a big accounting firm, doing a lot of standard work. I rarely meet with clients.

    但是如果我只是一个普通的会计师呢？读州立大学，平均成绩是B+，最后拿到了会计师学位。接着在一家大型会计公司工作，做大量的标准工作，很少见到客户。

 

     They keep me in the back. But it is a decent living and the firm is basically happy with me. What is going to happen to me in this system?

     他们让我在后台工作。不过这是个体面的生活，公司对我也基本满意。那么接下来我在这个系统会发生什么？

      "It is a good question," said Rao. "We must be honest about it. We are in the middle of a big technological change, and when you live in a society that is at the cutting edge of that change [like America], it is hard to predict. It's easy to predict for someone living in India. In ten years we are going to be doing a lot of the stuff that is being done in America today. We can predict our future. But we are behind you. You are defining the future. America is always on the edge of the next creative wave ... So it is difficult to look into the eyes of that accountant and say this is what is going to be. We should not trivialize that. We must deal with it and talk about it honestly ... Any activity where we can digitize and decompose the value chain, and move the work around, will get moved around. Some people will say, Yes, but you can't serve me a steak.' True, but I can take the reservation for your table sitting anywhere in the world, if the restaurant does not have an operator. We can say, Yes, Mr. Friedman, we can give you a table by the window.' In other words, there are parts of the whole dining-out experience that we can decompose and outsource. If you go back and read the basic economics textbooks, they will tell you: Goods are traded, but services are consumed and produced in the same place. And you cannot export a haircut. But we are coming close to exporting a haircut, the appointment part. What kind of haircut do you want? Which barber do you want? All those things can and will be done by a call center far away."

      “问得好，”Rao说，“我们必须正视它。我们生活在科技革新之中，当你生活在一个革新前沿的社会中时（如美国），这很难预料。但生活在印度就容易些。未来十年我们要做的就是现在美国自己做的素材工作。我们可以预测自己的未来。但是我们在你们之后，你们定义未来。美国始终站在下一波创新的浪尖上……所以很难洞察会计行业并预言它的将来。我们不能漠视它，必须认真的探讨和应对它。……价值链中任何可以数字化分解的地方都会被分解外包。有些人可能说：‘不错，但是你不能给我传一个烤鱼片。’是的，但是即使饭店没有店长，我也可以接受你在世界任何地方的订座。我们会说，‘好的，弗里德先生，我们帮您订靠窗的桌子。’换言之，部分的外部订餐流程是可以分解外包的。如果你回去看看基础经济学教材，它们会告诉你：商品和贸易，但是服务是在同一地点生产的同时被消费的。比如你不能出口理发。但是我们能出口理发的剪刀和手艺，指定的那部分。你需要什么样的理发剪什么样的理发师？所有的这些事情会要也将要在远方的一个呼叫中心完成。”

     As we ended our conversation, I asked Rao what he is up to next. He was full of energy. He told me he'd been talking to an Israeli company that is making some big advances in compression technology to allow for easier, better transfers of CAT scans via the Internet so you can quickly get a second opinion from a doctor half a world away. A few weeks after I spoke with Rao, the following e-mail arrived from Bill Brody, the president of Johns Hopkins University, whom I had just interviewed for this book: Dear Tom, I am speaking at a Hopkins continuing education medical meeting for radiologists (I used to be a radiologist) ... I came upon a very fascinating situation that I thought might interest you. I have just learned that in many small and some medium-size hospitals in the US, radiologists are outsourcing reading of CAT scans to doctors in India and Australia!!! Most of this evidently occurs at night (and maybe weekends) when the radiologists do not have sufficient staffing to provide in-hospital coverage. While some radiology groups will use teleradiology to ship images from the hospital to their home (or to Vail or Cape Cod, I suppose) so that they can interpret images and provide a diagnosis 24/7, apparently the smaller hospitals are shipping CAT scan images to radiologists abroad. The advantage is that it is daytime in Australia or India when it is nighttime here-so after-hours coverage becomes more readily done by shipping the images across the globe. Since CAT (and MRI) images are already in digital format and available on a network with a standardized protocol, it is no problem to view the images anywhere in the world ... I assume that the radiologists on the other end . . . must have trained in [the] US and acquired the appropriate licenses and credentials. . . The groups abroad that provide these after-hours readings are called "Nighthawks" by the American radiologists that employ them. Best, Bill Thank goodness I'm a journalist and not an accountant or a radiologist. There will be no outsourcing for me-even if some of my readers wish my column could be shipped off to North Korea. At least that's what I thought. Then I heard about the Reuters operation in India. I didn't have time to visit the Reuters office in Bangalore, but I was able to get hold of Tom Glocer, the CEO of Reuters, to hear what he was doing. Glocer is a pioneer in the outsourcing of elements of the news supply chain. With 2,300 journalists around the world, in 197 bureaus, serving a market including investment bankers, derivatives traders, stockbrokers, newspapers, radio, television, and Internet outlets, Reuters has always had a very complex audience to satisfy. After the dot-com bust, though, when many of its customers became very cost-conscious, Reuters started asking itself, for reasons of both cost and efficiency: Where do we actually need our people to be located to feed our global news supply chain? And can we actually disaggregate the work of a journalist and keep part in London and New York and shift part to India?

     结束会谈时，我问Rao他下一步准备做什么。他来精神了。他告诉他正在和一家以色列公司谈判，这家公司在压缩技术上有重大进展，可以使CAT scans（计算机X射线轴向分层造影扫描图）在因特网上更简单更好的传输，这样就可以即时的获知半个地球外的医生的判断了。我同Rao谈话几周后，接着收到了Bill Brody的e-mail，他是约翰-霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins University）的校长，我为这本书也拜访了他。e-mail写道：你好汤姆，我要在为放射学者召开的霍普金斯继续教育医学会议上讲话（我曾是个放射学者）……我偶然遇到了一个令人着魔的情形，我想你也会感兴趣。我刚发现在美国的许多小医院和部分中型医院里，放射科医生把分析CAT scans（计算机X射线轴向分层造影扫描图）的工作外包给了印度和澳大利亚的医生！！这些绝大部分安排在夜晚（也许周末也有），这时候放射科没有足够的人值勤——医院的规模（限制）。那么部分放射科医组人员使用远程放射手段将图像从医院传输到自己家里（我假设它是传往Vail（希腊著名海滩）或者 Cape Cod（美国国家自然海滩）），这样他们就可以解释图像并每周7天24小时提供诊断，显然更小的医院把扫描图像传给了海外的放射医生。这样的好处是这的晚上恰好是印度和澳大利亚的白天，在业务时间把图像输往国外使得工作变得更轻松。自从CAT（和MRI核磁共振成像）数字图像通过标准协议在网络上可用的时候，世界上任何地方看到这些图像都没问题……我想另一头的放射科医生……定在美国受过训练并获得相关的信任许可……这些在国外提供观察的医组人员被在美国的放射科雇主称为“夜鹰”。

     还好Bill，感谢上天我是个记者不是会计师或放射科医生。我没有什么要外包的——哪怕我的一些读者希望我的栏目能运往韩国。至少我是这么想的。当我听说印度路透社的运作时，我甚至没有时间参观路透社在Bangalore市的办公地点，但是我能赶上Tom Glocer，路透社的主席，去听听他在干什么。Glocer是新闻供应链外包原理的先行者。通过世界各地的197个记者站、2300名记者服务于一个市场，包括投资银行家、衍生商业、股票经纪人、报纸发行人、电台、电视和因特网出口，路透社满足着非常复杂的听众群体的需求。dot-com bust之后，它的许多客户成本意识越来越强，路透社开始探讨自己，寻找成本与效率的原因：我们新闻供应链中的何处是我们客户实际需要的定位？我们能够真正分解记者的工作并保留部分在伦敦和纽约转移另一部分去印度吗？

     Glocer started by looking at the most basic bread-and-butter function Reuters provides, which is breaking news about company earnings and related business developments, every second of every day. "Exxon comes out with its earnings and we need to get that as fast possible up on screens around the world: 'Exxon earned thirty-nine cents this quarter as opposed to thirty-six cents last quarter.' The core competency there is speed and accuracy," explained Glocer. "You don't need a lot of analysis. We just need to get the basic news up as fast as possible. The flash should be out in seconds after the company releases, and the table [showing the recent history of quarterly earnings] a few seconds later."

     Glocer从路透社提供的最基本的生存职能着眼开始，即每一天每一秒都爆出的新闻，内容关于公司收益和相关商业发展的。“EXXON（美国最大的石油公司，世界上最大的私营公司之一）公布了它的收益，我们要尽最快把它公布到全世界的屏幕上：‘EXXON（股票）这个季度值39（美）分，打破了上个季度的36（美）分。’这个核心能力就是速度和准确，” Glocer解释说，“你不需要许多分析。我们只是需要得到要闻，越快越好。Flash（头条）在公司公布之后几秒钟就闪出来，之后几秒出现表格（展现近期季度收益）。”

     Those sorts of earnings flashes are to the news business what vanilla is to the ice cream business-a basic commodity that actually can be made anywhere in the flat world. The real value-added knowledge work happens in the next five minutes. That is when you need a real journalist who knows how to get a comment from the company, a comment from the top two analysts in the field, and even some word from competitors to put the earnings report in perspective. "That needs a higher journalistic skill set-someone in the market with contacts, who knows who the best industry analysts are and has taken the right people to lunch," said Glocer.

     这些各种各样的收益Flash（头条）对于商业就像香草之于冰激凌行业一样——事实上在平坦的世界任何地方都可以做出来的一个基本日用品。接下来的五分钟是真正追加价值的脑力工作。那是你真正需要记者的时候，他来获得公司的评论、获得这个领域两个顶尖的评论家的评论，乃至一些竞争对手的话，来使这篇报道有深度。“这需要更高的新闻技巧，接触这个市场，知道谁是这个行业最好的评论家，与合适的人共进午餐（采访合适的人）。” Glocer说。

     The dot-com bust and the flattening of the world forced Glocer to rethink how Reuters delivered news-whether it could disaggregate the functions of a journalist and ship the low-value-added functions to India. His primary goal was to reduce the overlap Reuters payroll, while preserving as many good journalism jobs as possible. "So the first thing we did," said Glocer, "was hire six reporters in Bangalore as an experiment. We said, 'Let's let them just do the flash headlines and the tables and whatever else we can get them to do in Bangalore.'"

     dot-com bust和世界的平坦迫使Glocer重新思考路透社如何传递新闻——是否可能分解记者的职能并将低附加值的职能转移到印度。他的第一个目标是减少路透社的雇员，直到保留尽可能好的记者工作。“那么我们做的第一件事，”Glocer说，“就是在Bangalore聘用六个记者做为尝试。我们说，‘就让他们在Bangalore做flash头条和表格和我们交给他们其它事情。’”

    These new Indian hires had accounting backgrounds and were trained by Reuters, but they were paid standard local wages and vacation and health benefits. "India is an unbelievably rich place for recruiting people, not only with technical skills but also financial skills," said Glocer. When a company puts out its earnings, one of the first things it does is hand it to the wires-Reuters, Dow Jones, and Bloomberg-for distribution. "We will get that raw data," he said, "and then it's a race to see how fast we can turn it around. Bangalore is one of the most wired places in the world, and although there's a slight delay-one second or less-in getting the information over there, it turns out you can just as easily sit in Bangalore and get the electronic version of a press release and turn it into a story as you can in London or New York." The difference, however, is that wages and rents in Bangalore are less than one-fifth what they are in those Western capitals.

     这些印度新雇员有会计背景在路透社接受训练，但是他们享受当地的标准工资、假期和健康福利。“对于招聘的人来说，印度是不可思议的富矿，不仅有技术技能而且有财务技能，” Glocer说。当一个公司公布它的收益，那么它做的第一件事就是把它挂到通讯上——路透社，道琼斯，彭博环球（美国著名的新闻传媒）——来发行。“我们得到这个原始数据，”他说，“之后就是一个竞赛去看我们怎么快速的把它散布出去。Bangalore是世界通讯最敏感的地方之一，尽管那里得到信息有一点延迟—— 一秒或不到，坐在Bangalore把一篇电视新闻稿编成故事和在伦敦和纽约一样容易。”然而，不同的是，Bangalore的工资和租金是那些西方城市的1/5不到。

      While economics and the flattening of the world have pushed Reuters down this path, Glocer has tried to make a virtue of necessity. "We think we can off-load commoditized reporting and get that done efficiently somewhere else in the world," he said, and then give the conventional Reuters journalists, whom the company is able to retain, a chance to focus on doing much higher-value-added and personally fulfilling journalism and analysis. "Let's say you were a Reuters journalist in New York. Do you reach your life's fulfillment by turning press releases into boxes on the screen, or by doing the analysis?" asked Glocer. Obviously, it is the latter. Outsourcing news bulletins to India also allows Reuters to extend the breadth of its reporting to more small-cap companies, companies it was not cost-efficient for Reuters to follow before with higher-paid journalists in New York. But with lower-wage Indian reporters, who can be hired in large numbers for the cost of one reporter in New York, it can now do that from Bangalore. By the summer of 2004, Reuters had grown its Bangalore content operation to three hundred staff, aiming eventually for a total of fifteen hundred. Some of those are Reuters veterans sent out to train the Indian teams, some are reporters filing earnings flashes, but most are journalists doing slightly more specialized data analysis-number crunching-for securities offerings. "A lot of our clients are doing the same thing," said Glocer. "Investment research has had to have huge amounts of cost ripped out of it, so a lot of firms are using shift work in Bangalore to do bread-and-butter company analysis." Until recently the big Wall Street firms had conducted investment research by spending millions of dollars on star analysts and then charging part of their salaries to their stockbrokerage departments, which shared the analysis with their best customers, and part to their investment banking business, which sometimes used glowing analyses of a company to lure its banking business. In the wake of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's investigations into Wall Street practices, following several scandals, investment banking and stockbrokerage have had to be distinctly separated-so that analysts will stop hyping companies in order to get their investment banking. But as a result, the big Wall Street investment firms have had to sharply reduce the cost of their market research, all of which has to be paid for now by their brokerage departments alone. And this created a great incentive for them to outsource some of this analytical work to places like Bangalore. In addition to being able to pay an analyst in Bangalore about $15,000 in total compensation, as opposed to $80,000 in New York or London, Reuters has found that its India employees tend to be financially literate and highly motivated as well. Reuters also recently opened a software development center in Bangkok because it turned out to be a good place to recruit developers who had been overlooked by all the Western companies vying for talent in Bangalore.

      虽然经济和世界的平坦将路透社推上了这条路，Glocer还是尝试把不得已的事做出些意义来。“我们认为可以放下日常报道，让它在世界其它地方做得更有效率些，”他说，接下来给公司留下的常规记者一个机会，让他们集中亲自完成更多追加价值的报道和分析。“我们在纽约称你们为路透社记者，你们通过什么达成了人生满足？把新闻稿投入电视，还是做分析？” Glocer问道。显然是后者。向印度外包新闻报道也使路透社扩展了它的报道范围，更多的小公司，之前对于路透社不愿意花费成本让纽约的记者去追踪的。但是现在使用低工资的印度记者就可以在Bangalore做到，因为一个纽约的记者的成本可以雇佣很多个印度记者。2004年夏天，路透社在Bangalore的分部发展到了300人，最终目标是1500人。他们有些是路透社派出的有经验的老记者来培训印度团队的，有些是整理收益Flash（头条）的记者，但大部分是做专门数据分析的记者——数据分解——提供给证券业。“我们的许多客户在做同样的事情，” Glocer说，“投资分析不得不花费大量的成本，所以很多公司采用转移工作到Bangalore的方法，来做基本的公司分析。”直到最近华尔街的大公司们在投资分析上花费数百万美金在明星分析家身上，他们薪水的一部分付给了他们的证券经纪商，他们向最好的客户分享分析家，一部分付给了他们的投资银行商，他们常常利用一个公司明星分析家来吸引它的银行业务。在纽约州首席检察官Eliot Spitzer调查华尔街操作之后，紧随而来几件丑闻，银行投资和证券交易不得不明确分开——这样分析家就不能欺骗公司来对银行投资了。但是结果是，华尔街的投资公司不得不急剧减少他们的市场研究成本，现在这些全部要由他们的经纪部门单独支付。这刺激着他们去把部分分析工作外包给像Bangalore的地方。此外，Bangalore的一个分析家全部支付只要15,000美金，相比纽约和伦敦要80,000美金，路透社发现它的印度雇员也趋向金融文化和高度激发的。路透社最近还在曼谷开设了一个软件发展中心，因为它变成了开发者招募在Bangalore西方公司错过天才的良土。

      I find myself torn by this trend. Having started my career as a wire service reporter with United Press International, I have enormous sympathy with wire service reporters and the pressures, both professional and financial, under which they toil. But UPI might still be thriving today as a wire service, which it is not, if it had been able to outsource some of its lower-end business when I started as a reporter in London twenty-five years ago.

     我发现自己为这个趋势所冲破。我的事业从美国合众国际新闻社的通讯员开始，我非常同情通讯员和他们的压力——职业的和财力的——相对他们的辛苦而言。但是合众社现在仍然做为一个通讯社兴亡着，如果它能在25年前外包它的一些基础商务，它现在就不是这样了，当时我刚开始在伦敦做一名记者。

      "It is delicate with the staff," said Glocer, who has cut the entire Reuters staff by roughly a quarter, without deep cuts among the reporters. The Reuters staff, he said, understand that this is being done so that the company can survive and then thrive again. At the same time, said Glocer, "these are sophisticated people out reporting. They see that our clients are doing the exact same things. They get the plot of the story . . . What is vital is to be honest with people about what we are doing and why and not sugarcoat the message. I firmly believe in the lesson of classical economists about moving work to where it can be done best. However, we must not ignore that in some cases, individual workers will not easily find new work. For them, retraining and an adequate social safety net are needed."

      “对待雇员很棘手” Glocer说，他裁掉了路透社全体雇员的大约1/4，没有深入到记者。他说，路透社雇员理解这样做是为了公司生存和再度兴亡。同时，“有久经世故的老手从记者中出局。他们看到我们的客户在做几乎一样的事情。他们熟知了编故事的套路……至关重要的是开诚布公告诉人们我们在做什么。我坚信古典经济学关于工作转移到做的最好的地方的课程。然而我们不能忽视一些情况，工人找新工作不容易。他们需要再培训和足够的社保。”

     In an effort to deal straight with the Reuters staff, David Schlesinger, who heads Reuters America, sent all editorial employees a memo, which included the following excerpt: Off-shoring with Obligation I grew up in New London, Connecticut, which in the 19th century was a major whaling center. In the 1960's and 70's the whales were long gone and the major employers in the region were connected with the military-not a surprise during the Vietnam era. My classmates' parents worked at Electric Boat, the Navy and the Coast Guard. The peace dividend changed the region once again, and now it is best known for the great gambling casinos of Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods and for the pharmaceutical researchers of Pfizer. Jobs went; jobs were created. Skills went out of use; new skills were required. The region changed; people changed. New London, of course, was not unique. How many mill towns saw their mills close; how many shoe towns saw the shoe industry move elsewhere; how many towns that were once textile powerhouses now buy all their linens from China? Change is hard. Change is hardest on those caught by surprise. Change is hardest on those who have difficulty changing too. But change is natural; change is not new; change is important. The current debate about off-shoring is dangerously hot. But the debate about work going to India, China and Mexico is actually no different from the debate once held about submarine work leaving New London or shoe work leaving Massachusetts or textile work leaving North Carolina. Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently. That ultimately helps the New Londons, New Bedfords and New Yorks of this world even more than it helps the Bangalores and Shenzhens. It helps because it frees up people and capital to do different, more sophisticated work, and it helps because it gives an opportunity to produce the end product more cheaply, benefiting customers even as it helps the corporation. It's certainly difficult for individuals to think about "their" work going away, being done thousands of miles away by someone earning thousands of dollars less per year. But it's time to think about the opportunity as well as the pain, just as it's time to think about the obligations of off-shoring as well as the opportunities. . . Every person, just as every corporation, must tend to his or her own economic destiny, just as our parents and grandparents in the mills, shoe shops and factories did.

     出于平等对待路透社雇员，David Schlesinger，美国路透社领导，给了所有的编辑一个备忘录，包括如下的摘录：负债出海，我在“新伦敦”康涅狄格长大，19世纪的捕鲸中心。在1960年代和70年代，鲸鱼远去，而地方上的主要雇主同军方有了联系——在越战年代不足为奇。我同学的父母在电动船上工作，做为海军和海岸警卫队。和平津贴再一次改变了这个地区，现在它由Mohegan Sun和 Foxwoods这样的赌场和Pfizer制药公司而闻名。也带来了工作，或创造了工作。一些技能渐被淘汰，新的技能产生。地方变了，人也变了。当然“新伦敦”不是唯一这样的。多少磨坊城镇看着他们的磨坊关闭，多少鞋的城镇看着鞋业移往别处，多少城镇曾是纺织的基地，而现在麻布都从中国购买？转变是艰难的。对于遭遇突变的，对于有难点的，转变是更艰难的。但是转变是自然规律，它不是新事物，它是非常重要的。现在关于离岸工作的争论非常火热。但是关于工作转往印度、中国和墨西哥的争论本质上同潜水工作离开伦敦或鞋业离开马萨诸塞州或纺织业离开北部卡罗莱纳州是没有区别的。工作在最有效的地方完成。这对新伦敦、新贝德福德和新纽约的帮助甚至大于对Bangalores、深圳的帮助。它的帮助在于它解放了人们和资本去做不同的、更精细的工作，在于它创造了更经济的制造最终产品的机会，给顾客带来好处，最终使企业受益。当然个人很难理解“他们”的工作走开了，并在数千里以外被每年少拿几千美元的人干着。但是也是时候考虑伴随痛苦而来的机会，就像是时候考虑离岸的义务和机会一样……每个人，每个公司，必须归依他们自己的经济命运，就像我们的父母祖辈在磨坊、鞋厂和工厂那样。

     "The Monitor Is Burning?"

     Do you know what an Indian call center sounds like? While filming the documentary about outsourcing, the TV crew and I spent an evening at the Indian-owned "24/7 Customer" call center in Bangalore. The call center is a cross between a co-ed college frat house and a phone bank raising money for the local public TV station. There are several floors with rooms full of twenty-somethings- some twenty-five hundred in all-working the phones. Some are known as "outbound" operators, selling everything from credit cards to phone minutes. Others deal with "inbound" calls-everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers. The calls are transferred here by satellite and undersea fiber-optic cable. Each vast floor of a call center consists of clusters of cubicles. The young people work in little teams under the banner of the company whose phone support they are providing. So one corner might be the Dell group, another might be flying the flag of Microsoft. Their working conditions look like those at your average insurance company. Although I am sure that there are call centers that are operated like sweatshops, 24/7 is not one of them.

     “显示器在燃烧？”

     你知道印度呼叫中心听起来像什么吗？在Bangalore拍摄关于外包的记录片的时候，电视组和我花了一个晚上呆在印度的“7天24小时顾客”呼叫中心。呼叫中心在一个交叉点上，在女校的会堂和为当地公共电视台集资的电话银行之间。那儿有好几层房间，里面全是话务员，大约4000人——也许4500人。有些被认为是“赴外”操作员，出售电话卡。另一些处理“内地”电话——为美国和欧洲的航空乘客追查失踪的行李，为烦恼的美国消费者解决电脑问题。电话通过卫星和海底光缆转到这儿。呼叫中心的每个巨大的楼层由成片的小隔间组成。年轻人在公司的旗帜下按小组工作，提供电话支持。所以一角也许是戴尔小组，另一个也许是微软的旗帜。他们的工作环境看上去像普通的保险公司。尽管我确信这是呼叫中心，但那像是个血汗工厂，7天24小时不只是针对他们。

      Most of the young people I interviewed give all or part of their salary to their parents. In fact, many of them have starting salaries that are higher than their parents' retiring salaries. For entry-level jobs into the global economy, these are about as good as it gets.

      我见到的大部分年轻人将他们的全部收入或部分交给他们的父母。事实上，他们很多的起薪比他们父母的退休金要高。对于全球经济起步水平的工作，这已经相当不错了。

    I was wandering around the Microsoft section around six p.m. Bangalore time, when most of these young people start their workday to coincide with the dawn in America, when I asked a young Indian computer expert there a simple question: What was the record on the floor for the longest phone call to help some American who got lost in the maze of his or her own software?

     Bangalore时间下午6点在微软区域，我很困惑，大部分的年轻人开始工作，与美国的黎明同步。我问了一个年轻的印度电脑专家一个简单的问题：在帮助那些被自己的软件弄混了头的美国人的电话记录里，最长的是多少？

      Without missing a beat he answered, "Eleven hours."

      "Eleven hours?" I exclaimed.

      "Eleven hours," he said.

      他不加思索的回答：“11小时。”

      “11小时？”我惊呼。

      “11小时。”他说。

      I have no way of checking whether this is true, but you do hear snippets of some oddly familiar conversations as you walk the floor at 24/7 and just listen over the shoulders of different call center operators doing their things. Here is a small sample of what we heard that night while filming for Discovery Times. It should be read, if you can imagine this, in the voice of someone with an Indian accent trying to imitate an American or a Brit. Also imagine that no matter how rude, unhappy, irritated, or ornery the voices are on the other end of the line, these young Indians are incessantly and unfailingly polite.

      我无从考证，但是当话务员工作时，你在24/7楼层中走动，可以从他们身后听到一些熟悉而古怪的对话。这里有一个小例子，我们晚上为探索时代拍摄时听到的。这可以理解，你可以设想，一个印度口音的人试着模仿美国人或英国人。也可以设想不管电话那头的声音多么粗鲁、不悦、恼怒或争吵，这些年轻的印度人不倦的保持礼貌。

     Woman call center operator: "Good afternoon, may I speak with . . .?" (Someone on the other end just slammed down the phone.) Male call center operator: "Merchant services, this is Jerry, may I help you?" (The Indian call center operators adopt Western names of their own choosing. The idea, of course, is to make their American or European customers feel more comfortable. Most of the young Indians I talked to about this were not offended but took it as an opportunity to have some fun. While a few just opt for Susan or Bob, some really get creative.) Woman operator in Bangalore speaking to an American: "My name is Ivy Timberwoods and I am calling you . . ."

      （举例）女话务员说着：“下午好，我找……”（另一头就摔下电话。）

       男话务员说：“海运，我是jerry，很高兴为您服务。”（印度话务员自己取西方的名字。当然这个初衷是让美国或欧洲的客户感觉更自然一些。我问过的大部分印度人不觉得这有什么冒犯反而觉得趣味。一些只是选择苏珊或鲍勃（这样的普通名字），一些富有创造性。）

       Bangalore的女话务员对一个美国人说：“我叫艾维．木材，我致电您……”

      Woman operator in Bangalore getting an American's identity number: "May I have the last four digits of your Social Security?"

      Woman operator in Bangalore giving directions as though she were in Manhattan and looking out her window: "Yes, we have a branch on Seventy-fourth and Second Avenue, a branch at Fifty-fourth and Lexington . . ."

       Bangalore的女话务员取得一个美国人的身份号码：“我可以知道您社保的后四位数字吗？”

       她指引方向时表现得好像她就在曼哈顿看着窗外一样：“是的，我们在2大街74号有分店，在列克星敦54号有分店……”

       Male operator in Bangalore selling a credit card he could never afford himself: "This card comes to you with one of the lowest APR . . ."

       Woman operator in Bangalore explaining to an American how she screwed up her checking account: "Check number six-six-five for eighty-one dollars and fifty-five cents. You will still be hit by the thirty-dollar charge. Am I clear?"

       Bangalore的男话务员出售他自己绝对用不起的信用卡：“这种卡年利率是最低的……”

       女话务员向一个美国人解释如何改善她的经常帐户：“校验数665，81美元55美分。您还有30美元的费用。对了吗？”

      Woman operator in Bangalore after walking an American through a computer glitch: "Not a problem, Mr. Jassup. Thank you for your time. Take care. Bye-bye."

      Woman operator in Bangalore after someone has just slammed down the phone on her: "Hello? Hello?"

      解决了一个美国人的电脑故障后：“没问题，Jassup先生，谢谢您的时间，保重，再见。”

      被人摔了电话后：“喂？喂？”

      Woman operator in Bangalore apologizing for calling someone in America too early:"This is just a courtesy call, I'll call back later in the evening . . ."

      Male operator in Bangalore trying desperately to sell an airline credit card to someone in America who doesn't seem to want one: "Is that because you have too many credit cards, or you don't like flying, Mrs. Bell?"

      打给美国的人太早了，抱歉：“这只是个问候，我在晚上再拨给你。”

      男话务员极力给一个不想要的美国人卖一张航空信用卡：“因为您的卡太多了或您不喜欢乘飞机，贝尔先生？”

      Woman operator in Bangalore trying to talk an American out of her computer crash: "Start switching between memory okay and memory test. . ."

      Male operator in Bangalore doing the same thing: "All right, then, let's just punch in three and press Enter . . ."

      Woman operator in Bangalore trying to help an American who cannot stand being on the help line another second: "Yes, ma'am, I do understand that you are in a hurry right now. I am just trying to help you out. . ."

      Woman operator in Bangalore getting another phone slammed down on her: "Yes, well, so what time would be goo . . ."

      Same woman operator in Bangalore getting another phone slammed down on her: "Why, Mrs. Kent, it's not a ..."

      女话务员告诉美国人恢复崩溃的电脑：“在内存OK和检测之间开开电源……”

      男话务员同样的：“好，接下来三键齐按再按回车……”

      女话务员帮助一个等不及的美国人：“是的，夫人，我理解您现在很急，我正在帮您解决……”

      女话务员又被摔了电话：“是的，好，那么我们什么时间……”

      有的又被摔了电话：“为什么，Kent太太，这不是……”

      Same woman operator in Bangalore getting another phone slammed down on her: "As a safety back . . . Hello?"

      Same woman operator in Bangalore looking up from her phone: "I definitely have a bad

day!"

      Woman operator in Bangalore trying to help an American woman with a computer problem that she has never heard before: "What is the problem with this machine, ma'am? The monitor is burning?"

      接着被摔电话：“做为一个安全保证……喂？”

      她从电话上抬起头：“我今天真是倒霉！”

      女话务员在帮助一个美国太太解决电脑问题是，听到了闻所未闻的事情：“机器怎么样了，夫人？显示器在燃烧？”

     There are currently about 245,000 Indians answering phones from all over the world or dialing out to solicit people for credit cards or cell phone bargains or overdue bills. These call center jobs are low-wage, low-prestige jobs in America, but when shifted to India they become high-wage, high-prestige jobs. The esprit de corps at 24/7 and other call centers I visited seemed quite high, and the young people were all eager to share some of the bizarre phone conversations they've had with Americans who dialed 1-800-HELP, thinking they would wind up talking to someone around the block, not around the world.

     目前有大约245,000个印度人接听全世界的电话或是拨打出去推销信用卡、推销蜂窝电话合同、催缴帐单。呼叫中心在美国是低层次低工资的工作，但是转到印度缺变成了高层次高工资的工作。24/7和我见过的其它呼叫中心的团队精神非常高，年轻人积极分享美国人打的1-800帮助电话的谈话经验，好像他们和周围街区的人说话，而不是外国的。

     C. M. Meghna, a 24/7 call center female operator, told me, "I've had lots of customers who call in [with questions] not even connected to the product that we're dealing with. They would call in because they had lost their wallet or just to talk to somebody. I'm like, 'Okay, all right, maybe you should look under the bed [for your wallet] or where do you normally keep it,' and she's like, 'Okay, thank you so much for helping.'" Nitu Somaiah: "One of the customers asked me to marry him." Sophie Sunder worked for Delta's lost-baggage department: "I remember this lady called from Texas," she said, "and she was, like, weeping on the phone. She had traveled two connecting flights and she lost her bag and in the bag was her daughter's wedding gown and wedding ring and I felt so sad for her and there was nothing I could do. I had no information. "Most of the customers were irate," said Sunder. "The first thing they say is, 'Where's my bag? I want my bag now!' We were like supposed to say, 'Excuse me, can I have your first name and last name?' 'But where's my bag!' Some would ask which country am I from? We are supposed to tell the truth, [so] we tell them India. Some thought it was Indiana, not India! Some did not know where India is. I said it is the country next to Pakistan."

      C.M.Meghna，一个24/7电话客服中心的女接线员告诉我：“有一些客户打电话进来（问题）却跟我们处理的产品无关。他们只是因为丢了钱包或是想找个人讲话。我像这样说‘好，也许你应该在床底下找一找（你的钱包），或者你经常放的地方。’她像这样说‘好的，非常感谢你的帮助。’” Nitu Somaiah说：“一位顾客让我嫁给他。”SophieSunder供职于Delta航空公司的行李查失部门，“我记得一位女士从德州打过来，”她说，“像是在电话里哭。她转了两次飞机，转丢了包，包里有她女儿的结婚礼服和戒指。我心里非常难过，但我帮不了她什么忙，因为我没有任何消息。”“大部分顾客都很愤怒，”Sunder说，“他们一开口就说‘我的包在哪里？我现在就要我的包！’我们须这样说，‘对不起，您能告诉我您的姓名吗？’‘但是我的包在哪里！’有些人会问我是哪个国家的？我们须告诉实情，（于是）我们说是印度。一些人理解成印第安那州而不是印度！一些人不知道印度在哪里。我说就是和巴基斯坦相邻的那个国家。”

     Although the great majority of the calls are rather routine and dull, competition for these jobs is fierce-not only because they pay well, but because you can work at night and go to school during part of the day, so they are stepping-stones toward a higher standard of living. P. V. Kannan, CEO and cofounder of 24/7, explained to me how it all worked: "Today we have over four thousand associates spread out in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Our associates start out with a take-home pay of roughly $200 a month, which grows to $300 to $400 per month in six months. We also provide transportation, lunch, and dinner at no extra cost. We provide life insurance, medical insurance for the entire family- and other benefits."

      虽然绝大多数电话都很平淡乏味，但这些工作岗位的竞争却很激烈———不仅由于薪水高，还因为你可以晚上上班，白天上课，所有这是个更高标准生活的跳板。P.V.Kannan，24/7的CEO和创建人，向我解释了它的全部运作：“目前我们有超过4000多个助理散布在Bangalore、海德拉巴和Chennai。我们的助理起薪是税后大约200美元一个月，这在6个月内会涨到300到400美元。不增加成本的情况下我们还提供班车、午餐和晚餐。我们提供全家的人寿和医疗保险和其它福利。”

    Therefore, the total cost of each call center operator is actually around $500 per month when they start out and closer to $600 to $700 per month after six months. Everyone is also entitled to performance bonuses that allow them to earn, in certain cases, the equivalent of 100 percent of their base salary. "Around 10 to 20 percent of our associates pursue a degree in business or computer science during the day hours," said Kannan, adding that more than one-third are taking some kind of extra computer or business training, even if it is not toward a degree. "It is quite common in India for people to pursue education through their twenties-self-improvement is a big theme and actively encouraged by parents and companies. We sponsor an MBA program for consistent performers [with] full-day classes over the weekend. Everyone works eight hours a day, five days a week, with two fifteen-minute breaks and an hour off for lunch or dinner."Not surprisingly, the 24/7 customer call center gets about seven hundred applications a day, but only 6 percent of applicants are hired. Here is a snippet from a recruiting session for call center operators at a women's college in Bangalore: Recruiter 1: "Good morning, girls." Class in unison: "Good morning, ma'am." Recruiter 1: "We have been retained by some of the multinationals here to do the recruitment for them. The primary clients that we are recruiting [for] today are Honeywell. And also for America Online."

      因此，每个呼叫中心的话务员的月总费用在开始时约500美元，6个月后接近600到700美元。每个人都可以享受绩效奖金，某些情况下等于他们的底薪。“我们的助理中有10%到20%的人在白天攻读商业或计算机技术学位。”Kannan说，并补充说超过1/3的人在接受某种额外电脑或商务培训，即使不是为了学位。“在印度人们在二十多岁攻读学位非常普遍——自我提升是一个主旋律，受到家长和公司的积极鼓励。为协调表现，我们发起了MBA计划，在周末有全天的课程。每个人工作8小时1天，5天1周，为午餐和晚餐，中途有两个一刻钟和一个小时时间休息。”毫不奇怪，24/7客服呼叫中心每天收到700多份工作简历，但只有6%的人被雇佣。这里有一个片断关于呼叫中心在Bangalore女校的接线员招聘会：招聘员1：“早上好，女孩们。”全班齐声：“早上好，夫人。” 招聘员1：“我们留在这里为一些跨国公司做招聘。今天我们代为招聘的主要客户是honeywell(霍尼韦尔）和美国在线。”

     The young women-dozens of them-then all lined up with their application forms and waited to be interviewed by a recruiter at a wooden table. Here is what some of the interviews sounded like:

     Recruiter 1: "What kind of job are you looking at?"

     Applicant 1: "It should be based on accounts, then, where I can grow, I can grow in my career."

     Recruiter 1: "You have to be more confident about yourself when you're speaking. You're very nervous. I want you to work a little on that and then get in touch with us."

     Recruiter 2 to another applicant: "Tell me something about yourself."

     Applicant 2: "I have passed my SSC with distinction. Second P also with distinction. And I also hold a 70 percent aggregate in previous two years." (This is Indian lingo for their equivalents of GPA and SAT scores.)

     Recruiter 2: "Go a little slow. Don't be nervous. Be cool."

     年轻的女孩们成群结队的拿着简历排队等候面试，面试员在一个木桌子后。下面是面试的举例：

     面试员1：“你考虑做什么样的工作？”

     面试者1：“有会计背景的，我能够朝这个方面发展的。”

     面试员1：“你说话时需要表现得更自信一些。你太紧张了。你去改善一下然后再来找我们。”

     面试员2转向另一个面试者：“说说你自己。”

     面试者2：“我通过了SSC和P等级考试。（在校）两年间我保持在70％以上”（这是印度当地的对于GPA（通常是大学的平均成绩） and SAT（类似美国高考成绩）成绩的说法。）

     面试员2：“慢一点，别紧张，冷静点。”

     The next step for those applicants who are hired at a call center is the training program, which they are paid to attend. It combines learning how to handle the specific processes for the company whose calls they will be taking or making, and attending something called "accent neutralization class." These are daylong sessions with a language teacher who prepares the new Indian hires to disguise their pronounced Indian accents when speaking English and replace them with American, Canadian, or British ones-depending on which part of the world they will be speaking with. It's pretty bizarre to watch. The class I sat in on was being trained to speak in a neutral middle-American accent. The students were asked to read over and over a single phonetic paragraph designed to teach them how to soften their r's and to roll their r's.

     呼叫中心应聘者受雇以后下一步就是培训课程，需要他们自己掏钱参加。课程结合了学习如何处理他们将要服务的企业的客服特殊程序和所谓的“口音中和课”。整天的课上语言老师教这些印度新雇员们在讲英语时掩饰印度口音，代之以美国、加拿大或英国口音——这取决于他们将同世界上的哪一地区通话。看上去很奇特，我在的班级被训练说普通的中部美国口音。学生们被要求一遍又一遍地读一段绕口令来柔化他们的t音，和让r音更卷一点。

     Their teacher, a charming eight-months-pregnant young woman dressed in a traditional Indian sari, moved seamlessly among British, American, and Canadian accents as she demonstrated reading a paragraph designed to highlight phonetics. She said to the class, "Remember the first day I told you that the Americans flap the 'tuh' sound? You know, it sounds like an almost 'duh' sound-not crisp and clear like the British. So I would not say"-here she was crisp and sharp-'"Betty bought a bit of better butter' or 'Insert a quarter in the meter.' But I would say" -her voice very flat-"'Insert a quarter in the meter' or 'Betty bought a bit of better butter.' So I'm just going to read it out for you once, and then we'll read it together. All right? 'Thirty little turtles in a bottle of bottled water. A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles.'

     他们的老师是一个有八月身孕的迷人女人，穿着传统的印度纱布。她在示范读一篇口音强化的短文时，自如地在英国、美国和加拿大口音之间转换。她对班级说，“记住第一天我教了你们美国人发'tuh'声？要知道，它听起来像'duh'声——不像英国人发得那么清脆。我不会说”——这时她（的口音）是清脆的——“‘Betty bought a bit of better butter’或‘Insert a quarter in the meter.’。但是我不会说”——她的声音变平——“‘Insert a quarter in the meter.’或‘Betty bought a bit of better butter’，那么我再为你们读一遍，之后我们一起读，好吗？（英语顺口溜） 'Thirty little turtles in a bottle of bottled water. A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles.'”

     "All right, who's going to read first?" the instructor asked. Each member of the class then took a turn trying to say this tongue twister in an American accent. Some of them got it on the first try, and others, well, let's just say that you wouldn't think they were in Kansas City if they answered your call to Delta's lost-luggage number. After listening to them stumble through this phonetics lesson for half an hour, I asked the teacher if she would like me to give them an authentic version-since I'm originally from Minnesota, smack in the Midwest, and still speak like someone out of the movie Fargo. Absolutely, she said. So I read the following paragraph: "A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy . . . The problem was that there were many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles. Every time they thought about grappling with the haggler turtles their little turtle minds boggled and they only caught a little bit of noodles."

     “好，谁第一个说？”老师问道。之后班级轮流每个人试着用美国口音说这个绕口令。有些人一次就成功了，其它人，这么说吧，你拨德耳塔行李失踪号码打电话给他们时，绝对不会认为他们是在堪萨斯州。听了他们结结巴巴的语言课半个小时后，我问老师是否乐意我给他们一个可信的版本——自从我最初来自明尼苏达州，沾染了一点中西部，说话还是像法戈电影里的人。当然可以，她说。于是我读下面的绕口令：“A bottle of bottled water held thirty little turtles. It didn't matter that each turtle had to rattle a metal ladle in order to get a little bit of noodles, a total turtle delicacy . . . The problem was that there were many turtle battles for less than oodles of noodles. Every time they thought about grappling with the haggler turtles their little turtle minds boggled and they only caught a little bit of noodles.”

    The class responded enthusiastically. It was the first time I ever got an ovation for speaking Minnesotan. On the surface, there is something unappealing about the idea of inducing other people to flatten their accents in order to compete in a flatter world. But before you disparage it, you have to taste just how hungry these kids are to escape the lower end of the middle class and move up. If a little accent modification is the price they have to pay to jump a rung of the ladder, then so be it-they say.  "This is a high-stress environment," said Nilekani, the CEO of Infosys, which also runs a big call center. "It is twenty-four by seven. You work in the day, and then the night, and then the next morning." But the working environment, he insisted, "is not the tension of alienation. It is the tension of success. They are dealing with the challenges of success, of high-pressure living. It is not the challenge of worrying about whether they would have a challenge."

     班级反应非常热烈，这也是我第一次说明尼苏达州方言被喝彩。表面上，一些人为了在平坦的世界竞争而平整他们的口音，这些念头很无趣。但你鄙视它之前，你必须体会到这些孩子逃离社会底层向上爬的渴望。如果一点口音修是他们登上一级梯子的代价的话，那就是吧——他们说。“这是个高压力的环境，” Nilekani说Infosys的总裁，他也有一个大的呼叫中心，“这是7天24小时的，工作从白天到夜晚再到下个黎明。”但是对于工作环境，他强调，“不是疏远的压力，而是成功的压力。他们在迎接成功的挑战，高压生活的挑战。这不是对他们担心是否有挑战的挑战。”

     That was certainly the sense I got from talking to a lot of the call center operators on the floor. Like any explosion of modernity, outsourcing is challenging traditional norms and ways of life. But educated Indians have been held back so many years by both poverty and a socialist bureaucracy that many of them seem more than ready to put up with the hours. And needless to say, it is much easier and more satisfying for them to work hard in Bangalore than to pack up and try to make a new start in America. In the flat world they can stay in India, make a decent salary, and not have to be away from families, friends, food, and culture. At the end of the day, these new jobs actually allow them to be more Indian. Said Anney Unnikrishnan, a personnel manager at 24/7, "I finished my MBA and I remember writing the GMAT and getting into Purdue University. But I couldn't go because I couldn't afford it. I didn't have the money for it. Now I can, [but] I see a whole lot of American industry has come into Bangalore and I don't really need to go there. I can work for a multinational sitting right here. So I still get my rice and sam-bar [a traditional Indian dish], which I eat. I don't need to, you know, learn to eat coleslaw and cold beef. I still continue with my Indian food and I still work for a multinational. Why should I go to America?" The relatively high standard of living that she can now enjoy-enough for a small apartment and car in Bangalore-is good for America as well. When you look around at 24/7's call center, you see that all the computers are running Microsoft Windows. The chips are designed by Intel. The phones are from Lucent. The air-conditioning is by Carrier, and even the bottled water is by Coke. In addition, 90 percent of the shares in 24/7 are owned by U.S. investors. This explains why, although the United States has lost some service jobs to India in recent years, total exports from American-based companies-merchandise and services-to India have grown from $2.5 billion in 1990 to $5 billion in 2003. So even with the outsourcing of some service jobs from the United States to India, India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services. What goes around, comes around.

      这的确是我在楼层里同许多呼叫中心的接线员谈话的得出的感觉。如同现代化的爆炸，外包挑战着传统的标准和生活方式。但是受过教育的印度人被贫穷和社会主义官僚作风滞后了许多年，他们必须分秒必争。不用说，在Bangalore努力工作要比打包去美国重新开始容易和安全得多。在平坦的世界，他们可以住在印度，有一份体面的收入，而且不需要远离家庭、朋友、食物和文化。总有一天这些新工作使他们活得更印度。7/24呼叫中心的人事主管，Anney Unnikrishnan说，“我完成MBA学业，我还记得通过GMAT考试并被Purdue大学（在美国印第安纳州）录取，但是我上不起，我没有钱。现在我可以了，（但是）我看到一大堆美国产业来到了Bangalore，我并不需要去那了。我可以坐在这为跨国公司工作。我仍可以吃米饭和山吧（印度菜）。你看，我不需要去学着吃凉拌卷心菜和冷牛排。我享受印度食品的同时为跨国公司工作。我为什么要去美国呢？”她可以在Bangalore享受相应的高标准生活——一个小公寓和一辆车——不比美国差。当你在24/7呼叫中心转一转，你会发现所有电脑运转的都是微软的windows，芯片是由英特尔设计的，电话机出自朗讯，空调是Carrier的，甚至连瓶装水也是可乐。另外，24/7公司90%的股份由美国投资者所有。这解释了原因：尽管近年来美国的一些服务工作转移到印度，美国公司总出口到印度的商品和服务仍由1990年的25亿美元上升到2003年的50亿美元。所以随着服务工作由美国外包给印度，印度的经济增长创造了更多美国商品的需求和服务。怎么走出去，怎么赚回来。

     Nine years ago, when Japan was beating America's brains out in the auto industry, I wrote a column about playing the computer geography game Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? with my nine-year-old daughter, Orly. I was trying to help her by giving her a clue suggesting that Carmen had gone to Detroit, so I asked her, "Where are cars made?" And without missing a beat she answered, "Japan."

      Ouch!

     九年前，当时日本在自动工业上挫败了美国的智力，我写了名为“世界的哪儿是卡门．圣地格？”一个专栏，关于和我九岁的女儿Orly玩电脑地理游戏。我试着给她一个提示卡门在底特律，所以我问她“汽车在哪里造啊？”她不加思索：“日本。”

      哦！

      Well, I was reminded of that story while visiting Global Edge, an Indian software design firm in Bangalore. The company's marketing manager, , told me that he had just made a cold call to the VP for engineering of a U.S. company, trying to drum up business. As soon as Mr. Rao introduced himself as calling from an Indian software firm, the U.S. executive said to him, "Namaste," a common Hindi greeting. Said Mr. Rao, "A few years ago nobody in America wanted to talk to us. Now they are eager." And a few even know how to say hello in proper Hindu fashion. So now I wonder: If I have a granddaughter one day, and I tell her I'm going to India, will she say, "Grandpa, is that where software comes from?"

      好，我访问Global Edge公司（Bangalore的一家印度软件设计公司）时记起来这个故事。这个公司的市场部经理，Rajesh Rao，告诉我他刚主动致电了一家美国公司的副总，试图招徕生意。Rao在印度公司的打电话给他，刚刚介绍完自己，美国的经理就对他说，“合十礼(印度见面礼),”印度见面的通俗。Rao说，“几年前美国人不愿意理我们。现在他们渴望。”有些甚至知道印度方式的见面礼。所以现在我怀疑：如果将来我有了一个孙女，我告诉我要去印度，她会不会说：“爷爷，那儿是不是软件的产地？”

     No, not yet, honey. Every new product-from software to widgets-goes through a cycle that begins with basic research, then applied research, then incubation, then development, then testing, then manufacturing, then deployment, then support, then continuation engineering in order to add improvements. Each of these phases is specialized and unique, and neither India nor China nor Russia has a critical mass of talent that can handle the whole product cycle for a big American multinational. But these countries are steadily developing their reseach and development capabilities to handle more and more of these phases. As that continues, we really will see the beginning of what Satyam Cherukuri, of Sarnoff, an American research and development firm, has called "the globalization of innovation" and an end to the old model of a single American or European multinational handling all the elements of the development product cycle from its own resources. More and more American and European companies are outsourcing significant research and development tasks to India, Russia, and China.

     不，暂时不，宝贝。从软件到小饰品，每个新产品都要经过一个循环，从基础研究，到应用研究，到成熟，到发展，到测试，之后生产，在推广，之后支持，接着是继续设计来增加改进。每个环节都是专门和独一的，印度、中国或俄罗斯都没有达到临界水平可以把握一个美国大型跨国公司的整个产业链。但是这些国家正规律的发展他们的研发能力来把握更多的环节。我们已经看到了这些国家的苗头，Sarnoff公司（一家美国研发公司） 的Satyam Cherukuri（这家公司的CEO）称之为“全球化革命”，它终结了欧美跨国公司自己掌控产品研发所有基础环节的历史。越来越多的欧美公司把自己的重要研发项目分派到印度、俄罗斯和中国。

    According to the information technology office of the state government in Karnataka, where Bangalore is located, Indian units of Cisco Systems, Intel, IBM, Texas Instruments, and GE have already filed 1,000 patent applications with the U.S. Patent Office. Texas Instruments alone has had 225 U.S. patents awarded to its Indian operation. "The Intel team in Bangalore is developing microprocessor chips for high-speed broadband wireless technology, to be launched in 2006," the Karnataka IT office said, in a statement issued at the end of 2004, and "at GE's John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, engineers are developing new ideas for aircraft engines, transport systems and plastics." Indeed, GE over the years has frequently transferred Indian engineers who worked for it in the United States back to India to integrate its whole global research effort. GE now even sends non-Indians to Bangalore. Vivek Paul is the president of Wipro Technologies, another of the elite Indian technology companies, but he is based in Silicon Valley to be close to Wipro's American customers. Before coming to Wipro, Paul managed GE's CT scanner business out of Milwaukee. At the time he had a French colleague who managed GE's power generator business for the scanners out of France.

      依据Bangalore所在卡纳塔克邦[印度邦名]的政府信息技术办公室提供的信息，思科系统、英特尔、IBM、德州仪器和通用电气在印度的单位已经由美国专利局填写了1000份专利申请。仅德州仪器在印度的经营就有225项美国专利。“Bangalore的英特尔团队正在研发一种微处理器，用于无线高速宽带技术，在2006年启动，”卡纳塔克邦[印度邦名]的IT办公室在2004年底的发表的声明中说，“在通用电气在Bangalore的John F. Welch技术中心，工程师正在研发新型的航天引擎、运输系统和材料。”的确，通用电气常年频繁的让它的印度工程师往来于美国和印度来融合它的全球研发效应。通用电气现在甚至派非印度籍的人前往Bangalore。Vivek Paul是威普罗公司（Wipro Technologies，印度IT公司的另一巨头）的总裁，不过他通过硅谷来贴近威普罗公司的美国客户的。去威普罗公司前，Paul负责通用电气CT扫描仪在密尔沃基[美国威斯康星州东南部港市]的进口生意。当时他有个法国同事，负责扫描仪的电源在法国的进口生意。

     "I ran into him on an airplane recently," said Paul, "and he told me he had moved to India to head up GE's high-energy research there."

     “最近我做飞机看他，” Paul说，“他告诉我他搬到了印度，去牵头通用电气在那儿的高能研发项目。”

      I told Vivek that I love hearing an Indian who used to head up GE's CT business in Milwaukee but now runs Wipro's consulting business in Silicon Valley tell me about his former French colleague who has moved to Bangalore to work for GE. That is a flat world.

      我告诉他我很高兴听到他的故事：一个印度人曾经管理通用电气在密尔沃基的CT业务而现在在硅谷经营威普罗公司的商务；告诉我他的前同事搬到Bangalore为通用电气工作。这真是个平坦的世界。

     Every time I think I have found the last, most obscure job that could be outsourced to Bangalore, I discover a new one. My friend Vivek Kulkarni used to head the government office in Bangalore responsible for attracting high technology global investment. After stepping down from that post in 2003, he started a company called B2K, with a division called Brickwork, which offers busy global executives their own personal assistant in India. Say you are running a company and you have been asked to give a speech and a PowerPoint presentation in two days. Your "remote executive assistant" in India, provided by Brickwork, will do all the research for you, create the PowerPoint presentation, and e-mail the whole thing to you overnight so that it is on your desk the day you have to deliver it.

     每次当我认为找到了最后的、最黯淡的可以外包给Bangalore的工作时，我就发现了一个新的。我的朋友Vivek Kulkarni曾经领导Bangalore政府办公室来吸引高科技投资。2003年卸任后，他开办了家公司叫“B2K”，分公司叫Brickwork，为全球繁忙的经理们提供印度助理。比如你开一家公司，2天后你要做个演讲并有PowerPoint（幻灯片）演示。你在印度的Brickwork公司提供的“远程助理”将为你做所有的研究，做好PowerPoint演示，在晚上用e-mail把准备好的都发给你，这样你在白天需要发表之前它就在你的桌子上了。

    "You can give your personal remote executive assistant their assignment when you are leaving work at the end of the day in New York City, and it will be ready for you the next morning," explained Kulkarni. "Because of the time difference with India, they can work on it while you sleep and have it back in your morning." Kulkarni suggested I hire a remote assistant in India to do all the research for this book. "He or she could also help you keep pace with what you want to read. When you wake up, you will find the completed summary in your in-box." (I told him no one could be better than my longtime assistant, Maya Gorman, who sits ten feet away!) Having your own personal remote executive assistant costs around $1,500 to $2,000 a month, and given the pool of Indian college grads from which Brickwork can recruit, the brainpower you can hire dollar-for-dollar is substantial. As Brickwork's promotional material says, "India's talent pool provides companies access to a broad spectrum of highly qualified people. In addition to fresh graduates, which are around 2.5 million per year, many qualified homemakers are entering the job market." India's business schools, it adds, produce around eighty-nine thousand MBAs per year.

     “你在纽约结束一天的工作的时候，可以分派任务给你的远程行政助理，这样在第二天早晨就可以完成了。” Kulkarni解释说：“这是因为印度的时差，他们可以在你睡觉的时候处理并在早晨完成。” Kulkarni建议我雇佣一个印度助理来做这本书的所有研究工作。“他们也可以帮你加速阅读，你醒来的时候将在收件箱里看到完成的摘要。”（我告诉他我的老助手Maya Gorman是无人能代的，他正坐在十步之外！）拥有一个个人远程助理每个月要花费1500到2000美元，付给Brickwork公司招募的印度大学生，雇佣的脑力真是一分钱一分货。Brickwork公司的附加材料上说：“印度人才库为企业提供了一个宽泛的高资历人才的平台。除了应届毕业生，每年有250万人。许多有资历的家庭主妇才进入了人才市场。”它还补充说，印度的商学院每年供应89000名MBA。

     "We've had a wonderful response," said Kulkarni, with clients coming from two main areas. One is American health-care consultants, who often need lots of numbers crunched and PowerPoint presentations drawn up. The other, he said, are American investment banks and financial services companies, which often need to prepare glossy pamphlets with graphs to illustrate the benefits of an IPO or a proposed merger. In the case of a merger, Brickwork will prepare those sections of the report dealing with general market conditions and trends, where most of the research can be gleaned off the Web and summarized in a standard format. "The judgment of how to price the deal will come from the investment bankers themselves," said Kulkarni. "We will do the lower-end work, and they will do the things that require critical judgment and experience, close to the market." The more projects his team of remote executive assistants engages in, the more knowledge they build up. They are full of ambition to do their higher problem solving as well, said Kulkarni. "The idea is to constantly learn. You are always taking an examination. There is no end to learning . . . There is no real end to what can be done by whom."

     “我们的反映很好，” Kulkarni说，客户主要来自两块，一块是美国保健顾问，他们经常需要大量的数据分析和PowerPoint演示制作；另一块，他说，是美国的投资银行和财经服务社，他们经常需要制作小册子来图示一个首发股和一次并购的好处。Brickwork公司负责准备报告中涉及市场概况和趋势的这些部分，研究的大部分内容可以在网上搜索到并形成标准格式的摘要。“（这些）服务价值几何由投资银行说了算，” Kulkarni说，“我们做低层面的工作，他们依靠判断和市场经验来分析。”远程助理们接到的项目越多，他们获取的知识就越多。他们也有雄心去解决更高的问题，Kulkarni说。“这个理念是不懈的学习。考验是经常的，学无止境……谁也达不到终点。”

     Unlike Columbus, I didn't stop with India. After I got home, I decided to keep exploring the East for more signs that the world was flat. So after India, I was soon off to Tokyo, where I had a chance to interview Kenichi Ohmae, the legendary former McKinsey & Company consultant in Japan. Ohmae has left McKinsey and struck out on his own in business, Ohmae & Associates. And what do they do? Not consulting anymore,explained Ohmae. He is now spearheading a drive to outsource low-end Japanese jobs to Japanese-speaking call centers and service providers in China. "Say what?" I asked. "To China? Didn't the Japanese once colonize China, leaving a very bad taste in the mouths of the Chinese?"

     不同于哥伦布，印度不是我的终点站。我回家后，决定继续在东方探索世界是平坦的种种迹象。所以印度之后，我很快启程去东京，在那我有机会见到Kenichi Ohmae，日本有传奇色彩的麦肯锡顾问。Ohmae离开麦肯锡开始了他个人的企业，Ohmae & Associates公司。他们在做什么？Ohmae解释说，已不再做咨询了。他现在正引导着日本低层面工作、呼叫中心及一些服务外包给中国。“什么？”我问，“给中国？日本不是侵略过中国，在中国的口碑很差吗？”

    Well, yes, said Ohmae, but he explained that the Japanese also left behind a large number of Japanese speakers who have maintained a slice of Japanese culture, from sushi to karaoke, in northeastern China, particularly around the northeastern port city of Dalian. Dalian has become for Japan what Bangalore has become for America and the other English-speaking countries: outsourcing central. The Chinese may never forgive Japan for what it did to China in the last century, but the Chinese are so focused on leading the world in the next century that they are ready to brush up on their Japanese and take all the work Japan can outsource.

    没错，Ohmae说，不过解释说日本也留下了很多会说日语的人，他们还保留了一部分日本习俗，从寿司到卡拉OK，尤其是中国北方港口城市大连及周边。大连对于日本就像Bangalore对于美国和其它英语国家那样：外包中心。中国人也许永远不会忘记日本在上个世纪对中国的所作所为，但是中国需要在下个世纪引领世界，他们就要温习他们的日语，拿下所有日本能外包的工作。

    "The recruiting is quite easy," said Ohmae in early 2004. "About one-third of the people in this region [around Dalian] have taken Japanese as a second language in high school. So all of these Japanese companies are coming in." Ohmae's company is doing primarily data-entry work in China, where Chinese workers take handwritten Japanese documents, which are scanned, faxed, or e-mailed over from Japan to Dalian, and then type them into a digital database in Japanese characters. Ohmae's company has developed a software program that takes the data to be entered and breaks it down into packets. These packets can then be sent around China or Japan for typing, depending on the specialty required, and then reassembled at the company's database in its Tokyo headquarters. "We have the ability to allocate the job to the person who knows the area best." Ohmae's company even has contracts with more than seventy thousand housewives, some of them specialists in medical or legal terminologies, to do data-entry work at home. The firm has recently expanded into computer-aided designs for a Japanese housing company. "When you negotiate with the customer in Japan for building a house," he explained, "you would sketch out a floor plan-most of these companies don't use computers." So the hand-drawn plans are sent electronically to China, where they are converted into digital designs, which then are e-mailed back to the Japanese building firm, which turns them into manufacturing blueprints. "We took the best-performing Chinese data operators," said Ohmae, "and now they are processing seventy houses a day." Chinese doing computer drawings for Japanese homes, nearly seventy years after a rapacious Japanese army occupied China, razing many homes in the process. Maybe there is hope for this flat world . . .

     “招人非常容易，”2004初Ohmae说，“这个地区（大连及周边）在高校里1/3的人把日语做为第二语言。所以那么多日本企业进来。” Ohmae在中国的公司做基础的数据录入工作，那里的工人们将扫描好的手写日本文件通过传真或电子邮件的方式从日本传到大连，然后用日本文字把它们录入到一个数据库里。Ohmae的公司开发了一个软件程序用于数据录入和打包。然后这些数据包根据需要发往中国或日本各地去打字，然后在东京总部的公司数据库重组。“我们能够把工作分派给最熟悉的人。” Ohmae的公司已经和超过7万家庭主妇签约，让她们在家里做数据录入工作，她们有些是医学或法学术语的专家。公司最近还扩展，为一家日本住宅公司提供计算机自动设计。“当你同一个日本客户商议建一幢房子，”他解释说，“你先要画个平面草图——大部分公司不用电脑来进行。”那么手绘的草图电子化发往中国，他们把它转成数字设计，再e-mail传回日本的建筑公司，接着转成建筑蓝图。“我们雇佣中国最好的数码设计者，” Ohmae说，“现在他们一天能做70座房子。”在日本侵略军占领中国、夷平无数房屋的七十年后，中国人为日本人的房子做电脑设计。也许是期待着平坦的世界吧……

    I needed to see Dalian, this Bangalore of China, firsthand, so I kept moving around the East. Dalian is impressive not just for a Chinese city. With its wide boulevards, beautiful green spaces, and nexus of universities, technical colleges, and massive software park, Dalian would stand out in Silicon Valley. I had been here in 1998, but there had been so much new building since then that I did not recognize the place. Dalian, which is located about an hour's flight northeast of Beijing, symbolizes how rapidly China's most modern cities-and there are still plenty of miserable, backward ones-are grabbing business as knowledge centers, not just as manufacturing hubs. The signs on the buildings tell the whole story: GE, Microsoft, Dell, SAP, HP, Sony, and Accenture- to name but a few-all are having backroom work done here to support their Asian operations, as well as new software research and development. Because of its proximity to Japan and Korea, each only about an hour away by air, its large number of Japanese speakers, its abundance of Internet bandwidth, and many parks and a world-class golf course (all of which appeal to knowledge workers), Dalian has become an attractive locus for Japanese outsourcing. Japanese firms can hire three Chinese software engineers for the price of one in Japan and still have change to pay a roomful of call center operators ($90 a month starting salary). No wonder some twenty-eight hundred Japanese companies have set up operations here or teamed up with Chinese partners.

    我要直接去看看大连，中国的Bangalore，所以我在东方继续前进。大连不只是作为中国城市令人印象深刻。大连比硅谷还要突出，宽阔的林荫大道，美丽的绿地，大学城和软件园。1998年我曾来过这，但之后新建的大厦多得让我认不出来这了。位于北京东南，乘飞机一个小时到达，大连是中国——那里还有许多落后地区——飞速发展的现代城市的代表，他们以知识为中心提升经济，而不只是做为制造中心。大厦上的标志告诉我们一切：GE（通用电气）、Microsoft（微软）、 Dell（戴尔）、SAP（赛普软件）、HP（惠普）、 Sony（索尼）和 and Accenture（埃森哲咨询公司）——举不胜举——在这都拥有像软件研发这样的后台业务以支撑他们亚洲运营。大连离日本和韩国都很近，都是飞机一个小时到达，它拥有很多会说日语的人，发达的因特网宽带，许多公园和世界级的高尔夫球场（为知识工人服务的），这一切使得它成为吸引日本外包的最佳首选。日本人在日本雇佣一个软件工程师的费用在中国可以雇佣三个工程师，零头还能雇一整屋话务员（起薪90美元）。所以有2800家日本公司在这独资或与中国合资建立业务就不足为奇了。

    "I've taken a lot of American people to Dalian, and they are amazed at how fast the China economy is growing in this high-tech area," said Win Liu, director of U.S./EU projects for DHC, one of Dalian's biggest homegrown software firms, which has expanded from thirty to twelve hundred employees in six years. "Americans don't realize the challenge to the extent that they should." Dalian's dynamic mayor, Xia Deren, forty-nine, is a former college president. (For a Communist authoritarian system, China does a pretty good job of promoting people on merit. The Mandarin meritocratic culture here still runs very deep.) Over a traditional ten-course Chinese dinner at a local hotel, the mayor told me how far Dalian has come and just where he intends to take it. "We have twenty-two universities and colleges with over two hundred thousand students in Dalian," he explained. More than half those students graduate with engineering or science degrees, and even those who don't, those who study history or literature, are still being directed to spend a year studying Japanese or English, plus computer science, so that they will be employable. The mayor estimated that more than half the residents of Dalian had access to the Internet at the office, home, or school. "The Japanese enterprises originally started some data processing industries here," the mayor added, "and with this as a base they have now moved to R & D and software development... In the past one or two years, the software companies of the U.S. are also making some attempts to move outsourcing of software from the U.S. to our city . . . We are approaching and we are catching up with the Indians. Exports of software products [from Dalian] have been increasing by 50 percent annually. And China is now becoming the country that develops the largest number of university graduates. Though in general our English is not as competent as that of the Indian people, we have a bigger population, [so] we can pick out the most intelligent students who can speak the best English."

     “我带过许多美国人来大连，他们惊讶于中国经济在这个高科技区发展速度。”刘文说，他是当地最大的软件公司——大连华信计算机技术有限公司美国/欧洲项目的负责人，这家公司在六年间由30人发展到1200人。“美国人没有意识到他们实际遇到的挑战。”大连市充满活力的市长夏德仁，49岁，原是是一名大学校长。（尽管共产主义专制，中国在选拔贤才方面做得非常好。精英为官的观念仍然根深蒂固。）在大连当地一家酒店，市长向我叙述了大连的发展程度，而他又准备带它走向何方。“在大连我们拥有22座大学，超过20万的学生，”他解释说。这些学生超过一半都是工程或物理专业，即使其它那些学历史或者文学的，也会集中一年学习的日语或英语，再加上电脑技术，这样他们都能找到工作。市长估计超过半数的大连居民能在办公室、家庭或者学校上网。“日本企业最初在这儿开始一些数据处理行业，”市长补充道，“然后，以此为基础，这些日本企业现在转向研发和软件开发 ……过去的一两年里，美国一些软件公司也努力想把软件外包业务从美国转移到我们城市来……我们在追赶和接近印度。（大连的）软件产品出口以每年50%的速度增长。而且现在中国已经成为大学毕业生最多的国家，虽然总的来说我们英语说得不像印度人那样好，但是我们人口多，（因此）我们可以挑选出最聪明英语最好的学生。”

    Are Dalian residents bothered by working for the Japanese, whose government has still never formally apologized for what the wartime Japanese government did to China? "We will never forget that a historical war occurred between the two nations," he answered, "but when it comes to the field of economy, we only focus on the economic problems-especially if we talk about the software outsourcing business. If the U.S. and Japanese companies make their products in our city, we consider that to be a good thing. Our youngsters are trying to learn Japanese, to master this tool so they can compete with their Japanese counterparts to successfully land high-salary positions for themselves in the future."

    那么大连居民会不会因为替日本人工作而烦心呢？他们政府至今还没有为战时日本政府对中国的罪行正式道歉。“我们永远也不会忘记两国之间的战争历史，”他回答，“但是到了经济领域，我们就只关注经济问题——尤其当我们谈到软件外包业务时。如果美国公司和日本公司在我市制造产品，我们认为那是好事。我们的年轻人学习日语，是为了掌握这个工具去和他们的日本同行竞争，去争取未来高薪的职位。"

    The mayor then added for good measure, "My personal feeling is that Chinese youngsters are more ambitious than Japanese or American youngsters in recent years, but I don't think they are ambitious enough, because they are not as ambitious as my generation. Because our generation, before they got into university and colleges, were sent to distant rural areas and factories and military teams, and went through a very hard time, so in terms of the spirit to overcome and face the hardships, [our generation had to have more ambition] than youngsters nowadays."

     市长之后又额外补充道，"我个人感觉是近年来，中国年轻人比日本或美国的年轻人更有雄心壮志，但我认为他们的志向还不够大，因为他们不像我们那代人雄心勃勃。因为我们这一代进入大学之前，都曾被送到远方的乡下、工厂或部队，度过一段艰辛的时光，所以从面对和克服困难的精神上来说，(我们这一代的抱负)超过现在的年轻人。"

     Mayor Xia had a charmingly direct way of describing the world, and although some of what he had to say gets lost in translation, he gets it- and Americans should too: "The rule of the market economy," this Communist official explained to me, "is that if somewhere has the richest human resources and the cheapest labor, of course the enterprises and the businesses will naturally go there." In manufacturing, he pointed out, "Chinese people first were the employees and working for the big foreign manufacturers, and after several years, after we have learned all the processes and steps, we can start our own firms. Software will go down the same road . . . First we will have our young people employed by the foreigners, and then we will start our own companies. It is like building a building. Today, the U.S., you are the designers, the architects, and the developing countries are the bricklayers for the buildings. But one day I hope we will be the architects."

     夏市长用一个引人致胜的方式描述这个世界，虽然他表达的意思在翻译的过程中有所流失，他仍然掌握了它，——美国人也应该掌握：“市场经济的规则”，这位共*产*党官员告诉我，“如果一个地方有丰富的人力资源和廉价劳动力，企业和商业自然会去那儿。”对于制造业，他指出：“中国人开始是外国大制造商的雇员，几年后，等我们学会了所有的流程和步骤，我们可以创办自己的公司。软件业也会走同样的道路……先让我们的年轻人受雇于外国人，然后创办自己的公司。就像造房子一样。今天，美国，你们是设计师、建筑师，而发展中国家是泥瓦工人。但我希望终有一天，，我们会成为建筑师。”

    I just kept exploring-east and west. By the summer of 2004,1 was in Colorado on vacation. I had heard about this new low-fare airline called JetBlue, which was launched in 1999. I had no idea where they operated, but I needed to fly between Washington and Atlanta, and couldn't quite get the times I wanted, so I decided to call JetBlue and see where exactly they flew. I confess I did have another motive. I had heard that JetBlue had outsourced its entire reservation system to housewives in Utah, and I wanted to check this out. So I dialed JetBlue reservations and had the following conversation with the agent:

     我继续在东西方之间探索。2004年夏天，我在国科罗拉多州度假。我听说了在1999年启动的“蓝色喷气机”廉价航线。我不知道他们在哪运作，但是我要乘坐华盛顿和亚特兰大之间的航班，订不到我要的航班，于是我想起来打给蓝色喷气机问问他们具体飞往哪儿。我承认我有其它的目的。我听说蓝色喷气机把他整个订票系统外包给了犹他州的家庭主妇，我想证实一下。于是我打了蓝色喷气机的订票电话同代理点之间展开了如下的对话：

     "Hello, this is Dolly. Can I help you?" answered a grandmotherly voice.

     "Yes, I would like to fly from Washington to Atlanta," I said. "Do you fly that route?"

     "No, I'm sorry we don't. We fly from Washington to Ft. Lauderdale," said Dolly.

     "How about Washington to New York City?" I asked.

     "I'm sorry, we don't fly that route. We do fly from Washington to Oakland and Long Beach," said Dolly.

     "Say, can I ask you something? Are you really at home? I read that JetBlue agents just work at home."

     "Yes, I am," said Dolly in the most cheerful voice. (I later confirmed with JetBlue that her full name is Dolly Baker.) "I am sitting in my office upstairs in my house, looking out the window at a beautiful sunny day. Just five minutes ago someone called and asked me that same question and I told them and they said, 'Good, I thought you were going to tell me you were in New Delhi.'"

     "Where do you live?" I asked.

     "Salt Lake City, Utah," said Dolly. "We have a two-story home, and I love working here, especially in the winter when the snow is swirling and I am up here in the office at home."

     "How do you get such a job?" I asked.

     "You know, they don't advertise," said Dolly in the sweetest possible voice. "It's all by word of mouth. I worked for the state government and I retired, and [after a little while] I thought I have to do something else and I just love it."

     “你好，我是多利，很高兴为您服务。”一个祖母般的声音说。

     “我需要从华盛顿飞往亚特兰大，”我问，“你们有到那儿的航线吗？”

     “没有，抱歉，我们有华盛顿飞往罗德岱堡的航线，”多利说。

     “华盛顿飞往纽约市的呢？”我问。

     “抱歉，我们不飞那条线。我们倒是有华盛顿飞往奥克兰和长海滩（美国一海滩）的航线，” 多利回答。

     “那么，我能问你些问题吗？你真的在家吗？我看到过蓝色喷气机的代理点在家工作。”

     “是的，”多利用很愉快的声音回答。（我之后向蓝色喷气机确认了她的全名是多利．贝克。）“我坐在我家二楼的办公室，看着窗外阳光明媚。五分钟前有人打电话也问我同样的问题。我告诉他们，他们说‘真好啊，我以为你要告诉我你在新德里呢。’”

     “你住哪儿？”我问。

     “犹他州盐湖城，”她回答，“我们有一个二手房，我爱这儿的工作，特别是冬季我在家里的办公室看着雪化飞舞。”

     “那你是怎么找到这个工作的呢？”我问。

     “要知道，他们不作广告，”多利用甜甜的声音说，“这全靠口头传播，我从州政府退休下来，考虑再做些我喜欢的事情。”

    David Neeleman, the founder and CEO of JetBlue Airways Corp., has a name for all this. He calls it "homesourcing." JetBlue now has four hundred reservation agents, like Dolly, working at home in the Salt Lake City area, taking reservations-in between babysitting, exercising, writing novels, and cooking dinner.

    David Neeleman，是蓝色喷气机航空公司的创始人和CEO，为这些起了一个名字，他称之为“家包”。蓝色喷气机现在有400个代理点，像多利这样在犹他州盐湖城工作，接受订票——同时可以带小孩、健身、写小说和做饭。

    A few months later I visited Neeleman at JetBlue's headquarters in New York, and he explained to me the virtues of homesourcing, which he actually started at Morris Air, his first venture in the airline business. (It was bought by Southwest.) "We had 250 people in their homes doing reservations at Morris Air," said Neeleman. "They were 30 percent more productive-they take 30 percent more bookings, by just being happier. They were more loyal and there was less attrition. So when I started JetBlue, I said, 'We are going to have 100 percent reservation at home.'"

    几个月后，我去蓝色喷气机纽约总部访问了Neeleman，他解释了“家包”的优点。他从莫里斯航空（已被西南航空收购）开始，他在航空业的第一笔投资。“我有250人在他们家里为莫里斯航空订票，” Neeleman说，“他们增加了30％的业务——他们增加了30％的订票，而且更快乐。他们更忠诚流失率更低。所以我创办蓝色喷气机时，我说：‘我们让100％的订票在家进行。’”

    Neeleman has a personal reason for wanting to do this. He is a Mormon and believes that society will be better off if more mothers are able to stay at home with their young children but are given a chance to be wage earners at the same time. So he based his home reservations system in Salt Lake City, where the vast majority of the women are Mormons and many are stay-at-home mothers. Home reservationists work twenty-five hours a week and have to come into the JetBlue regional office in Salt Lake City for four hours a month to learn new skills and be brought up to date on what is going on inside the company.

     Neeleman这样做有个私人原因。他是个摩门教徒，相信如果母亲们在家带孩子但是同时有个机会挣钱，这个社会会更好。所以他在盐湖城建立他的家庭订票系统，那里有大量的已婚妇女是摩门教徒而且很多是家庭主妇。家庭订票每周工作25小时，每个月4小时去盐湖城办事处接受培训和公司最新信息。

     "We will never outsource to India.' said Neeleman. "The quality we can get here is far superior . . . [Employers] are more willing to outsource to India than to their own homes, and I can't understand that. Somehow they think that people need to be sitting in front of them or some boss they have designated. The productivity we get here more than makes up for the India [wage] factor."

     “我们不会外包给印度。” Neeleman说，“这里的质量好得多。……我不能理解（雇主们）宁愿外包给印度而不是他们自己家。也许他们认为人们应该坐在他们或他们指派的上司面前。我们在这创造的效益超过了印度（工资）补偿的因素。”

    A Los Angeles Times story about JetBlue (May 9, 2004) noted that "in 1997, 11.6 million employees of U.S. companies worked from home at least part of the time. Today, that number has soared to 23.5 million-16% of the American labor force. (Meanwhile, the ranks of the self-employed, who often work from home, have swelled during the same period-to 23.4 million from 18 million.) In some eyes, homesourcing and outsourcing aren't so much competing strategies as they are different manifestations of the same thing: a relentless push by corporate America to lower costs and increase efficiency, wherever that may lead."

    洛杉矶时代的一篇关于蓝色喷气机的通讯（5月9日2004年）记载着：“在1997年，美国公司有1160万人在家工作或至少一部分时间是。今天，这个数字剧增到2350万——是美国劳动大军的16％。（其间，自由职业者的比例——他们经常在家工作，同期由1800万增长到2300万。）某些人看来，家包和外包不是不同的竞争策略，它们是同一种事物的不同表现：美国公司冷漠的推行降低成本和增加效益，不管在哪里。”

    That is exactly what I was learning on my own travels: Homesourcing to Salt Lake City and outsourcing to Bangalore were just flip sides of the same coin-sourcing. And the new, new thing, I was also learning, is the degree to which it is now possible for companies and individuals to source work anywhere.    这是我在自己的旅行中学到的：不论是盐湖城的家包还是Bangalore的外包，它们只是资源——这个硬币的两面。我也学到了新东西，就是公司和个人可以把工作包到任何地方。