Over at Edge Perspectives, the always intelligent, John Hagel weighs in on the flat versus spiky world debate: “I am especially drawn to the spike metaphor because spikes are where
economic value gets created – the flat world is full of challenge while
the spiky world is full of opportunity. If you want to make money,
concentrate on playing in the spikes while never forgetting that you
will be playing in a flat world.”
He riffs on the great article by my old Pittsburgh friend, Tim Aeppel at the Wall Street Journal who provides a “great example from a spike that has escaped a lot of public
attention. It turns out that Warsaw, Indiana with a population of
12,500, has become a center for the design and manufacture of
orthopedic devices.”
He also briefly reviews a terrific book by UC-Berkeley’s Annalee Saxenian, The New Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy,
which explores “the complex web of personal and
institutional relationships that knit together entrepreneurs in Silicon
Valley with a series of emerging spikes in such diverse areas as
Israel, Taiwan, China and India.” The New Argonauts,” Saxenian explains, “the foreign-born,
technically skilled entrepreneurs who travel back and forth between
Silicon Valley and their home countries.”
John makes the point that spikes need not be huge urban area, citing Silicon Valley as a key spiky center of innovation. I could not agree more, but I would also simply note that Silicon Valley has to be understood in the context of the great mega-region, I call Nor-cal which includes the entire San Francisco Bay area.
In my original “spiky world” essay, I argued that one of the big issues confronting society in the coming decades is the fact that there are actually two worlds, or two sets of connections out there, citing the detailed research of Robert Lang and Peter Taylor which shows that spiky places are mainly connected to other spiky places, with others increasing left out side the web of flows.
BTW, my original spiky world essay will be included, along with a new preface, in the paperback edition of Flight of the Creative Class due out early in the new year.
