The future of mobility

I don't believe in borders. I do believe that the path to evolve to a stable world free from war is to think globally and raise everyone's standard of living. This article in the Economist, The Future of Mobility, pretty much sums up my view of the world.

People who may feed their families and see a future for their children are less susceptible to choose "war" as a job (and for many folks in the Third world, "war" simply a "job"). Global mobility allows labor to move to jobs and raise everyone's standard of living. This will bring jobs closer to local markets (or "home" for those inclined to think this way) as the cost of production far from local markets increases. This article is an excellent discussion of this issue. This book will go on my "to read" pile.

Technology offers mobility for some categories of jobs. There's a good chance that your taxes are being prepared in India, your X-Ray is being read overnight in Malaysia, your "help desk" call is being answered via an automatic routing system to just about anywhere in the world. Business processes and services that are not core to "what the business makes or does" are often outsourced to the lowest qualified bidder wherever that bidder may be.

As one goes up the food chain, you'll discover that large projects are being defined as independent objects with specifications for what "goes in" and "goes out". Those objects are then outsourced to resources around the world, integrated and tested somewhere else, and delivered perhaps to a Cloud architecture for use anywhere.

Borders matter less in a world with today's technology and transportation options. We may not see them go away in our lifetime; however, they will (or, should I say, they are) go(ing) away.