Creating Rifts in a Flat World

If you have read Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat" you know all about this concept, and how you need to think about these concepts as you move your business forward in the new economy. Jim Carroll points out however that once people, companies or even countries get this concept, they have spent so much time focused on cost and efficiencies of the flat world they they often don't know where to go next...when flat becomes the status-quo. He suggests that this is exactly the time to put a ripple in the flat world with innovation. He then suggests some ways to ways to go about this:

• Focus on brand
• Go big on quality
• Get Religious on time-to-market
• Go deep with market knowledge
• Increase value
• Focus on agility
• Seek partners
• Go upside down
• Stay motivated

The interesting thing is that for the most part, this is exactly what start-ups do innately. That is precisely why they are coming into existing markets, transforming them with new ideas and often crushing existing players. While the existing players are still trying to figure out how to play in a flat world, the new players already there, and purely focused on innovation, because that is all they really have to compete with. As Seth Godin preaches 'small is the new big'. Act small - think big.