My high school economics teacher gave me a great compliment one time. He said something to the level of “Allen has the ability to make you believe what he says. If he says the world is flat, then the world is flat.” I somehow doubt that’s true, but somehow New York Times writer Thomas Friedman is convincing people the world isn’t world with a book called the The World is Flat. Not in the Pre-Columbus sort of way, but in the sense that other countries, particularly China and India, are growing to a level that can compete with the United States.
The blog WorldChanging had a post today about Friedman’s idea, but involving the program Skype. It involved college students calling each other from the United States and China with the program. Some other people have had some interesting experiences with the program, even with people asking them to practice their English. I decided sure enough to try this by setting the program to accept a call from anyone. Turns out I got a call from a Brazilian man wanting to learn English. It was pretty difficult to work (communicating with one another) and we ended up cutting it off after a few minutes, but it was an interesting experience. I’m still looking for my next caller.
