Module 2 Essay

         After sailing along through last week’s reading and homework I was feeling awfully confident about this course and what it entailed…and then this week happened!  Suddenly our required text became a terrorizing entity, filled with foreign dialogue which was obviously meant to discombobulate me!  So, after reading each paragraph somewhere between 3 and 10 times each and many texts and SOS calls to my geeky father, I think I have gained at least an elementary comprehension of workflow software and community developed software.  I pretty much already knew enough about outsourcing, phew, although I did not know about the origins of outsourcing being so closely linked with the Y2K fiasco, what a fun walk down memory lane that was!  What came to mind was being 17 and drinking Boones Farm at a New Year’s Eve party with everyone taking a very vigilant pause the moment the clock struck 12.  Fortunately the modern world as we know it did not implode…thank you India!

            I guess this week’s reading was so difficult for me because I never really understood the foundation and basic mechanism of the internet, so all this talk of codes and “footballs” left me feeling a sense of: HUH?  I think that the first step in the development of workflow software was the standardization of the way that material was digitized, in order to produce a seamless digital flow.  An office workplace would all need to be on the same page in other words, with each individual’s software being compatible with the next.  Fortunately somewhere along the way somebody (I wonder who exactly) designated standard, universal languages for computer applications. For example: HTML is the language used for designing and publishing documents.  So when I think of specific examples of workflow software being used I think of amazon.com, where I often shop.  I make the order through my computer, the order is then submitted to the supplier (who sometimes can be a company outside of amazon), my card gets charged and that spurs the merchandise being shipped off to me.  Or, let’s consider a simple visit to the doctor.  In some circumstances your doctor can input your prescription into his tablet, and by the time you arrive at the pharmacy it has already been filled and is ready for pickup!

            Open source software is important because it empowers individuals.  I see it as a global collaboration in order to produce the most innovative and efficient software.  As Friedman says in our text: “The primary goal of the free software movement is to get as many people as possible writing, improving, and distributing software for free, out of a conviction that this will empower everyone and free individuals from the grip of global corporations”.  We live in the information age, and because of open source software everyone across the world can fortunately be living in the information age with us privileged Americans.

            Workflow software standardized and compartmentalized the flow of real work, therefore making it easier for companies to outsource some or all of the labor .  When we think of outsourcing I am sure the majority of us think of that very frustrating call that we have all made, trying to set up cable service with some heavy accented foreigner (who we are supposed to believe is named Sunshine) that you just, for the life of you, cannot understand!  Outsourcing vastly reduces the overhead of businesses, and despite the frustrating strain that we as Americans have to make just to stumble through those disheartening phone calls, what matters most to corporate America is the bottom line.  If Sunshine will take a phone job for a fraction of the price that her American counterpart will, well…you get the gist.  But hey, think of all those Indian families that we are feeding by our need to get cable TV set up before the new season of The Walking Dead premieres!