The U.S. Technology Skills Gap: What Every Technology Executive Must Know to Save America's Future, + Website

CHAPTER 6

1962: Empires of the Mind

The empires of the future are empires of the mind.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 19431

Antoine van Agtmael, the author of The Emerging Markets Century: How a New Breed of World-Class Companies Is Overtaking the World (2007), disagrees with the basic premise of Thomas Friedman's 2005 best seller, The World Is Flat. In a March 2007 article he wrote, “The world is not flat; it is tilting, with the USA rapidly moving from unquestioned dominance to great dependence.”2

Ten months later, the Financial Times published an article that asserted, “Although the U.S. remains a powerful business force, it can no longer take for granted its dominance over the rest of the world.”3

Less than a month after that, Bob Suh, the former chief technology officer (CTO) of the global consulting firm Accenture and now the CEO of OnCorps, wrote in the same newspaper that American companies are falling behind in technology because they “dedicate the majority of their fresh capital to fortifying older systems while companies in Europe and Asia invest in more up-to-date systems.”4

Did You Know?

It was in this environment that Karl Fisch, the director of technology at Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Colorado, was asked by school administrators to speak at the 2006 opening faculty meeting. The administrators wanted Fisch to share with the faculty the latest and greatest technology tools that they might use in their teaching efforts.

Fisch had a better idea. Rather ...