I recently saw your link over on Keith Byrd’s San Luis Obispo Real Estate website.  I actually tried one of your pizza’s recently and was quite impressed.  It was very good and although a bit more expensive than I’d like for a pizza different enough to warrant me buying a second one sometime soon.  However this isn’t about your food, it’s about your website.I’d like to make you aware of some issues with an all Flash (that’s the animation and multimedia technology used to deliver your current website) website:

• Having to “load” your website.  Since the website is done entirely in Flash, I have to wait for the content to load.  This is bad.  Most users have a very brief attention span an making them wait for information they could just as easily get from another Mediterranean restaurant’s website is not a good idea.  I’m on a pretty fast DSL connection and it took me about 40 seconds to load.  As a website you have about 1/20th of a second to impress someone with your design, and about 4 seconds max for their attention span.  That means that more than likely no one will ever wait for your website to load and will most likely go somewhere else to find the information they’re looking for.
• Playing music in the background while relaxing in a restaurant is not kosher on a website.  Let me explain why.  As a potential customer on my computer I have probably found your website either by a referral (like Keith, me or Yelp) or by typing in your web address (petraslo.com).  I likely have the ability to listen to my own music and for the sake of this example we’ll say it’s Andy McKee (because it is  at the moment).  I’m listening to my music, bobbing my head and enjoying it thoroughly…  Until I come to your website.  My once melodic and relaxing Andy McKee has now been mixed inadvertently and without my permission with your background music embedded in Flash.  I’m surprised, confused and a bit frustrated and now scrambling to either turn off my music (something I’m not happy about doing) or trying to figure out where this new music is coming from.  I realize it’s coming from your website and immediately am a bit irked that someone would force their music on me.  I finally find the pause button on the website and stop your music.  I might even do one of the following things: close the website and vow never to eat at your store again, be mildly ticked and still search for your phone number or address, or if you’re lucky I didn’t have any music playing and I enjoy your music and happily browse your menu and order something.  I’d like to ask you as a business owner: Is it worth the first two scenario’s to have a few of the third?
• Not being able to link to your menu.  Since the website is done in Flash and does not utilize HTML to link to different pages I cannot (and neither can search engines) link to any of your interior pages.  Nor can they most likely read any of them.  If I want to send my friend the menu page, or your contact information my friend will need to sit through your flash introduction and then I’ll talk them through which buttons to click and how to turn off your music before they can get to the information I want to share with them. Not good business.  It should be very easy and second nature for me to use and share your website, not painful.  This is also true for search engines.
• Minimal search engine indexing.  Flash isn’t as easily indexed as HTML and is much harder to optimize for search engines thus as a web site built entirely in Flash you aren’t as visible or highly ranked as you probably should be.  Being found in search engines is like free business referrals, why are you making this more difficult for yourself?
• Not playing well with browsers.  This might sound odd but Flash is not inherently installed on browsers and isn’t supported by them as standard HTML is.  An example will probably clear this up a bit: Try right clicking on this page.  You’ll get your standard right click menu from a website including possibly the options to go back, view source, copy, paste, etc.  This is what you expect, right?  Try right clicking on any Flash website.  You will not be prompted to copy or paste, or go back, or anything else you are used too.  Instead you can most likely “play” or “loop”.  This is because your website is essentially one big movie that has hot spots that can be clicked on to play other “movies”.  It’s not content, it’s a movie.  Do you play your menu’s as movies for customers when they come into your store?  Probably not because it would be frustrating for them to pause, rewind or wait to read the menu or point out things to their friends.  It would also be very expensive to “print” them to put in your shop.  So why do it on the web?
• The back button is now broken.  Yes, your website has effectively broken my back button on my browser.  If I click on any menu item and then hit the back button I actually leave your website.  Not a good thing.

It’s in your best interest to make things very simple and easy for your users and give them exactly what they want from a restaurant website: A menu, a phone number, an address and possibly a nice logo and easy to read text.  You don’t really need anything else. If you have any questions give me a call or better yet contact your web designer and get this all sorted out.  Ask for a simple one page informational website.  It will help your business rather than hurt it.  You’ll thank me later.

And stop torturing your customers!  I know you’re one of the most personable restaurants I’ve ever had the joy of eating in, that should show up in spades through your website too.

What’s this about?

Rivoli recounts a time in her life when she mapped out the family tree of a T-shirt (one she sees on vacation in Florida) based on an urge born from a 1999 World Trade Organization protest question: “Who made your T-shirt?” She does a wonderful job engaging the reader by constantly instilling a question of “Where does the T-shirt really come from?” First we think it’s from China, then Texas’s cotton farms, and maybe Tanzania. Along the way she answers each question that arises almost as if she’s having a conversation with us as we turn each page.

You may be wondering by the end of the first chapter, “Wait, why would we use cotton from Texas instead of cotton from China?” I’ll bet you didn’t know that slavery is a big part of why and from there it was hard for anyone else to catch up. Interested yet? Economics may sound dull, but who doesn’t like a good mystery novel? I love economics which was why I picked up this book… but it’s STILL good. I promise.  Even if you don’t like economics.

Why should I care?

Did you know that the US cotton industry is so heavily subsidized that the US cotton farmers get more than twice what the price is in the global economy?  The US cotton industry is the only industry that gets paid twice what the item they are selling is worth, are insured if it fails, insured if the price drops, paid before it’s consumed and even paid in the off seasons.  Third world countries can’t compete.  The US cotton industry makes sure of it.  Sounds odd for a country that prides itself on helping other countries right?  Well if you care about what I’ve just said, that’s why you should care about this book.

[edit]

As I read back over this report I was emboldened to answer this question “Why should I care?” not as if you’re asking me but rather as if I’m asking myself — Why should I care?  I care because I want to know why are people inspired to protest.  Why are businesses driven by the bottom line?  Some of these seem so easy to me, but this book definitely introduced a new view point.  The truly free market in Africa, where the T-shirt ends up, inspired me as an entrepeneur and future businessman.  I always donate my clothes whenever I’m tired of them, and to know where they end up and how they are bought and sold  is that much more interesting to me.  Especially seeing how polluted the market is by governments and politicians along the way.

Are there any weaknesses?

Rivoli didn’t leave many weaknesses in the book.  While I found myself agreeing with all of her conjectures if we look at the book objectively she does exert bias towards politicians and specifically to the Bush family.  I think Bush is “up” to around 75% disapproval rating but regardless an author of an economic book should try and be as objective as possible and non biased towards the subject.  As she didn’t need to add in these opinions, I’m assuming the book was as much for her as it was for us.  When I’m in agreement with someone it is much harder to see the other side of the discussion and in this case I had to really think about how I would tear holes in this books logic.  The problem is that Rivoli didn’t do much to interview politicians or lobbyists involved in the farming and textile industry.  In order to mount a stronger argument for her cause, she would definitely need to interview the politicians allowing them to defend themselves.

Further Thoughts

I was very happy with each book I selected and as my last book before China, Travels of a T-shirt was just as enjoyable as Collapse.  I wasn’t as eager to read The World is Flat.  I think that was mainly due to the frustration I had with how often Friedman mentioned “flatteners”.  Travels was on par with Collapse as far as entertainment and business value.  I love economics and this book didn’t disappoint me.  The trip around the world and personal view through the history of US cotton and textile industry was new to me.

Since this book was read to prepare me for my travels to India and China I feel it noteworthy to mention that China is discussed in the book.  China’s constantly under fire for offering cheaper wages and polluting the environment.  Normally we see a focus on those two areas (or have in Collapse and The World is Flat) but in Travels of a T-shirt, Ravoli concentrates on the individuals.  A refreshing view and one that is truly inspirational.  The prospect of improving someone’s life, whether their human rights are violated or not, their life now is still better than what they had before and it is a step in the right direction.

What’s this about?

Jared Diamond looks into how societies fail or “collapse”.  And by collapse he means “…a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time.”  Straight to the point and extremely engaging to read as I was hoping.  I was impressed by Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel and couldn’t wait to read his incites on societies as a whole and their proverbial “lives.”  My first draw to the book was the section on Easter Island as I knew nothing about the area other than there were giant rock sculptures possibly put there by aliens.  My curiousity was peaked.  It also contains a section on China which was relevant to me as I’ll be traveling with my Cal Poly MBA class to China and India this summer on a business exchange.

The book covers a few example societies that fall into one or all of the environmental damaging categories:

• Deforestation and habitat destruction
• Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
• Water management problems
• Overhunting
• Overfishing
• Effects of introduced species on native species
• Human population growth
• Increased per-capita impact of people

All societies that have collapsed over time have exhibited some of these environmental problems.  Interestingly enough all of the collapses are always due to some form of environment damage.  By environment we’re told by Diamond not to assume just natural environment but also economic as they are tied together quite closely.  He does an amazing job of providing rigorous historical evidence to explain each societies collapse in the book.

Here’s a list of the societies covered in the book.  Maybe one of them will spark your interest as Easter Island and China did for me.

• Contemporary Montana: Bitterroot Valley
• Easter Island
• Pitcairn and Henderson Islands
• The Anasazi and Chaco
• Maya’s Collapse
• Viking’s and Iceland
• Norse Greenland
• Rwanda’s Genocide
• The Dominican Republic and Haiti
• China
• Australia

All of these societies are used to illustrate different concepts of collapse.  Once they’ve all been outlined and the concepts have been made clear a section on practical lessons applies them to our current American society and the world as a whole.  How do we prevent our own collapse?  What areas of business can we look at to prevent this and how we as consumers we prevent our own demise?  The book covers it all and in very entertaining and enthralling stories that you can pay attention too and identify with.

Why should I care?

Well if you haven’t been bitten by the sustainability bug this book gives a good smart chomp.  We see examples about how the Norse ultimately died off in Greenland because they brought their European practices to an environment that could not support nor had the weather to support their agriculture habits that worked back on Iceland.  Or how the Easter Islanders slowly cut down all the forest on their island and without even realizing it condemned themselves to starvation.  Not only was it not as if one of them went out and chopped down the last palm tree but rather that slowly the new palms were not growing back in fast enough for their societies need.  If they had known to manage their tree population much more efficiently they would have survived and prospered on the island until now.

China’s chapter was one of the most eye opening chapters I read.  We are all aware of the cheap labor they provide as well as the benefits to business and the bottom line.   But were we all aware that we send all our trash there?  That not only are they producing enough pollution to condemn the rest of the world but we’re helping them and encouraging them to do so.  As an MBA heading out into the business world I found this especially inspiring.  How can we do business with China and make them realize the damage their doing to the environment is not sustainable.  That in a few more years they will be beyond repair and not only will they personally be close to collapse, but the rest of the world will see the drastic effects as well.  Their air, water and soil quality is already dangerously low.  I’m hoping that their government realizes how important their environment is during the next couple of months and the upcoming 2008 Olympics. We’ve seen a few candidates drop out due to not wanting to perform in the horrid air in Beijing.

Diamond goes on to put a price on these environmental sacrifices that China is supposedly making to make money and do business with the west.

• $72 million per year to battle alligator weed (introduced from Brazil and is damaging crops)
• $250 million per year (and rising) for factory closures due to water shortages
• $540 million per year in Xian for sand storm damages on buildings and crops
• $730 million per year damage to crops from acid rain
• $6 billion a year for damages to the “green wall” of trees being built to shield Beijing against sand and dust
• $7 billion a year for the losses created by other species other than the alligator weed
• $27 billion for floods
• $42 billion for for desertification and loss of water
• $54 billion for air pollution

The later two make up 14% of China’s GDP.  Hopefully this is starting to sink in to a few of you and inspire you to check out this book.  We all need to know how to become sustainable and live in the environment we have without damaging it.  Both economically as well as ecologically.

Are there any weaknesses?

I’ve read a few reviews online that complained of not enough detail for the concentrated eye.  I didn’t run across this problem but I’m not an expert on the subject so I could see someone who’s well versed in the field wanting more evidence.  The book provided me with more than enough examples but the lack of pure data could be seen as a downfall.  In my opinion I wouldn’t have been able to have paid as much attention as I did if it had more raw numbers.

I would suggest the little bit of optimism that Diamond tries to inject into the book doesn’t serve any purpose other than to try and sugar coat something that doesn’t need to be sugar coated.  This topic needs to impact people.  We can’t think things will be okay if we ignore them.  It’s almost too late to fix our situation so in order to repair what we’ve damaged, we need to work extra hard to be sustainable.

Further Thoughts

I think I will read this book again.  It’s not very many books I wish to re-read but this and Guns, Germs and Steel have left a mark on me.  They provide many business incites into how to communicate with those around you as well as how to profit from optimizing your business and life.  Things that didn’t sink in entirely the first time I read them and will most likely require a review later on.  I think the title of the book could be made to be less harsh and hopefully more encouraging.  So more people will read it with the mindset that they need to be listening, not just enjoying the story and then continue on with their lives as normal.  As we learn in the book, as a society we really only get one chance.  If you knock down all your trees you can’t just buy more.  They’re gone.  For good.  I say trees when really I’m just using them as a symbol to encompass everything that’s important to us as a species and to the earth as a whole.  We only have one earth.  It may sound very “hippyish” or tree-hugger but we really do need to protect our environment to survive.

What’s this about?

Thomas L. Friedman originally captured my attention on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He talked briefly about the book and what it covered: How the world is becoming flat through the sharing of information. He proposes that there are many “flattener’s” that make sharing information easier. Ten to be exact:

1. The Berlin wall comes down
2. Netscape goes public
3. Work flow software
4. Open sourcing
5. Outsourcing
6. Offshoring
7. Supply-chaining
8. Insourcing
9. In-forming
10. Digital, mobile, personal and virtual or “The Steroids”

Friedman goes into detailed examples of how each of these affected the flattening of the world. He also doesn’t hold back in using the catch phrase “flattening” over and over in all his examples. It’s like a one sided conversation with someone who’s trying to get you to adopt their cool phrase.  Except instead of enticing you to use it, it only annoys you. In respect to individuals who will be reading this, I’ll make an effort to use the “flattening” terms as little as possible throughout this review.

Is the book only about those ten factors and how they increase the sharing of information?  No, however they do define the platform for which Friedman launches his chronological journey through the globalization of the world. He defines how they converge on each other and act as a singular flattening force on our world. Through short stories of companies, societies, human interaction, and all of them entertaining, Friedman explains the importance of globalization and why it’s a force to be respected.

I think there are some very common misconceptions about this book that should be cleared up immediately.  This book does not go into great detail about any one “flattener” and instead hits upon everything generically.  This definitely keeps the reader engaged as you’re never really challenged by any of Friedman’s ideas.  More to the point it’s like having your eyes opened to an obvious fact that you didn’t see before: Globalization.

Why Should I Care?

In all honesty the book is written very well. It’s an all encompassing look into the history of globalization. The examples are entertaining and engaging. If you haven’t had any experience with them in the past this is a great introduction.  But as I said before it’s pretty generalized for the sake of entertainment and sensationalism.  The entire theme can be summed up with the fact that the internet came into existence and became popular and flattened the world.  All the other factors play off this root concept of which for whatever reason Friedman doesn’t look at in great detail but instead brushes over with many examples.  Google is a great example that he applies quite often throughout the book.  Friedman explains that a flattener is much like Google in that when we didn’t have it, we didn’t much care.  However, once Google came into our lives, we have a hard time living without it.  We rely on it in many ways to make our lives easier and to communicate with the rest of the world.  It’s that type of simple example that is repeated throughout the book to open the readers’ eyes to globalization.

Opening peoples eyes to globalization doesn’t sound like it’s that important at first.  But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.  China and India are discussed in many examples throughout The World is Flat.  Each is discussed in context to their strengths: India and their outsourcing and offshoring capabilities and China about their labor force.  Realizing the potential of these two countries alone and their effect on the United States economy is really the benefit of this book.

Are There Any Weaknesses?

I’ve read a few reviews of this book in curiosity of what other people thought.  Oddly enough the main thing everyone else complained about was also my number one complaint.  The constant beating of the “World is Flat” drum throughout the whole book.  I found myself having to put the book down at times because I was just so annoyed with the constant use of “flat”, “flattener”, “flattened”, “flattening”, etc. when there are so many other words that would have made the point so much clearer.  It gets to the point where you feel as if you’re being programmed to use this word and you really don’t even know what it means anymore since Friedman uses it to describe everything and define nothing.  But let’s move on and look at the content itself.

The analysis of globalization in this book is very general.  It doesn’t go into a lot of detail on any of the issues presented.  There’s a book written in response
that critically analyzes Friedman’s book and the main points he makes:

The World Is Flat?: A Critical Analysis of New York Times Bestseller by Thomas Friedman

I haven’t read this book yet, although I plan to pick it up and take a look at what issues Aronica and Ramdoo present.  I’m guessing it’s a lot clearer than Friedman’s approach.  The fact that there’s an entire book written in response to Friedman’s should tell you something.

Further Thoughts

While reading this book I found that I was inspired to look further and take notice of a lot more issues that could be affecting the globalization of the world around me.  While I had to really ignore the constant use of the word “flat” and its many incarnations, I think it did play a crucial role in framing the content of the book around its title.  That connection between the drastic claims of a flat world and the stories that paint the picture make the reader open their eyes to what’s happening around them.  The world is getting smaller.  Communication is increasing in speed.  Information is becoming as available as air.  Every new generation has more and more opportunities than the one previous.  We just have to go grab it.

That pressure to get out of the chair and go do something I think is the greatest take away from this book.  We need to understand that America is still great and has a lot of things to offer.  The most important thing: our imaginations.