There is a new book by award winning author Thomas L. Friedman titled The World is Flat. In the book he explains how advances in technology (e.g., open architecture) and global events (e.g., destruction of the Berlin Wall) have eliminated barriers of entry and enabled a mass globalization of our economies. Like all of Mr. Friedman’s books, his logic is sound and his all-too familiar anecdotes win most readers over. The framework that he constructs reminds us of those that we learned in college, theoretically correct, but practically unrealistic. Like Rodney Dangerfield correcting his economics professor in the movie Back to School reminding us that the real world does not work that way, we too have to question whether Mr. Friedman’s analogy of a flat world is dimensionally correct in an increasingly complex business world.