Friedman: Imagination Matters

NORMAN (3:16 p.m.) -- Thomas L. Friedman's thesis in his book, "The World is Flat," was wrong, he said.

"The world is so much flatter than I thought," Friedman said.

Friedman, the winner of the second Gaylord Prize, was honored Monday at the Hilton-Skirvin in Oklahoma City. Dozens of Gaylord faculty, students, alumni and distinguished guests were in attendance.

Friedman is the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and is the winner of three Pulitzer Prizes.

Imagination: The Most Important Thing

More and more aspects of life and business are being outsourced now than ever before, Friedman said.

"More and more things are becoming commodities," he said. "They are becoming automated, digitized and ourtsourced."

But the one thing that is not and cannot become a commodity is imagination, Friedman said.

"The future belongs to the dream machine," Friedman said. "It's all about who sparks the idea. Everything else is available online."

There are two rules of business that matter to Friedman.

The first is that "Whatever can be done will be done," he said. "If you have a good idea, pursue it."

In a global community, there are too many people with instant access to the rest of the world for good ideas to not be thought of by someone else, Friedman said.

The second rule is that the most important competition in the world is not between businesses or even between countries. It is between people and their imaginations.

There are two kinds of countries, Friedman said. There are "high-imagination-enabling countries," and there are "low-imagination-enabling countries."

Because of this, the there is still hope for the United States in the future, Friedman said.

"America still is the greatest dream machine in the world," Friedman said. "I will not cede the 21st century to China, to a country that censors its Internet and has political prisoners.

Or, as Friedman's grandmother once told him, "Never cede a country to a country that censors Google."