Stevedore jobs would be filed under collateral damage. His rivals would benefit, but so would he. If everybody could agree on an international standard for the size of containers, trade would increase. When Malcolm McLean had his brilliant insight, he realized it would work best if he didn't patent the idea, but made it available to everyone. That's a fancy business neologism referring to a practice whereby rival companies cooperate for mutual benefit. Because containers and WiFi share a very important historical factor - Coopetition. Why are we talking about containers when we're supposed to be talking about WiFi? Are we off-topic? Only a little. The result: a revolution in global trade. Make all those boxes the same size and durable enough that you can load them straight from a truck to a ship and back to a truck again with the simple expedient of a crane.
Instead of employing a lot of stevedores to pack and unpack boxes and crates of all different sizes and shapes, it occurred to him that you could just throw everything into a few big metal boxes. In 1955 a trucking entrepreneur from North Carolina named Malcolm McLean had a very bright idea. In fact, you won't see many stevedores at all. But go down to a 21st century port, and you won't see anybody toting around a longshoreman's hook anymore. The plot revolved around a union of stevedores on strike in the 1950s. Ever watched "On the Waterfront"? That's the one with Marlon Brando playing a has-been prize-fighter.
0 kommentar(er)
