I have been travelling to Europe frequently over the last month and I have been fascinated by the disparity in standards. One cannot help if this is an extension of the Bible story of ‘Babel’ where humans were scattered to the wind due to a simple language change.

For instance, consider these two offshoots:

·         Power standards: What a nightmare. Different plugs. Different voltages. Different standards. Don’t plug your 110 V appliance into a 220V appliance or ‘BOOM’. Just think of the additional costs that this adds for manufacturers. They cannot churn out millions of an item, they need to forecast each region and modify accordingly. How many billions does that add to our cost? Check out this map on different standards.

·         Driving: Part of the world drives on the right. Part of the world drives on the left. I was recently corrected that the UK style of driving (right side driver) is now not that unusual thanks to .. China and India. It was pointed out that there are now more people driving on the left side than the right. Again, imagine the impact on manufacturing. Every single car out there has 2 designs – a left model and a right model. Again .. billions.

And so, we remain apart, slowing our advancement as a race and our reaching the heavens. Mission accomplished big guy.