George Ritzer is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, and is perhaps best known for his books The McDonaldization of Society and The Globalization of Nothing. The former looked at the role that rationalization plays in our ever-expanding world, outlining five major themes in the McDonaldization process: efficiency; calculability; predictability; control through the substitution of non-human for human technology; and the irrationality of rationality. The latter looks at the role of establishing the difference between nothing (centrally conceived and lacking in distinctive substance) and something (indigenously conceived and distinct). Another major theme of The Globalization of Nothing is the establishment of two terms: glocalization and grobalization.

Glocalization is defined as the interpenetration of the global and the local resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas; while grobalization is defined as the imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations and organizations, and their desire to impose themselves on specific geographic areas. For better framing of this terminology in a word most of us will recognize, Ritzer defines globalization as the worldwide diffusion of practices, expansion of relations across continents, organization of social life on a global scale and the growth of a shared global consciousness.

The vital elements of glocalization are as follows: the world is growing more pluralistic; individuals and local groups have great power to adapt; social processes are relational and contingent; and commodities and the media are not seen as totally coercive. Essentially, glocalization seeks to take the defining aspects of globalization and bring them to the local level, empowering local communities to make progress on a worldwide level and then to apply this progress locally.

The vital elements of grobalization are: the world is growing increasingly similar; individuals and groups have relatively little ability to adapt; social processes are largely one-dimensional and deterministic; and commodities and the media are the key forces/areas of cultural change. Here we see that capitalist firms must continue to expand or they will die. Grobalists view the world as becoming increasingly less diverse, and individual agency as lacking in power.

So what do these terms have to do with us? We are after all in the business of GIS and geography. How do glocalization and grobalization affect us? Essentially we here at Apollo Mapping aim to not only bring our expanding world closer together through the use of satellite and aerial imagery, giving everyone access to information about the earth and its resources on a macro level, but to use those resources to benefit underserved areas and people by working alongside academics and researchers. We understand the importance of finding and providing energy sources, whether they be traditional forms (coal, oil, gas), or alternative (solar, wind, geothermal); and while we know the world keeps expanding in many ways, we are committed to serving our clients at the local level.