[ale] OT: Indian outsourcing

[Stuffed Crust]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 11:41:47AM -0500, Fulton Green wrote:
> The main takeaway of the article seems to be that the next shift in
> *onshore* employment needs to be to the areas of creativity and
> innovation, since we still have a perceived advantage in those realms
> whereas the IT and other BPO activities offshort tend to focus solely on
> the refinement of an innovation or concept (a la the Japanese car
> industry).

There's only one problem with that idea.  For people to have those
higher-end design/creative jobs, they have to spend their time in the
trenches too.  You must first learn the trade to become creative in it.  
You know, the whole "learn to walk before you can run" thing.  You just 
don't pick up a paintbrush and end up with the Mona Lisa.  It takes 
years of practice and work before you may become a master.

Would you trust a "software architect" that's never written any code; 
who has no significant experience?   

So how are we to get experience, when to get jobs we need experience? 
>From the low-to-mid-level jobs that don't exist any more?  What do we do
when the current generation of "experienced" people eventually retires? 
Who will perform the next round of designing and "creativity"?  The
people who do the low-to-mid-level jobs today, that's who.  And they'll
leave new low-level jobs behind as they move up the ladder, for new
people to gain experience.  And those people will become the following
generation of creators and designers.

We're not just talking about the outsourcing/offshoring of miscellaneous
programming here -- we're talking about companies outsourcing R&D work. 
We're talking about companies outsourcing their *core business*.  US
corporations are becoming little more than sales & marketing shells.  
What will happen is that slowly we'll become the "outsourced marketing" 
firms, then we'll get cut out of the loop entirely once they wake up and 
realize that they don't need us.

Experience is analogous to education.  And what's happening is that it's
been turned into just another expense to be minimized, rather than as
the investment it really is.   Corprations can't see past their current 
quarter, much less plan years in advance.

Let me take this opportunity to plug Issac Asimov's excellent short 
story, _Profession_.  It's well worth the read, and quite relevant to 
the matter at hand.

http://www.abelard.org/asimov.htm
 
 - Pizza
-- 
Solomon Peachy                                   pizza at f*cktheusers.org
                                                           ICQ #1318444
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur                 Melbourne, FL
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