Bill, it looks like a mixed message, that you're carving out a path
through changing times, but are seeing bad times for others around you.
I think you've got the right idea, and others might be able to learn
from you. But that's just one slice of the enormous 'computerized world'
pie. I insist that, above and beyond all other considerations, there is
simply too much to be done for anyone to say "my job is gone and now I
have nothing to do".
You mention languages. A big reason India is being mentioned today,
instead of say China, isn't because they are any smarter than the
Chinese, it's because they've adapted better to English, which is the
predominant language used in major software systems. The little
appreciation I have for languages other than English tells me that
Chinese or German would have been better choices, owing to their greater
precision, but English (via American capitalism) got there first. A
spade is a spade. English may eventually be threatened, but that's down
the road a piece, I think.
Bill
> A Note to Bill Arnold -
> I can appreciate your position. I've done training lectures
> in Italy and China the past two years (at a fairly decent
> rate, I might add) , and am moving on to Singapore and
> Indonesia this year as well. I've done standups to
> Multi-National Corps in those countries who were employing
> local labor there, working on projects typically not for USA
> consumption. I embrace world-views on some things as well,
> so I try not to stay a hippocrit(e), but in the same breath -
> if the TeleCom Corridor in Dallas/Richardson didn't mostly go
> 'that-a-way' to India - I would not have been looking
> elsewhere for my income. Granted - the work went elsewhere
> due to a few huge banking transactions going south, but since
> the work 'still had to get done' - it went to India for 1/10
> [initially] to 1/3 [currently] the cost of having it done by
> Texas-based programmers. I was lucky enough to get called in
> after 3 projects were failing in India due to cultural
> differences in the 'understanding' of the design spec and get
> the work done back in Texas - but it was in disaster recovery
> mode for those firms [to engage me and my team] and I was
> happy for the work. But 3 projects out of 44 that went
> 'that-a-way' ?? Sheesh .. That was 25 programmers that
> weren't engaged on billable time for those two years.
>
> I've also trained Indian programmers and project managers in
> Texas that were in country on L-1 visas. I'm not happy to
> have said that, but it was either do it then, or not eat. I
> preffered to eat that quarter.
>
> Also - MS has a fairly large presence in the Dallas Area in
> Los Colinas for custom software development work. My moles
> tell me that during the past 3 years, over 2700 Indian
> programmers came in and out for 6 month stints on L-1 Visas.
>
> On a lighter note ? IT is growing by 600 percent a year in
> Mainland China for the last 3 years and there is a prediction
> that it will not slack off for the next 5 years. This market
> has little to do with any particular outsourcing efforts
> originating in the U.S.A. My Mandarin is improving - How's Yours ??
>
> mondo regards [Bill]
©2004 Bill Arnold |
