This One Might Anger You
I just stumbled on this eWeek article - Global Labor Auction. I have not had time to digest it yet, but I'm feeling less encouraged about one of my previous posts about the coming job boom - see Oct 10 post. Frankly, the thought of this being yet another marketing campaign is more than I could bear. E-mail your thoughts.

By the way, as public service, the author of the article is online to discuss further.

The Hidden Costs of Outsourcing
No huge surprises in this Business Week article to any techies reading this list, but it is nice to see that mainstream business magazines have picked up what the techies have been saying for a long time...namely these short term "business solutions" create long term technical problems. Should we get reams of similar articles, maybe Wall Street will penalize (wishful thinking "it") for Outsourcing.

Keep your head up, as a co-worker of my once said, "The longer management screws up, the more work there is for guys like you and me."


Government Outsourcing to Grow
This TechWeb article reminds me that the Outsourcing trend is not limited to private industry.

The Wal-mart Story
This story brought a smile/smirk to my mouth:

AP: Wal-mart Knew Of Illegal Workers
CNNMoney: 250 Arrested at Wal-mart

My smirk had nothing to do with illegal immigrants being arrested. It was due to numerous off the cuff comments & jokes that my 3rd career might have to be at Wal-mart. Apparently, even the competition for being a Janitor at Wal-mart is fierce and the wages are a "race to the bottom" as they say.

Software Development Salary Survey
A couple of folks e-mailed me about Software Development's site being down. (It must have been all the traffic I was sending their way) ;-) At the moment, it is currently up and running. Here is the direct link to their salary survey. Again, you will need to register.

A New Career in Marketing for "it"?
Still pondering a post-IT career for "it", I had to give being a marketer another thought. Apparently, the title of this 'blog was quite "creative". I was merely trying to see if Google had found this blog. When I searched, the results surprised me. Here is the search on Google for "OutsourceIT" 952 Hits! Again, very unscientific sampling, but since n > 30, apparently Outsourcing has become a very popular marketing tag line.

Does Outsourcing Equal High IT Unemployment?
After a few posts about fuzzy stuff like "adding value" (the kind of stuff I have decided to leave to the MBA's with spreadsheets), I thought I would get back to Outsourcing. Implicit in most of the discussions on this topic is the assumption that Outsourcing (especially offshore) has contributed to IT unemployment. Here is a Yahoo Posting that challenges that assumption. Among the points I note:

1) The gap between the overall unemployment rate and IT unemployment is now quite small. In the late 90's it was several percentage points. This is in keeping with my "gravy train" comment from yesterday.

2) IT unemployment increases with age. Not a real surprise, but I take greater notice with each passing day.

3) A quote from an MIT management professor, "It hasn't reached the danger level; we have a window of time, five or 10 years, for IT professionals to sit down and talk about what it'll take to maintain the knowledge and skills of the workforce,"

I will contrast that with a comment from a former colleague, "We've got 12 - 36 months. After that you and I are in trouble".

How are you feeling today?
"it"

Adding Value - Part 2
My last post about "adding value" generated an interesting response from a former co-worker that has been playing the consulting game for some time. I'm going to paraphrase, but it went something like this, "You ivory tower software product types! You want to write 'cool stuff' that nobody ever uses. If you can't get somebody to pay you for what you do, maybe it's time to look for something else!" OUCH!

After the initial sting of this comment wore off, I remember a comment by another former co-worker that was made during my days as a consultant. "Mike, what we need are clients with more money that aren't concerned about deadlines." That's close to a quote. Now to paraphrase, "Let's get paid mega-bucks to never produce." Maybe I've been riding the gravy train for too long? Either way, the other point about in Agile Edge column from my last post that I must now ponder, it is not good business types are even asking the asking the question of whether or not I add value.

What Does it Cost to Add Value
Software Development Magazines Annual Salary survey is out. Check it out to see you how you stand against the rest of industry relative to your age, experience, and geographic location. The last bullet is of course a very relevant one relative to this group.

Another interesting note from the editorial comment from this issue that I was not aware of. Walmart is now the nation's largest employer. This event took place in 1999, and if I read Fortune or The Wall Street Journal more I would probably already know this.

What does it mean to Add Value?
I have previously mentioned the recent layoffs at my company. At one of the many meetings to explain the logic behind the decision making, an employee asked, "What can I do as a technical employee to add value?". Words were spoken to the effect of "adding value", but little other specific information came from the response. After "it" (the author) discussed this with the questioner the next day, we can to the realization that the only meaning from the phrase "be a value added employee" really meant "be a business value adding employee...as in SHOW ME SOME MONEY. This became the local mantra for a few days -- "add value".

While it provided some light hearted relief for a brief time. I began to realize that despite how I might personally feel about this notion, it will be my reality for the foreseeable future. Will the coming "job boom" (See my post dated 10/10) change this current reality? Probably not. Scott Ambler writes in a recent Agile Edge column, that even for technical employees business knowledge and solving business problems will take a back seat to technical skills. Further, he adds that those among us that focus purely on technical skills are fighting a losing game against highly-skilled, lower-cost competition.

So the question of the day, that I would love to hear from all of you is, "How do you add value?" Feel free to e-mail me.

A Couple other Notes about OutsourceIT
At least one person, wrote to ask what do you mean by "it". "it" is a reference to me. Since the name of the group is Outsource"IT", the lowercase "it" refers to any small peon/cog in corporate America that can be outsourced/eliminated. I figure I'm a likely a candidate as any. I also like it because the reference is cold and impersonal (and reminds me of "thing" from the Adams Family)

Second, if you are reading my blog, you will notice that I have added a subscribe button to be added to the mailing list. Please share with any of you colleagues that would be interested in "adding value" (sorry I couldn't resist) to this blog/mailing list.

"it"

Andy Grove warns of Software Downfall
I've heard from a few folks since I started doing this, folks still seem to be on edge. Just when you think it's safe to put your head back down and write some serious code, somebody shares with you another note.... Late last week a colleague shared the following article about Andy Grove's speech to software execs.

Aside from the otherwise somber tone to the article, the word I find most interesting is "Washington". So is there a political angle to the story? Political, indeed after the layoffs that occurred at my company, folks around here were saying that it also a moral question. Stayed tuned for more on the politics of this.

Unionize?
Speaking of political, the word "union" is sure to start a lively discussion. The notion of software developers unionizing seemed ridiculous only a few years ago. Now it is being seriously discussed in professional journals. See the following from Software Development. "it" (me, your blogger) is also familiar with at least one acquaintance who is currently voting on the unionization of the IT department for a local government entity. I'll post more as I hear it.

Stay in touch, and keep at least one eye on the keyboard!
"it"

Let's Frame the Debate
Very recently, the company that I work for Lawson Software announced that they were simultaneously laying off 82 works (5%) of the company while making plans to off-shore some software maintenance and testing. So, this topic hit pretty close to home. Several articles began floating around about this trend. Here are two of them at opposite ends of the spectrum about where these trends are heading.

Forrester Research says that between 1 million and 3.3 million IT jobs will be shipped off-shore. --Full Story--

The Coming Job Boom
An article in Business 2.0 says that even IF 3.3 million jobs are lost that number will not nearly be enough to replace all of the baby boomers that will be retiring soon. The article says that it is a matter of simple demographics.

E-mail me your thoughts on what the future holds in general and you specifically.

Why OutsourceIT?
This blog is not an advocacy for Outsourcing, on the contrary it is aimed at what our "Mission Statement" (nose plugged) mentions, a forum for providing information and opinion about this trend. I have long been an advocate for providing information and letting people draw their own conclusions. Along the way, I may throw in some of my own opinions and those I hear from those of you following this trend.

The trend has been hard to ignore, I find myself thinking about it daily. I find myself reading about it daily. I find myself talking to other workers about it daily. Please share your thoughts with me. Perhaps together we can figure out if we can survive this trend, or if we should be making plans to work at WalMart.