Brett Morgan thinks I'm overstating the case about programming moving off-shore.

Do you honestly believe that this applies to just programmers? Do you believe this just applies to the IT industry? Where I currently work is in the middle of outsourcing everything to India.

I spoke with my Dad about what happened the last time everyone tried to outsource coding to India. India wound up with a large number of cobol coders (writing cobol that no one in the western world could understand) and the rest of the world moved on to mini's and pc's.

The real lesson here is one that hasn't changed in the IT industry since it started. Expect your current job to be obsolete in 18 months. You must always be searching for the next opening. The new tech. The next approach. Figuring out how to sell this to the uncountable hordes of late adopters.

I agree with you, mostly. Especially about the technology skill treadmill.

The issue is one of scale and capability.

Ten years' ago, we didn't have the Internet, email, collaborative software engineering tools, all of which lowers distance as a barrier.

The last decade changed the labor supply too. The number of highly skilled, multilingual programmers is growing offshore exponentially along with the capacity to train. The rate of fresh U.S. computer science grads is flat or falling. Bangalore demonstrates increased rigor in hiring, better tooling, and more attention to quality and best practices. Their pool is growing and getting better.

Cobol was the only thing you could or would send out in 1992. We sent them easily-outsourced work. We will again. But a greater piece of the pie is now easily-outsourced. And that slice is growing. Chances are, your work will increasingly be subject to export: either to a low cost bid or to a world class specialist.

Another issue: The treadmill. You must recycle/refresh your knowledge every 18 months, so new entrants to your labor market always have a chance to jump on the treadmill. As the body of knowledge grows, so does the need to specialize so you can master something. The treadmill leads to specialization. You can't master human resources systems, but you might be able to master succession management systems.

It is easier to stay on the bleeding edge if you speak and read English. Today. What happens when the breakthroughs start in another language, like Mandarin or Hindi, and the million software engineers who have that as their first language? How many months will that put you behind on the treadmill?

Software engineering, like much white collar knowledge work, is becoming a commodity.

From an Adecco study: "Contrary to popular opinion, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that technical and professional jobs, including such positions as computer programmers, managers, executives and financial-services professionals, are two of the fastest-growing occupational categories in the temporary staffing industry. Since 1998, there has been an increase of 52 percent in the number of temporary employees holding technical positions. In the same timeframe, the number of temporary employees holding professional positions has grown by 227 percent."  

The globalization of labor markets affects other disciplines too. The 12 August 2002 BusinessWeek has a column on Boeing outsourcing work, including advanced design and engineering. For example, its Moscow Design Center now employs 500 engineers, positions removed from Seattle.

Think of the price of Russian workers. How do you compete against the three better-educated people who will do your job for the same pay?

Flight (shift into another line of work), Fight (become world class) or change the rules.

garret vreeland's grandmother, 'miz powell'

my dear grandmother passed away this morning. so many of you have been supportive while she's been in her final illness ... thank you all. don't waste time sending me condolences; give your loved ones a hug, let them know how much you care. life is short. make the most of it.

my grandmother will be buried after a graveside service next to my grandfather in seymour, tennessee, on wednesday. the cemetery actually sits across the road from their old farmstead, with a beautiful view of the smokey mountains. the entire family knows of her fondness for daisies, so i'm sure the entire knoxville/gatlinburg area will have a run on the flowers.

[aka Obituaries a la Blog]

Do you live to code? If you don't and that's your job, move on. Bob Lewis, InfoWorld columnist, forsees doom for the million U.S. programmers. I must agree.

In his July 15th column, The IT rust belt, Bob blames:

1. Better/cheaper communication technology (Internet, Voice over IP, team programming tools)
2. Leading to labor market globalization (follow the sun work sharing) and
3. Dramatically increased supply of good software engineers in cheaper markets.

"Unless you're in the top rank, there's little future for you in IT. The supply of programmers exceeds demand and that drives down prices -- your wages."

I've sent projects out of the country. It works. I have a team in Vancouver. They work at 60-75% of Silicon Valley wages. And they average an extra college degree. They use the latest tools (J2EE, IBM, Bea, Allaire, PGP) and methods (they are an XP team). They work as hard, fast, and well as any team I could field here. They get specs and return working systems. (Call me if you'd like an introduction.)

And Canucks should be the least of your worries. India's labour minister has a stated goal of producing a million programmers a year by 2010. a year! And if you keep systems running, look at IBM's Autonomic Computing research. They hope to reduce network and sysadmin headcount by 90 percent in 5-10 years; maintenance programmers to follow.

With pressure like this, what kind of career longevity do you have?

Let's start with IT jobs that are harder to export. Jobs requiring:

• face time
• proximity
• linguistic ability
• cultural familiarity  

Jobs like:

• management
• network administration
• systems analysis and requirements gathering
• user-experience design
• help desk (sometimes)
• project management

So what do you do If you are a programmer, software engineer, software QA, sysadmin?

How can you compete on price?

You can't.

You can leave the field, pursue another dream.

You can become a world class expert. Be in the world's top 1% of computational lexicographers.

You can be more productive for the dollar. Perhaps you can buy tools to leverage your time and expertise. Do you know something incredibly expensive (so that your competitors won't have it or something close) that will let you work three to five times faster, better, or more than those who don't?

You can master an application subject unique to the United States or your region. The country probably needs 20  to 40 programmers who deeply understand the needs of corrosion engineers.

Or develop expertise requiring extensive education and apprenticeship in another discipline. Ethnographic research. Biomedical engineering. Bioinformatics. Particle physics and materials engineering (if you want to get in on nanoscience).

Do you have soft skills? Are you great at getting small groups to reveal what they say they need? Watching what people really do vs. what they claim? Persuading multiple stakeholders to support a particular design choice? Are you sufficiently multilingual that you speak programmer, finance, and management? Can you keep people coordinated and focused even over the phone?

You must compete on some combination of:

• Quality
• Scarce expertise
• Domain knowledge
• Human relations

Bob says "Expect to work harder for less."

Forewarned may be fore armed.

Now where did I put that university extension catalog?