Farmshore Future
Computerworld has an article about alternatives to offshoring - Farmshoring. This is where much of the economic impact of offshoring jobs is saved by using rural Arkansas instead of India, but the emotional impact of American job loss is lessened.
Who says computer professionals "don't work with people" and don't have to have "people skills"?
Of course, it's not so beautiful if you're a programmer whose job is already at risk of being outsourced. If Rural Sourcing succeeds, your fate is sealed. Even if farmshoring doesn't make sending your job away attractive enough, it will start a race that will eventually make your situation impossible. Keeping most pure programming jobs in-house just won't make economic sense.
So now the clock is ticking for you to make a choice. You can start working to shift away from pure programming to an IT job that's a lot harder to outsource -- for example, one that involves lots of hands-on work or face time with users.
Or you can move up the stack to a job that involves more business analysis, so you're writing the specifications those farmshorers will be turning into code.
Who says computer professionals "don't work with people" and don't have to have "people skills"?
Of course, it's not so beautiful if you're a programmer whose job is already at risk of being outsourced. If Rural Sourcing succeeds, your fate is sealed. Even if farmshoring doesn't make sending your job away attractive enough, it will start a race that will eventually make your situation impossible. Keeping most pure programming jobs in-house just won't make economic sense.
So now the clock is ticking for you to make a choice. You can start working to shift away from pure programming to an IT job that's a lot harder to outsource -- for example, one that involves lots of hands-on work or face time with users.
Or you can move up the stack to a job that involves more business analysis, so you're writing the specifications those farmshorers will be turning into code.
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