Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2008-02-12

1) Book Review: Outsource by Edward Yourdon

In 1992 Yourdon published "Decline and Fall of the American Programmer".
In that book he predicted that a large number of North American programming
jobs would move overseas to countries with lower wages.  He suggested the
move would take ten years.

In 2004 he published "Outsource : Competing in the Global Productivity
Race".  In this newer book he says his earlier predictions were premature
but he also says the dot-com boom pushed gave North America more time.

The claim of the new book is that not only will technical jobs like
programming and customer support call-centers be outsourced but any
knowledge based job could be.  Corporate accounts-receivable work involving
calling customers about their account could be done anywhere.  Income tax
preparation can be done anywhere.  Patent lawyers could live and work
anywhere.

He discusses possible strategies at the national, corporate, and individual
level.  He does not claim to have the answers but he mentions a few
possibilities and suggests people discuss the issue with people in their
business and with their government representatives.

He does make a few suggestions for continuing to put food on the table and
that does not mean getting to keep your job.

Calculate your individual productivity before a competitor with metrics of
their productivity approaches your customer (or your employer).  Change
your business processes to be more productive.  Focus on work that requires
you be located close to your customer.  Have a backup plan ahead of time.
If your backup plan is becoming a journalist get to work on your writing
and get out there meeting people you will have to work with when your job
moves overseas.

He mentions the "wal-mart effect" where customers want the cheapest price
they can get without regard to whether the work to make product was done by
a neighbour or someone overseas.

In the end he says international competition in knowledge based industries
will level the wage difference between countries to being a lot closer than
it currently is.  This means North American wages may go down over the next
five to ten years.

The book feels broad and touches on the issue at a lot of levels.  I
recommend it for business owners and managers.  I would not discourage
programmers from reading it.

Indeed individuals might have the most reason to read it.  For a book that
lists specific things a programmer should do I recommend "My Job Went to
India" by Chad Fowler.

For non-tech knowledge workers "Outsource" might be easier to read than the
Folwer book because that book is aimed at programmers.  That said reading
either one is probably a good idea.