Monday, October 27, 2003

Bookmarking I'm posting this so I can come back to it (already grabbed the link from CNet to the McKinsey report). More fodder for the offshoring guns. Actual Numbers On Who Benefits From Offshoring. One of the more controversial topics around here over the last couple of months has been the issue of tech companies sending jobs overseas. . . . Now, McKinsey has done some research and provided some numbers suggesting how the US benefits from offshoring that answers many of the questions people have brought up. The end result shows, that the overall benefit for the US is definitely there, as each dollar of spending that goes overseas, will bring back at least a $1.12 into the US.  [Techdirt] 9:35:54 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

California burning It happens every few years, California goes up in flames, sometimes more tragically than others. This time the fires are getting way too close to densely populated urban areas--something like 500 homes destroyed and 13 dead last I checked. Here's the NYT reporting: Deadly California Fires Threaten 30,000 Homes. From the Mexican border to the suburbs north of Los Angeles, large sections were under siege today by six major fires and several smaller ones. By The Associated Press. [New York Times: NYT HomePage] There's a gorgeous high-res satellite photo of the smoke blowing offshore here. Be warned: it's 2.7 Mb, very big. But at full-scale I can just make out my neighborhood just east of Monterey Bay up north, and you can see way down to Cedros Island in Baja and out to Guadalupe Island. It's quite stunning. This time last year there was a fire the other side of the mountain from here, west of Morgan Hill. It got very, very close to son Willy's school (Mount Madonna School), even jumped the road at the summit in a few spots. But the local firefighting forces did their job. Today, I took Willy out on the back deck to show him where the San Andreas fault runs along the hills about two miles east--we're about 12 miles from the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Yes, living in California is very, very special. But hey, when your state is the 5th largest economy in the world, then you can laugh at us. Meanwhile, please send rain. 9:20:48 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

STC Transformers STC has a blog devoted to its transformation; there were 46 comments attached to the first post when I looked earlier this evening. Some are on target, some are just screeds. Transforming STC. STC is 50, and a lot of things have changed in those 50 years. And while STC serves our needs in some ways, there are other ways that it doesn't. It's time for STC to change, to catch up with... [STC transformation] Jenny provides her comments in her own blog: Transforming the STC. STC Transformation Blog Ok, I have to laugh just a little. I just received an email from the STC announcing... [the creative tech writer] Somewhere down around comment #40 or so is a long rant by Barb Meier taking issue with my attempt at an objective look at offshoring, via a page on the Silicon Valley Web site. She wants STC to take a stand against something that I think is going to happen (it already is happening. . . ) regardless of any lobbying on our part. Better we should make adjustments to our skills and work our ways into less-offshorable jobs. And I really take issue with the idea that globalization is something you can agree or disagree with. Sheesh, it's a fact, not an opinion! But you can let me know what you think: fred@fredsampson.com.   8:59:02 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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