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Outsourcing to Rural America
andy753421 writes "Wired is running an article about 'Rural Sourcing, an IT company that outsources not to India or Mexico, but rural America.' The company targets IT workers in rural location due to lower costs of living, 'The company charges $35 to $50 per hour for IT expertise, which may cost around $100 in New York City. While this is no match for outsourcing rates in India, clients benefit from local accents and similar time zones -- not to mention the absence of stigma sometimes attached to farming jobs out to foreign countries.' The article also points out several other innovative attempts at outsourcing such as Lakota Express and Seacode, which was previously covered on slashdot."
There are places on the fringe of major cities where a lot of intelligent, IT-inclined people hang their hats. Suburban areas probably have a lot of young minds that are willing and able to adapt to the ever-changing world of IT. Much better to 'source there than a foriegn country IMHO.
I know, deep inside me, there's a Linux nut just waiting to be let out.
This isn't sufficient motivation for US firms to rural-source, and neither are local accents or convenient time zones. The reason the programmer makes $100 in NYC is that they need to be there physically, to interface with a broader team, client, management, etc... If a job can be sourced to someone in a small town in America, 99% of the time it can be sourced to someone in India, for pennies on the dollar.
I'm all for taking advantage of hiring in small town America (I live in Indiana for the record), and quite frankly not having to deal with insane traffic, pollution, and outrageous housing prices is very nice.
But I think this firm might want to first invest in a website that looks like it was designed by more than a 16 year old with a "Learn HTML in 21 days!" book.
But that's just me, thinking people base opinions of companies off of how their website looks.
ce n'est pas un Sig.
Well, I live in North Central Wisconsin an consider myself somewhat talented. Heck, my closest neighbor is 1/4 mile away. I think you'll find there has been a lot of migration back to the interior of the US from the Coasts of tech folks. I can charge a third of what I did in New England for the same standard of living. Better communications infrastructure makes living in high crime/cost/noise/polution areas no longer necissary. I can do my job just as well from anywhere, so why not someplace I'd rather be?
Pessimists.net - as if life wasn't depressing enough.
For those on low/middle incomes, the parent poster's rules certainly apply.
People are being hoodwinked about globalization. It's a mad race for the bottom, with only a very small number of winners (i.e those that already have plenty of internationally-mobile money).
In the future, you can be a slave for some corporation or government (what's the difference?) or be a super-wealthy player. The age of fairness and democracy is over guys.
I feel we're hurtling back to Plutocracy the excesses of the Roman Empire, and the US is leading the way.
Comedy that picks on the powerless and reinforces and justifies the status quo is worthless. Comedy that challenges the empowered is a valid social tool. It's the difference between standing up to a bully, and picking on a weakling.
Is that so hard to understand?
Which brings me to my next point, if these guys cost 1/3rd of the price it brings the question who actually wants to earn one third what they could in life? Practically nobody even if cost of living is cheaper.
This simply isn't true. There are plenty of people that are willing to work for less money if the money they get will both go further and let them live somewhere they prefer.
I DO think that a lot of these consultants will probably end up being a little older though. A kid right out of college is probably more willing and more likely to prefer to live in the big city. There are a lot of benefits to living in the "middle of it" when you are young, unattached & don't have many expenses. But a few years on when that kid gets married, has a kid (or two, three... more?) that moving someplace away from the big coastal cities will start to have a lot of appeal for them. Especially if they already owned a (small) home and can also cash out of the high-cost housing market and upgrade while also get completely out of debt moving to a lower-cost market that has a small-town atmosphere that they think is more conducive to raising children.
I still don't get why everyone in the country makes fun of the way southerners speak when there are so many screwed up dialects in this country. When you look at Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, Louisiana (in the south, but a different accent near New Orleans) how come the southern drawl is the only one that is worthy of ridicule? And on the point of intelligence, consider this situation:
If I were to ask, "Why can't the black man from Georgia read?" and you were to say, "I don't know, why?" examine your reaction the following explanations. If I reply "duh, I told you he was from Georgia" everyone thinks it's funny and laughs. If I reply "duh, I told you he was black" I am a horrible racist and should be shunned.
Why is making fun of someone for their place of birth any different from making fun of someone for their race? Neither can be controlled by that person.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
"I still don't get why everyone in the country makes fun of the way southerners speak when there are so many screwed up dialects in this country. When you look at Massachusetts, New York, Wisconsin, Louisiana (in the south, but a different accent near New Orleans) how come the southern drawl is the only one that is worthy of ridicule?"
Those dialects do receive ridicule (chowdah, da bearz, gah-run-tee, etc.), the difference is that it appears to be more ridicule of particular aspects of the dialect itself as opposed to the people who speak it. As for why that is, I dunno. Maybe it's because "The South" has more of a reputation for doing more backwards things (like the aforementioned incest), for being more aggressive than other parts of the nation (Don't mess with Texas, anyone?), or maybe it's just holier-than-thou snobbery. Regardless, I think it's more a desire to make "racy" humor in a PC climate - jokes about whites are fine, but don't go near another race or suddenly you're a racist bigot, so people are forced to joke about a white "race," in this case, southerners.
Another current Ohioan & native rural Pennsylvanian chiming in...
I live in the most rural county in Ohio. Despite the large population of Amish here, we are hardly the benighted hicks that the coasters like to imagine. I have several options for DSL or cable service. The state has the best-funded libraries in the U.S., including the first ever statewide free online chat reference service. I make less now than when I lived in the city, but have a much higher standard of living due to the fact that life here is vastly more affordable.
Some of the best universities in the country are found in Ohio. Despite the same-sex-marriage amendment that got passed recently, I have found people generally to be very accepting of my sexual orientation -- in greater proportions to the people I knew when I lived in Washington, DC or Pittsburgh. There's a 100% gay-friendly church in a nearby town (half the size of the town where I live). Unlike in the city, no one here has yet stolen my pets or keyed my car or slashed my tires. There's a thriving arts center in my community with programs that rival most things I saw when I lived in cities (Washington, DC and Pittsburgh) or on visits to the coasts. I live a mere hour's drive from a world-class symphony in Cleveland, as well as a vibrant art scene.
What's more, where I live I can walk to work without fear of being attacked by random strangers or held up at gunpoint (as I was in a "nice" neighborhood in Pittsburgh). While we do have crime here, I love going for weeks at a time without hearing of a single armed robbery, murder, hate crime, arson, child abduction, breakin, elder abuse, carjacking, burglary, etc.
You can sneer about the uneducated people living in rural areas, but as someone else pointed out, judging the entire state by a few ignorant people is roughly akin to judging LA entirely by the slums. I used to work with inner-city children who were far more ignorant and uneducated (and bigoted) than the most unenlightened, unwashed farmboy I ever met.
Best of all, for the most part, people are genuinely nice to each other here, whether you're a total stranger, a brand-new neighbor, or an old friend. Yes, they poke their nose in your business, but they also help when your car breaks down on a back road in the middle of the night. That's a tradeoff I'll gladly take.
I know that rural life is not for everyone. If you're happy in the city, by all means, stay there. More work for me! But please, stop sneering at those of us who choose to live here for very good, rational reasons. And please stop assuming that the occcasional rural village idiot is representative of rural America as a whole.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?