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::: what... so somebody in the Philippines who only knows
::: English as their
::: second language is going to write as well as we do? Sure!
Argument doesn't fly. Yes, they can write as well as we do. No, they don't
need to write in English. At some other countries' costs, they can afford to
write solid docs in their native tongue and localize to English, and still
come in under a standard American budget.
::: Let's extend that
::: line of thinking and train chimps to do simple surgeries.
I don't think that association is a fair one to draw.
::: (PLEASE: nobody
::: get the idea that i'm equating people in southeast asia
::: with monkeys! I'm
::: sure there are plenty of bright Philipinos/as, but ask any
::: translator... you
::: must work in your native language to get it right.)
See my point above.
::: I don't think we need to get nervous about this happening,
::: at least in the
::: near future... i'm sure some companies will try it, but I
::: don't think it'll
::: fly.... we all know there are tons of people raised to
::: speak English who
::: can't even write properly. Do you think customers won't
::: complain if they get
::: manuals that are written like Japanese airport signs?
Again, too much oversimplification. It will happen. It will probably fail.
"We'll" find work again. The process will be refined, and then a GRADUAL
move to successful offshoring will commence. It's currently beginning a
bubble state, just like dot-coms were in the late 1990's. Only expect this
bubble to take longer to inflate.
::: The bottom line is: tech writing is a really difficult job
::: and it takes
::: somebody with a lot of diverse skills and knowledge sets to
::: do it properly.
::: So I think that there will always be well-paid jobs for
::: people who are
::: really good at it... because they are rare.
Same with programming, but see my previous post.
Bill Swallow
wswallow "at" nycap "dot" rr "dot" com
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