Re: TC vs TW

[Ned Bedinger <doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com>]

David Hailey wrote:
> I would be happy to bet but what you have said makes no sense. Your bet is based on a bunch of conflicting points, some of which will be true and some of which will not be true.
> 
> I'll bet on these:
> 
> Over the next years, the role of technical writer (especially documentation specialists) will be increasingly outsourced, insourced, and offshored -- 1 lunch, payable in 5 years.
> 
> In ten years the vast majority of fulltime technical writing jobs with benefits will be gone, they will be contracted -- another lunch in 10 years.
> 
> How's that?  Bet?

_\\\\\\\\\\//////////_
| $ c o r e b o a r d |
| =================== |
|  Bean counters  100 |  <-----Who was watching these staffers?
| ------------------- |
|  Home Team       0  }  <-----Who was on watch?
|_____________________|


I appreciate your putting this into statistical, thinkable terms.

1. What about some numbers that show how this strategy has paid off?
    My intuition (OK, My tech writer doll) said that they'd slash us 
from the staff to increase short term profit, but that they'd immediate 
hit the point of diminishing returns due to docs flowing back to us for 
rework, and costly logjams of logistical issues like language, culture, 
and time-of-day that attend globally diffuse organizations. The logjams 
themselves are costly, but on top[ of that, the outsourcers and 
offshorers had to learn how to do it from scratch (I think it was a new 
technique, could be wrong), the costs must have been fantastic, and as 
far as I know, no consulting industry sprang up to bleed those profit 
dollars back to us.
     I recognize the value added when prosperity is transplanted to 
un[der]-developed places--I'd say, for the sake of having it on the 
table, that it amplifies the value produced by the offshored work when 
it brings about change at the 'basic human needs' level. We see a lot of 
glittering young infoworkers in feature stories about the new world 
economy, but not much beyond the analysis of the new middle class.
     So I wonder, hoping someone will do the research and publish the 
urls, how does the real balance sheet (not the cooked set) look? Is it 
really *REALLY* profitable to offshore our work, or are they just 
twisting the knife because of the way our editors used to twit everyone 
for punctuation?

2. How did our predictable employers deal with the possibility of 
continuing to employ local TWs who cost less. Getting us out of 
corporate office and into home offices gave them the opportunity to 
re-right-size facilities, support staff, desk and floor space, 
computers, telecomm, ...  We mostly didn't outsource ourselves when we 
moved out of the office--we assumed much of the the burden of expenses 
the companies had paid when we worked in the office. Telecomuting was 
going to amplify profits, wasn't it?



Ned Bedinger
doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com



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