Thursday, March 04, 2004
Introduction
My name is Ted Gilchrist, and I work at Oracle Corporation. My bio is listed below. I would describe myself as a software designer/developer, specializing in custom, web-based applications used in the running of corporate intranets.
I have a background in Linguistics, having spent several years doing graduate research on Linguistics and computers at UC Berkeley.
When I came to Oracle in 1994, I immediately noticed the much greater presence of overseas workers, compared to what I as used to. in the small software houses where I previously worked. I now believe that what I was seeing reflected a shortage of qualified programmers to staff large-scale programming projects.
The dot com boom was a real boon to legions of US citizens, and many leaped into the Internet and computer industry. With the dot com bust, many of those jobs went away, and it was then that the awareness intensified that the competition for high tech employment crossed national boundaries.
I believe that the way out of this, for US workers, is not to revert to xenophobia and protectionism. Rather, I think that we should strive to re-ignite the kind of climate of innovation that fueled the dot com era. There may have been a financial tech bubble, but one only needs to look around, and take stock of our changed Internet world, to realize that the explosion of innovation we think we all experienced was in fact very real.
In other words, we need to foster creativity, and innovation. The best way to equip our people for the inherent competion in globalization, is to provide them with world class educational and training opportunities.
My name is Ted Gilchrist, and I work at Oracle Corporation. My bio is listed below. I would describe myself as a software designer/developer, specializing in custom, web-based applications used in the running of corporate intranets.
I have a background in Linguistics, having spent several years doing graduate research on Linguistics and computers at UC Berkeley.
When I came to Oracle in 1994, I immediately noticed the much greater presence of overseas workers, compared to what I as used to. in the small software houses where I previously worked. I now believe that what I was seeing reflected a shortage of qualified programmers to staff large-scale programming projects.
The dot com boom was a real boon to legions of US citizens, and many leaped into the Internet and computer industry. With the dot com bust, many of those jobs went away, and it was then that the awareness intensified that the competition for high tech employment crossed national boundaries.
I believe that the way out of this, for US workers, is not to revert to xenophobia and protectionism. Rather, I think that we should strive to re-ignite the kind of climate of innovation that fueled the dot com era. There may have been a financial tech bubble, but one only needs to look around, and take stock of our changed Internet world, to realize that the explosion of innovation we think we all experienced was in fact very real.
In other words, we need to foster creativity, and innovation. The best way to equip our people for the inherent competion in globalization, is to provide them with world class educational and training opportunities.
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
RESUME (Short Form)
5/1994 - Present Oracle Corporation
Nashua, NH and Redwood Shores, CA
Documentation Tools Designer/Developer: Provide infrastructure support for Oracle technical manuals,
worldwide
10/1992 - 3/1994 International Lisp Associates
Brookline, Mass.
Writer/Trainer/Developer/Tester: Multilingual text processing software
10/1991 - 10/1992 Lucid, Inc
Menlo Park, CA
Manager, Lisp Documentation
1990- 1991 Franz Inc.
Berkeley, CA
Technical Writer and Software Developer
EDUCATION
BA, Mathematics UC Santa Cruz, 1978
MA, Linguistics, UC Berkeley, 1985
PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS
August 2000
O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention in Monterrey, California:
"The Use of Perl in Automating Documentation Processes"
5/1994 - Present Oracle Corporation
Nashua, NH and Redwood Shores, CA
Documentation Tools Designer/Developer: Provide infrastructure support for Oracle technical manuals,
worldwide
10/1992 - 3/1994 International Lisp Associates
Brookline, Mass.
Writer/Trainer/Developer/Tester: Multilingual text processing software
10/1991 - 10/1992 Lucid, Inc
Menlo Park, CA
Manager, Lisp Documentation
1990- 1991 Franz Inc.
Berkeley, CA
Technical Writer and Software Developer
EDUCATION
BA, Mathematics UC Santa Cruz, 1978
MA, Linguistics, UC Berkeley, 1985
PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS
August 2000
O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention in Monterrey, California:
"The Use of Perl in Automating Documentation Processes"
Feeding the Paranoia
Current outsourcing worries may well be traced to a recording someone made of a high-level meeting at IBM, where an HR person was making the the case for the strategy.
If you are a high tech worker with distinct masochistic tendencies, be sure to bookmark the Wash Tech website.
However, my recommendation is to remain calm. Offshoring and outsourcing are lurking out there, but so are the Med Fly, and the West Nile virus. It's of limited use to lose too much sleep over them.
Current outsourcing worries may well be traced to a recording someone made of a high-level meeting at IBM, where an HR person was making the the case for the strategy.
If you are a high tech worker with distinct masochistic tendencies, be sure to bookmark the Wash Tech website.
However, my recommendation is to remain calm. Offshoring and outsourcing are lurking out there, but so are the Med Fly, and the West Nile virus. It's of limited use to lose too much sleep over them.
Questions
- New Hampshire is cheaper than California, and taxes are lower. Would you call it outsourcing if you shifted jobs here?
- Is it still outsourcing if a company, like Oracle, has an overseas development center?
- Is it outsourcing if you issue H1B Visas for workers from India, Irelandl, China, etc. to come work here?
It's a bit confusing, because Oracle offers outsourcing as a service. That's why offshoring is a better term.
