The media is paying increasing attention to outsourcing as the US economy struggles and jobs remain scarce. This is fine, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Search the news and you’ll read about corporations shipping jobs overseas to lower production costs, to reduce training costs, and to generally reduce costs of doing business. Numerous other reports show the very large percentage of corporations similarly sheltering their earnings overseas, to avoid US taxes.

Meanwhile there are few jobs, high taxes, and decreasing services available to citizens.

But if you’re in tech and the web, you know how hard it is to find a good front end developer or web developer, or analytics ninja or generally highly-capable tech worker. The good ones are all fully booked. The ones that are available seem to be unworthy of your trust and dependence. What’s going on? Shouldn’t the demand for qualified workers drive the production of .. qualified workers?

Education and jobs.. collateral damage from the corporate outsourcing of American jobs and profits.

The public school system was created not to educate the masses but to train workers in the basic skills they needed to operate machinery and manage other workers.  Prior to the industrial revolution, government and wealthy elites preferred the common man remain ignorant and dependent on them for jobs and basic survival. With the advent of machines we needed operating manuals, and workers who could write and read them. Public schools were created for corporations. Go ahead, research the history of public schools.

Throughout history local companies have pressed school boards to adjust curricula to support their local manufacturing and service economies. Large tech centers like Rochester NY rose out of funding and political influence from large corporation (like Kodak). Schools developed along with industry. We needed to fight for academic freedom and well-rounded education, but the major driving force was jobs jobs jobs because success was global and we needed to stay competitive.

In the past 40 years we’ve seen the US drop in mathematics learning as Asian nations excelled. There are parallels to economic development. In my years inside academia, I knew many academic leaders who pushed diligently for better high school education so that students would be better prepared for college. High schools needed to prepare kids for tech jobs. Colleges intended to prepare them for better jobs such as Engineering and management and leadership positions. Leaders lead others… other workers.

Perhaps corporate America has abandoned more than just creating US jobs and paying US taxes. They may have abandoned  support of US education. After all, if they outsource the lower and mid-level jobs overseas, and select their top-tier employees from a global talent pool of self-funded university grads, do they really care about the previously important public school  worker producing channels?

No. They can externalize the cost of advancing civil society just as they externalize the costs of  pollution, hazardous waste, health insurance, and transportation. Soon I expect they will extend their externalization of the costs of defense to local security issues, as they increasingly need protection from the very same out of work, under-educated, lost-in-space citizens they have abandoned.

The decline of the community college tracks this…  the inflation of the higher education finance bubble is a consequence of the collapse of the middle tier of universities, suddenly left with inadequate qualified students, inadequate industrial and commercial support, and an embarrassingly disconnected leadership. What could they do but get in line with the Wall Street  Way, looking to fancy financial instruments to save their dying businesses?

The next time you think outsourcing is ok, and notice the substantial costs of worker hiring and retraining if you don’t outsource,  remember there’s more to the story. Societal collapse, for example.

It’s 2011. Go Do It.

You’ve never seen anyone try it, but you think it just might work. Go do it.

You know it’ll probably take a lot of work, but think it would probably be worth doing. Go do it.

You have a strong feeling someone would be happy if you eventually got around to doing it. Go do it.

You saw her do it. You saw him do it. You don’t know why you were never given a chance. Go do it.

You almost tried it once, but then, on second thought, they were probably right. It wouldn’t have worked. Go do it.

You were raised to be X, Y, or Z, but to this day you think… I wonder if what if I could be Q? Go do it.

You were taught that black is dark, white is light, and colors make people happy. Go do it.

You know that when no one is watching, you feel great stylin’ your own form of dance. Go do it.

You don’t know how to do X, but always loved watching others do it. Go do it.

You’re no expert, but you know something about it. Go do it.

You wonder, why does everyone keep doing it wrong? Go do it.

You never did it because it really wouldn’t be great for everyone else. Go do it.

You’ve long known how to tell off your misguided politician. Go do it.

Still here? You know you’re going to do it, just as soon as…………………. Go do it.

PS: Less abstract for those who need to be told directly.. try these:

• You have a camera. Go take some pictures. Don’t come home until you’ve printed them at least 5×7
• You have an instrument. Make it sing something. Anything.
• You have a bike. Go ride it somewhere. Now.
• You have a funny hat. Go wear it in public. Today.
• You have a terrible singing voice. Go sing a song. Loud. Nobody cares.
• You have a blog. Go write about 2010, or 2011, and when you get to 3 paragraphs, hit publish.
• You have a short story you’ll write someday. Go outline it.
• You know what would make a good kid’s book. Go draft it.

Happy New Year. Please make it matter. Pass this web page to someone who needs to hear it.

Update: now working on Silverstripe SEO

I just read a blog post about Twitter. It suggests that Twitter may go away someday, and we need to be prepared for that. Huh? If you read the post and the comments, it’s almost like some people think Twitter is what made them awesome, and some people think their own websites are way better than Twitter and should be the focus of attention, not Twitter. Huh?

Really now. Which one rocks, you? or Twitter?

Many people have blogs I will never visit (again). A little of their voice in my life is tolerable, but not a lot. I simply can’t stand that much of them. In many cases I’ve proven this in real life. I can say hello and maybe tolerate standing in a group with them at a meeting, but the one-on-one conversation just doesn’t work. Anything beyond superficial becomes grating. Yeah, I know…it’s me, not them. But guess what… twitter has been very good to those people, giving them a chance to stick around. And since I can “follow” them on twitter, effectively limiting them to 140 characters at a time in a stream of other tweets competing for my attention, I barely even notice they are there. Their tweets are rarely any better than their blog posts. Twitter rocks for me that way.

Some other people have awesome blogs and some write awesome articles. I read those and appreciate links to them when I come across them (often in Twitter). In that way, twitter rocks again, for both of us. Increased awareness of your awesomeness. Period.

No one should have to say publicly that their blog is better than twitter. The people will decide. And if you find yourself going to Twitter not because you like it but because you have to “be on Twitter” in order to get attention.. well… I hate to be the (only) one to tell you, but it’s not Twitter. It’s you.