Loss of Hard Core expertise in North America
It is becoming clear that North American Technology Graduates are moving to Marketing and sales Job or otherwise not interested in Technical assignments.
What does this mean for Business and Economy for North American Software Business.
Please post your thoughts.
Clarification added May 5, 2007:
I am talking about things like- Analog Circuits- Microwave engineering - Large scale embede system deisgn- compiler internals, Circuit synthesis and simulation.
Clarification added May 5, 2007:
Things that require 5+ years of academic and Industerial preparation.
Are we treating softskills- latte drinking , cell phone talking- tire kicking expertise- better than technical expertise.
Clarification added May 6, 2007:
Similar phenomina happed in UK During 1960's. This is just an observation.
Clarification added May 6, 2007:
Similar Pehnomena happed in UK during 1960-1970.
Answers (12)
John K.
Entrepreneur, Architect, Mensan.
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When there is scant little reward for those who undertake technical assignements, what can one expect.
M. Prabhakar R.
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Hi Keen,
Read Bill Gates advise to US students. If were not followed, the tech jobs will be taken over by India and other countries. But, nothing much to worry about it. This is all part of globalization, where Migration and Reverse-Migration would become the order of the day.
I have discussed this in 2004, if you care to visit.
Have a Nice Weekend!
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Fred H.
Executive in Residence, Engineering School at California State University, Los Angeles
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I am sorry, I must take the counter point. MIT has 6000 graduate students and 4000 undergrads. If you go through each university noted for being a technology school you will find the same. All of these schools have more students then 10 years ago. The capital funds are still building laboratories and the online programs are reaching out all over the world. Cal Tech, the other well known technology school admits about 500 of the brightest and the best every year. They have an undergratuate population of 2000. Another school showing growth in both underegraduate and greaduate schools is RPI.
What is lacking in the USA today is the capability to move from research through applied science into prototype hardware or alpha software and then into commercialieze products or services.
I tried commercializing applieds science for two years and found there was no funding mechanisim, no infrastructure and a very weak industry group to help.
The USA is still the number one country in the world when it comes to technology creativity.
I think the premise is not true.
Best,
Fred
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Sandeep K.
Senior Business Development Manager (contract) at Adobe
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This is an interesesting question as I am a technology person by background who moved to Marketing.
From my perspective, this is really a three part answer:
1. Similar to the other responder, there is definitely a devaluation of the Technology skills as demonstrated by the willingness of companies to either outsource the capability to companies that operate in countries such as India, China, former Eastern Block countries, where the argument (possibly specious) is that the labor costs are lower. This effectively means that the companies want the benefit but do not want to make the educational/ training investment for the future.
2. Obsolence of the technology. This would mean that certain areas of technology while desirable are replaced by newer or alternate technology that either provides more benefits, is cheaper, easier to maintain, etc. So the older generation of technology moves to geographies where the alternative benefits do not mean as much. Accordingly the expertise of the older technology will also move there.
3. Fast turnover of the technology, which was a factor in my decision to move from Software to Marketing. Effectively unless as a technology person you want to continuously be in an learning/ formal educational process, the essential and tools that you know will be out of fashion, or general usage in 5-10 years. So, if you started out in 1970s as a Fortran -> Pascal/Ada/etc. -> C -> C++ -> Java -> Ruby/?/?/ - SaaS -> ??? At a personal level each person has to make a decision as to when this no longer makes sense as to do a 100% job, you will need to spend an addition 50% of you time to remain current.
4) sort of commentary: Some things such as software tools that I follow fairly closely include compilers: The issue here is that the technology consolidation has been extremely heavy. There were about 200 "tools" suppliers for Software development about 10 years ago. At this point I would characterize that 60 are left due to buyout/ consolidation in the industry, as well as compiler technology essentially be now only supportable for 3-4 sources: Intel for Intel based CPUs, Microsoft for IA (Intel + AMD + Via) CPUs, GNU sourced compilers, and a very small niche such as Greenhill mainly around the embedded market. It is very tough to make money selling compilers and not a lot of motivation to invest in this area unless it is to sell something else like silicon, or related software.
So, in the end it comes down to money and how hard you want to work for that money. And no, I am a marketing guy who does not drink lattes :-).
Regards
Sandeep
Subhas C B.
Trainer & Management Consultant
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Right from the time Das Kapital was published, the shift of people from Agriculture to Manufacturing and then to Services is happening at a steady rate globally. This is not surprising.
Risk in business and in choosing a career in advance follows the same route. Target minimum effort and involvement of resources - expect more returns with minimum risk.
This way children of farmers are moving to manufacturing and children of manufacturing workers are moving to services sector. Technology is also helping people to do the operations more efficiently and profitably.
Marketing and sales jobs are no less tougher than the modern manufacturing jobs. Even modern services sector (read offices) found to be more hazardous now than modern manufacturing sector (read factories). In my observation, young engineers working on shop floor are healthier and smarter than their batchmates in marketing and finance.
Young US engineers are fewer than Indian or Chinese engineers due to demographic reasons. Availability of raw materials, manpower and market location always determined the location of factories, offices and head office respectively.
All these factors are responsible for the shift. Economists know this clearly. Politicians know that people can be misled by some means to their political gain.
I would have to agree with John. I love engineering and am something of an old-timer in geek-land, but executive staff doesn't seem to recognize that the product that S&M folks sell is built by engineers. Offshoring doesn't solve the issue unless the company has it's own offshore house, and in doing so, a lot of the benefits of offshoring are lost. The eventual meaning of this in my eyes is a currency collapse as the rest of the world wakes up to the fact we don't produce anything either. It's scary.
Hi Keen,
It is very interesting question! I thought about similar things and concluded following: the things are not the same as we learned! In addition, like us learning our children. I saw that, in the financial industry there are no borders in classical way of thinking. No in globalization sense, financial industries change all borders in same other, strange way! Look at classic frontier of your country (I do not know what your country is) and you will see that for you there are no borders because (for example) your plastic cards works in all countries and everybody threat you like in your country. If your plastic cards do not work in some country, you are not citizen of that country … That means – some strange changes happened … Technology? Are we really now know what newest technology in the world is? In addition, who know latest technologies? In the other hand, technology is not power of producing thing; technology is only knowledge about how to produce! You are, maybe, frighten because other countries in the world work in their factories and produce materials and goods, what your country did in the past. Nevertheless, with what technology (knowledge), who is financing their production, for who is that production? In sense of financial flows that I mention, you can give all answers on my question and go to sleep quietly. In other answers on this question, I saw, you can find even statistical data that can cover scenario, which I explain …
The challenge is in utilizing the skilled labor in North America by opening up more businesses and jobs. Graduates are looking into Sales and Marketing versus Entrepreneurship and Foreign Markets. Global companies are showing how they can build, market, design better technology for the American market so we need to educate graduates on how to compete as well. Partnerships are also a good where North American engineers can work with foreign markets on a shared concept.
The North American software businesses should have joint ventures and allow qualified senior engineers a chance to work with their cuonterparts in foreign countries. Learn a new language and visit a different country. Work benefits that can help inspire the 'latte drinking, tire kickers' to build better North American products - instead of spinning their wheels.
Henri V.
Director Information TEchnology at Ingersoll Rand International
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it means that expertise will have to come from another source. Either through coorporation with non-US comanies to deliver this expertise, by getting non-residents with the required expertise, or by training people that do not have the technical background.
HTH
via F.
Structuring Complexity Into Opportunity
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1) I would have to say that the situation captured by your observation has to do with the reinforcing effect of the US' being # 1--at least at a common perception level. Indeed, it's hard to change course, towards sustainability, while you can do no wrong.
2) It is not only that we are not doing as much science as we used to, but except for finance, entertainment, sports, and few other areas, what else do we do to the extent (of quantity and quality) we used to? Another reason for so being is what one may call social mobility fueled by professional change. And it is not that all professions are created equal. Look around and chances are that smart kids go for law, medicine and finance. Not exactly the type of professions that reward double-e degrees.
3) How many talented physicists and electrical engineering majors have been absorbed by Wall Street since the coming of, let's say, options and derivatives?
4) Electrical engineering is damn difficult to get into when primary education has been left wanting for so long.
5) Globalization will only accentuate what has already started (points 2, 3 and 4).
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Ralph B.
President at FLARB LLC and Owner, FLARB LLC
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I think that we've lost a little of our edge due to the waning of our ability to attract and retain worldwide talent (as employees, innovators, or entrepreneurs).
Back in the cold war days we had all the food, booze, chicks, and freedom. A very attractive proposition when half the world was either digging themselves out of post WWII rubble or under the grip of the Soviet Union.
Now with the fall of Communism, free trade, and the Internet--there are lots of global alternatives for those looking to set up high tech businesses.
Perhaps this affects the enthusiasm for prospective technical graduates here in the US.
Oh yeah--that and Google has hired everyone.
I used to do a lot of recruiting of new tech grads in two major disciplines, the "hardcore" CSE and engineering students, as well as the Information Sciences grads. I was especially impressed by the discipline and focused technical interests among the engineering oriented students. Of the Info Sciences students, though, I found many of the same traits you observed.
It seemed to me that the DIS and Info Sciences grads were much more interseted jumping to Project Management or management careers based on their "people" skills. I typically counseled these grads to get some solid programming experience before tackling project management because they wouldn't be perceived by the more "hard core" science types as having any credibility simply because they had people skills.
I do wonder if our universities are failing these students or just meeting a demand for technically aware sales and marketing professionals. Tons of cultural cues seem not to support indoctrination of the next generation of students into the technical sciences, despite the fact that the US continually imports new workers to these disciplines and the jobs still pay well.
