1. Get hold of a South by Southwest Interactive schedule.  (All you really need is the schedule, although I recommend actually attending the conference, for a variety of reasons that have little to do with technology).

2. Glance through the panel listings until you notice that one programming language is repeated more than a few times.  (You should see it listed with an ironic title, like “Technology X: 5 Reasons it will Get You Laid More In 2010″ or with a technical title that is designed to scare away marketing people: “Technology X; Database Architectures for a Semantic Environment”)

3. Note the technology that gets mentioned the most.  Then, build a landing page that positions you as an expert in the field.  (It helps to mish-mash popular programming terms on this landing page. Try “Technology X On Rails” or “Standards-based Technology X.)

4. Get your first project from an unsuspecting customer.  (it helps if said customer is from a large corporation and is looking for this technology because he also attended the “Get Laid More Often…” panel mentioned above)

5. Post a Craigslist, eLance, and/or oDesk ad for Technology X.  If you’re in India, hire people who claim to know this technology.

6. Screw your client over, when it’s revealed just a week before launch, that the developer you hired also attended a panel at SXSW, and believed that his attendance at said panel qualified him for your project. (unfortunately, it wasn’t even the technical one)

7. Go to SXSW next year and repeat.

This is stupid.

Yet, this is essentially what many development shops do.  We wait for projects that require new technology, instead of investing in them early.   We hope, unreasonably, that a client will approach us with the perfect project: one that is simple enough to learn as we go, but still challenging enough that our team emerges with new-found expertise.

This is a mistake, and every year, it’s killing your potential to increase revenue.

In 2010, Technology X is HTML 5.  There was serious buzz about it at SXSW, and from what we’ve been seeing and reading (sorry Flash-Or-Bust people), the buzz is justified.

In between industry-sponsored happy hours at SXSW (free booze+great conversation being one of the many reasons I recommend you attend), we met with the CEO of a medium-sized Indian development shop.  Among other things, he was complaining about the high price of iPhone developers in India (CEOs of Indian development shops have two countries to complain about).

And, he’s right.   A few of our best iPhone developers do indeed command salaries comparable to those of their US counterparts.  Which makes sense: even frickin’ Amway has an expensive iPhone app.

So, the reason to work with an Indian iPhone developer is not cost.  It’s to address the general scarcity of iPhone developers worldwide, which still generally makes sense business-wise.

However, if iPhone development still makes sense, think about the advantages if you invest early.

Offshore investment in new, upcoming technologies has BOTH scarcity and cost advantages. (not to mention being great for morale: young recruits are eager to dive into something new and exciting; seasoned developers are bored and would love the opportunity to lead a cutting-edge initiative).

Yet, over and over again, we see Indian companies wait until their clients are ready for new technologies before they begin to invest in them, which is too late, if you are interested in serious cost advantages.

Invest early, and you might even have a little less to complain about next year.

With every piece of digital loveliness made by Apple, being a part of this brand and culture fits right into our techno-chic lifestyle and gives us endless gratification. But the ultimate high for us is to see our work on Apple products. We’ve been developing applications for the iPhone for quite some time but we recently had the opportunity to work on an app with another one of our favorite partners, South By Southwest. SXSW brings together some of the world’s most creative artists, speakers and entrepreneurs and my business partner Sandeep has previously had the opportunity to captivate audiences with interactive panels on Outsourcing.

There is no other conference that fosters creative growth and networking opportunities the way South by does. Which is why we’re so excited to announce SXSW® Play, the official media discovery app for the SXSW 2010 Music, Film, and Interactive conferences. The app features a wealth of rich media from musicians, films, and interactive panels that will be featured at the festival in Austin, TX from March 12-21. With this app at your fingertips, you’ll never be bored in line again!

Features of the application:

You can download the free application from the Appstore and find out if you’re an Apple fanboy here.

“Experts say this global warming is serious, and they are predicting now that by the year 2050, we will be out of party ice.” –David Letterman

Jokes about climate change may not always garner lasting belly aches, but let’s face it, they tend to be more captivating then scatter diagrams and pie charts. So when the UN decided to collaborate with Monsoon for COP, we wanted to build an application that would be fun and interactive; something even Al Gore would appreciate.

We wanted to leverage the power of touch technology to ensure negotiators and leaders participating in Copenhagen heard voices of those affected by the impacts of global warming. We worked with the UN to create the Climate Wall, an experience that allowed conference attendees to spin a virtual globe and watch real-life stories about climate change.

Sights and sounds from around the globe bear witness to how the changing climate is changing lives. One of these stories takes us on a virtual journey to the Prey Koki forest, located in a quiet corner of eastern Cambodia. The forest has lost most of its cover to desertification and while planting trees, Buddhist monk So Kon shares the impacts of climate change . “Here in Cambodia our climate is changing. It’s getting hotter and the rainfall is irregular. But we believe that these trees can bring rain and help the farmers with their crops and daily life,” says Kon.

In an era where buzzwords like Corporate Social Responsibility and CO2 emissions make climate change feel like a distant paradigm, Monsoon’s virtual globe application brings stories from real people like Kon to your fingertips.

The concept was a success and featured on the home of Seal the deal and the UN. We simply feel blessed that we had the opportunity to make a small contribution in raising awareness about climate change.

See more pictures here.

The People

Due to writing/rehearsal time for my talks, I ended up missing more than a few TED talks, which was fine with me: I’ll catch them online, when they’ve been edited and produced for maximum enjoyment. Instead, I prioritized the time I had for meals and parties, where we got to sit down with people like Tony Hsieh, Nandan Nilekani Rohini Nilekani, Jacqueline Novogratz, Scott Cook, and others.  Many of those conversations were better than most of the TED talks I attended (especially an illuminating sourcing discussion with Scott Cook, CEO of Intuit).

Infosys

Most of TED’s attendees were whisked by bus (with police escorts) from the modern Bangalore airport to the Infosys campus in Mysore.  Those who left the country directly afterwards are going to have a very skewed perspective of where India is at.  The Infosys campus in Mysore is spotless and organized like a gated community in Orlando (it even features an Epcot Center dome).  You get this nagging sense you’re on the Indian IT version of the Truman show. While this was a great venue for TED (parties at palaces in Mysore, a beautiful outdoor Greek Theater, and fantastic venues for talks), it often felt contrived.

Sunita Krishnan

Sunita Krishnan is about 4 feet tall, which surprised me when I later met her in person, given her gigantic stage presence. She spoke of her work rehabilitating thousands of sex slaves and her own personal experience being gang-raped by eight men at the age of 15. Sunita’s talk was devoid of self-righteousness; instead, she touched the audiences with simple stories of joy and assimilation that she encounters every day in her work.  Make sure you catch this talk when the video is released.

Other Talks

When the videos come out, I’d also recommend that you catch Pranav Mistry (his demo of Sixth Sense floored the audience), Derek Sivers (shifting perspective), Sidi Goma (black sufis from Gujrat – no shit!), Sivamani (percussionist), Anupam Misra (rain water retention), and Anindya Sinha (monkeys!).

Jugaad

Jugaad (Indian-style entrepreneurial improvisation) loomed large as a theme at TED India.  Many speakers showed us nifty inventions like an amphibious bike or a coconut tree climber.  I incorporated Jugaad into my final comedic piece as well (where I parodied the Embrace, probably the most amazing innovation I saw at TED, next to Pranav Mistry’s Sixth Sense).

Although I don’t really buy the “Jugaad is India’s innovative advantage” argument (more on this later), I expect that at least half a dozen books about Jugaad and innovation will be published over the next year. Use the term as much as you can in 2010, because, shortly, it will be more cliched than “tipping point”.

Charter For Compassion

Karen Armstrong didn’t speak at TED, but her Charter for Compassion loomed large (at least for me – am a huge fan of her writing).  It is a simple call for religious leaders around the world to acknowledge that the Golden Rule exists is a core part of all the world’s major religions.  Check out the charter here.

India’s Inferiority Complex

Many of the business speakers at TED felt the need to prove that India had arrived on the world stage, leading to slide after slide about Indian accomplishments like the Tata Nano.  One of the low moments of TED was Dr. R. A. Mashelkar’s presentation, where we spent almost 2 minutes listening to R. A. sing the praises of Ratan Tata, as an innovator and man. Total shlock.

It may have been interesting to hear about surprising innovations if the country in question was Burkina Faso or Cameroon.  India has no need to prove it has arrived on the world stage, especially not to the TED audience!  And instead of using these slides to provide background, speakers like Mashelkar and Srivatsa Krishna (talk on infrastructure) made them the whole point of their talk.

India the Exotic

It was also disappointing to see how many presenters (and audience members) still push the idea of India as the land of exotica.  The worst offender here was Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Aveda.  His talk was a mishmash of spiritual cliches and business philosophy that he crapped out with slides featuring titles such as “India: land of many gods”.

Standing Ovations

There were probably more standing ovations at TED India than at all of the previous TEDs combined.  Hans Rosling gave a good talk, but I’m not sure that it deserved a standing ovation by TED standards, but we gave him one, mostly because I think we were all really excited that TED had begun  And, after we gave the first ovation, I think that the polite Indian crowd just felt bad not giving everyone a standing ovation.  I think we gave the woman who made an announcement about luggage pickup a standing ovation.

Shashi Tharoor

Tharoor’s talk was delivered well, but it was full of cliched stories about India that we have heard several times.  Besides his introduction as the “man who brought Twitter to India” (he should talk to Al Gore about that one), it was largely forgettable.  For me, Shashi was a highlight because of the 5 minutes I spent with him backstage, when we were both getting our pre-performance makeup.  Shashi is totally natural in a makeup chair.  He’s the runway model of Indian politicians, the Gisele of parliamentary bureaucrats.  So, there we sat. I’m getting my lips glossed; he’s getting powder on his neck.

Then, the makeup lady accidentally dropped some powder on his shirt:

Shashi: The girl put powder on my jacket!

Coordinator: Let me see, sir. (opens up Shashi’s jacket).  I don’t see any powder.

Shashi: *There is powder on my jacket!  I see it, right here!  You think I’m powerless here?  You think I can’t take this straight to the people?  Wait until I post this to twitter, and my tweeps see it!  I’m going to tweet about this, bitch!  I’m gonna fucking TWEET!!!

*he might not have said that last part, but I had to leave, so I’m just inferring what he probably said.

The panel is titled “Managing outsourced R&D in India”, and I’m excited to be joined by Avinash Agrawal (Sun/Stanford) and Bill Ihrie (Intuit).

The class is open to the public – here’s what I know so far:

October 1, 4:15 – 5pm

I’ll update the exact location as soon as I have it.

I’m thinking about rocking my Jahvid Best jersey to the panel. Go Bears.

Over the last 5 years, IT wages have been rising in India.  And for good reason!  Indian programmers are now some of the most experienced IT professionals in the world.

However, if alarmist blog posts are to be believed, this signals the beginning of the end for the still-nascent IT industry in India.   When Indian salaries are higher than American salaries, the incentive to offshore is gone.

Although I disagree with this premise for several reasons (the subject of future blog posts, I guess), I thought it would be interesting to try to figure out when the (cue horror film music) ‘Death Of Outsourcing’ is gonna go down.

So I channeled my undergraduate economics degree (ceteris paribus!!!) to figure this out.

Figuring out salary rates is easy.  But, if people are acting rationally (which economic professors are beginning to realize is a rare occurrence), they will consider more than just cost. Value must be factored into our equation.

Now, value is a subjective thing, but thanks to online marketplaces like oDesk, we can use ratings to understand the general value that customers are getting from the US and India.  We’ll use numbers from oDesk as our example.

For a variety of reasons, this is an admittedly flawed example,  but it serves our thought experiment just fine.

[For those who don't know, oDesk is an online marketplace that connects people looking for IT work with those providing it, like an eBay for IT.]

According to oDesk, Indian workers are paid an average of $11/hour, whereas American workers are paid $17.50.  There is a similar differential in value.  Indians received an average rating of 4.12 (out of 5), while Americans received an average rating of 4.48.

So, using these figures, you get a couple of simple insights:

In the oDesk marketplace, offshoring still makes rational sense, and the difference in value is surprisingly low.

Okay, okay, okay, there are several reasons this is flawed:

But, this example of one marketplace is still useful, and if you allow for a greater difference in value, the implications of the equation are clear:

If salaries are going up, value better go up even more.

More importantly, salaries ARE going up.  It’s inevitable, and demand for Indian IT will continue to push them up further.   And, other IT destinations such as Vietnam are now offering reasonable alternatives for low-level work.

Indian companies will be beaten on price, but they can continue to differentiate themselves by providing stronger experience, niche specialization, and seasoned communication/management.

It will be the companies that fight the urge to cut corners and compete on price who will succeed. Focus on improving value, and the long-term view is rosy.

In just a few minutes, he manages to rail against the flat world, Tim Ferris, Thomas Friedman, and people who subscribe to Make Magazine. Well done, angry Indian man.

He also covers the following tips:

• Look for no.
• Save now, pay later.
• Everyone speaks screen.
• Move beyond cost.
• The 24 hour work cycle.
• Small is the new big.

Props to Thomas Friedman. In 2004, he barely knew outsourcing existed. Then, he goes to India. Instead of locating his chakras and opening a yoga studio in Pittsburgh, he ends up in Bangalore and gets shell-shocked by all the big buildings. WOW! Cisco is HERE?! You guys have computers in India? DSL? Amazing!!

Just like that, every executive in America has an unread copy of The World Is Flat on their bookshelf, and we’re all using a metaphor that never made that much sense.

So, let’s settle things. The world is not flat. It is curvy. Lumpy. Tilted. Full of nooks and crannies. And as a whole, still ROUND.

What’s wrong with the ‘flat world’ metaphor?
Besides my apparent jealousy of Thomas Friedman’s success, what’s so wrong with his metaphor?

To start with, the image of a flat world is all about capability.

Just a few years ago, Friedman made a case that information work can now happen anywhere, thanks to communications technology, skilled labor, and cost incentives.

Got it, Tom. People in India and China CAN do anything that we can do in the US. They have education. Computers. Telephone headsets.

This may have been a surprise to the majority of Americans in 1996. But, in 2007, it sounds kinda like Al Gore inventing the Internet.

Besides, if someone with a name like Tejas Patel or Timothy Wu was in your 3rd grade math class, you are already aware of what India and China CAN do. If Abhishek Chakrabarty fixed your computer last week, you have no doubt about India’s potential.

But does that mean the world is flat?
If the world is flat, my customer support experience should be the same whether the call center operator lives in San Jose, CA or San Jose, Costa Rica. If it’s flat, Chinese products would have the same quality standards that American ones do. In a flat world, 50% of offshore IT projects wouldn’t fail due to communication and quality issues.

The world is full of strange curves and contours. All this ‘flat world’ talk tends to gloss over the cultural differences, language barriers (even if you speak English, it doesn’t mean you understand it the same way only, isn’t it?), management challenges, time differences etc. that global collaboration brings up.

When we accept that the world is still round, we can have a better conversation about these challenges, deal with the management issues, and work harder on bridging cultural understanding.

It sounds simple-minded, obvious, cliched, etc., I know. But metaphors are powerful things. Once they become part of the vernacular, they have this funny ability to affect our thought process.

Besides, flat is boring.

Curves are a good thing
We recently opened an animation studio in Mumbai. The reason is simple; it’s India’s entertainment capital. The best animators in India arrive from all over the country looking for opportunities.

In the city of Pune, we helped to build one of the best Ruby on Rails teams in the country, because we found a pool of programmers eager to learn new technologies.

And, we continue to handle most of our business from Chandigarh, because we nurtured a skilled set of designers and developers in a city where turnover is low.

So never mind the world, India isn’t even flat.

Nor should it be. Regional specialties are awesome. They can make things more efficient, if you do it right. They can add some spice to your life. And, they can prevent the use of overused, localized cliches that others may not understand.

In short, moving away from the flat world metaphor may spark more conversation about regional specialties, help us to embrace the inherent challenges of outsourcing with more of an open mind, and most importantly, force conference organizers to work harder on their panel titles.

Thomas Friedman has already sold a few million books. Let’s ditch the ‘Flat World’ metaphor. And start celebrating the humps and the lumps.

Come by and say hi (I’ll be the non-descript Indian guy).