The app can be seen during jam session week at HP’s digital playground from Thursday through Sunday (Feb 11- Feb 14) at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas.

Here’s a sneak preview and we’ll share more pictures and videos next week.

The thing is that I’m seeing Tim Ferris speak tomorrow.  While I’ve always found his approach to personal outsourcing exaggerated and horribly misleading (although I’ve read that the hyperbolic “4-Hour Work Week” title wasn’t his idea), I do enjoy his blog and find his constant personal experimentation fascinating.

So, this one is loosely based on a blog post about outsourcing his dating life.

We’ll call this comic strip The Sourcies for now and see if it sticks.  The artwork is by Aron Bothman (of course).  I wrote it along with one of my Monsoon partners, Ankush Gera.

It’s supposed to be a funny little prank.  Try it.

Call this number: 401-285-0701, and you’ll hear a horrible Indian accent, requisite long Indian name, and a message about him being your outsourced friend.

It’s spreading around the Internet quickly, mainly because I think people see it as harmless fun.

The problem with satire is that there is tremendous risk.  If it’s funny, you’re home-free.  If it’s not, the results can be disastrous.  So, if you’re Stephen Colbert, go for it.  If you’re Don Imus, don’t.

Does a bad accent, an Apu-style long name, and a badly-written message about outsourcing qualify as funny?

Maybe in 1999.

Today, if you’re a radio host who plays it, you should probably start sending out your resume.  You could probably make a good telemarketer.

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.

via Abhi at Sepia Mutiny

Something that you don’t often see a lot written about in new media is the strong trend by startups to outsource a lot of their work. Digg for example was originally designed by Kevin Rose outsourcing the job on elance, and sites such as Slideshare, illumobile.com have gone down a similar path.    

 This post lead to a 100+ comment debate about Indian IT.  Overall, the TechCrunch community had a lot of interesting things to say.   It’s clear that a significant percentage of Web 2.0 entrepreneurs have tried working with an Indian team.   While the results are mixed, most of the community agrees that, when managed well, the cost efficiencies and scale that a global team can bring are worth it. A few of my favorite comments from the post are below. 

Mr. Recycle tells people to get over the fear of getting their idea stolen: 

I’d say outsourcing (or offshoring) is more of a fortunate reality than an unfortunate one. And should you really care about the protection you get in third world countries? Do you think your idea is that original anyway? Guess what, it isn’t. It is your execution and vision as a business that matters, not your code base. You could hand Facebook’s codebase to 100 entrepreneurs today and you would probably get 100 failed start-ups.   

Fabio Rosati (CEO of eLance) talks about low bidders:

 A more appropriate generalization supported by our data, is that buyers who consistently hire the lowest bidders for a particular class of jobs tend to have lower success rates.   

Raza Imam stresses Fabio’s point about highvalue vs. low cost. 

Outsourcing is tricky, but it’s like anything else in life. It takes practice to get it right. Outsourcing is about high-value, not low cost. If you pay someone ten bucks an hour and expect great code, you’re kidding yourself.