Outsourced Column

For those of you who read my piece on outsourcing in the June 4, 2007 edition of the Corridor Business Journal..... I was kidding. I did not outsource that piece.

My point stands, though. All the information in that piece is attainable from anywhere in the world. Friedman's book is available anywhere and there are several online articles about the outsourced Pasadena reporters. I wrote that piece in my home's sunroom in Cedar Rapids, not the CBJ's offices the U of I's Oakdale campus. I've written CBJ columns at coffee shops in Key West, FL and Nashville, TN. Who's to say that a reporter in India couldn't write many of the columns that appear in my column space weekly?

That brings me to another point.... obviously, sometimes I write about national issues without including any references to local points of interest here in the Corridor. Sometimes I write specifically about local issues and draw on my experience as a media consumer in the Corridor and a former journalist in the Corridor. Outsourced reporters have a harder time with truly local content. I highly doubt that an outsourced columnist could write about media issues in the Corridor the way I do. I hope that didn't sound too self-serving, I just don't think someone in Bangalore could do what I do the way I do it.

Not every time, anyway.