phyllostachys 47: Minute Tech 32 show notes

32 - What is In Flanders Fields?


Good morning, this is the Minute Tech podcast -

coming to you for Friday, November 16th, 2007

We take a few minutes to talk about technology
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This is Alex Landefeld with minute tech 32 - What is In Flanders Fields?

Minute Tech podcast is brought to you in part by:

Larry Tolbert's Sunday Morning Wu Style Taiji - 9:30 every Sunday morning at the Dunamis Baptist Church, in Wilkinsburg, PA.
"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji" - e-mail leonardtolbert-[at]-hotmail-[dot]-com for more info.

Tech items:

Somehow I inadvertently happened upon an abbreviated version of Gmail last night. If you type for your gmail login "mail.google.com / mail / x" - you get a text only version of gmail. I mean...I thought gmail was already quite svelte in layout...but this is nearly as devoid of color as that entry-level Linux favorite Pine.

I currently work as an "applications support specialist" for an onshore outsourced word processing (which we call "document services") department for a global law firm....in Wheeling, WV. The outsource firm is Williams Lea, inc. Williams Lea is a British company specializing in uber-cost cutting for companies who want to save 30% on their internal services, by outsourcing mailroom, print/copy, document processing and even IT. Note that outsourcing primarily saves by cutting salaries and healthcare expenditures for that group of outsourced positions...the outsourcing company must figure out how to (1) maintain the same level of service, but with (2) tighter fiscal outlay. That means tighter wage policies, less year-end-bonus, and potentially tighter healthcare outlay.

In my mind, these items are the reality of business - outsourcers are just showing more profitable companies how to provide services for less cost. As in any other industry, a profitable company wants it's profits kept, although paying employees is a necessary....uh...thing to do.

Foreign companies, like Williams Lea, Tiger Direct, Tata Consultancy and Infosys are not the only companies doing this thing called BPO, or business process outsourcing - Northrop Grumman, of aerospace fame, has successfully contracted with the State of Virginia to take on the state's IT services. This may be small in scope compared to a multi-national corporation...but it's a start.

Go to www.offshoringtimes.com and click on their "What is BPO" link for more information.
http://www.offshoringtimes.com/WhatIsBPO.html



Tech Question:

What is in Flanders Fields?

In Flanders fields is a poem written by poet John McCrae, in the trenches of World War 1, on May 3rd, 1915. Flanders, in Belgium, has a wealth of poppies growing its fields...and this beautiful red flower is a symbol of remembrance for the fallen in World War 1.

One year ago I was in the "record neat things in GarageBand" kick, and recorded the following when my family e-mailed around about the remembrances of Veterans Day. This recording is about 1.5 minutes, after which I'll jump into the podcasting/blogging section.



podcasting/blogging tidbit:

I recently stumbled back upon the online writings of a serial entrepreneur and author, Paul Graham. If you go to Paul Graham dot com, you'll see that he has many interesting essays on many interesting topics. The most interesting to me are the writings on doing a startup. Am I thinking down this road? It'd be interesting...but lets write about it for now.

As Paul writes, it's not the idea that is important, but the group of people. If you have the right mix of people, who think unanimously toward goals and actions, then the ideas can flow from one thing to another.

One interesting example of this was a company originally called CacheFlow, which mid-stream, during the tech crash at the beginning of this decade, changed direction from selling very popular web caching appliances to developing a business in a slightly more arcane arena, Proxy management. This company is now call Blue Coat Systems Inc (BCSI), and they're doing an awesome global business.


Thats all for today on Minute Tech podcast.
you can reach me at minutetech@gmail.com -
and my blog is at minutetech.blogspot.com

"Move with the motion of the planet - move with Taiji"

- Text Gmail and BPO
- What is In Flanders Fields?
- Paul Grahams essays and CacheFlow.

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