For my expert interview, I chose Dr. Weber. She was a teacher of mine in highschool, and she actually introduced me to the topic of outsourcing initially through her course on Cultural Anthropology/Globalization. And it is funny because I have done one expert interview before, and it was for her class. She was proud to know that what she had taught me stuck with me and really did help out in the long run.
Before talking about outsourcing, I wondered about her research habits. She went to Tanzania with her husband on a mission trip and used to talk about enthographies alot, so I was interested in her research methods. She pretty much researches the same way anybody else would... She would start with the most general key terms and narrow down her search as she goes along. She then would find sources and check their credibility before actually reading the article. She then would take down the citation of the source and put a little blurb as to what it contains. This also helps in citations aftewards, which is extremely important. To her, research is important but she knows that it can be tedious and exhausting!
Hearing the word "outsourcing," she instantly recommended Thomas Friedman, who is apparently one of her favorite authors. Some of her recommended books by him are The World is Flat and The Lexus and The Olive Tree.
She sees that outsourcing and globalization are closely interconnected. She says that technology enables globalization, enabling different countries to connect. This connection and technology therefore enables outsourcing.
Because my focus is white collar outsourcing, we put aside the subject of outsourcing manual blue-collar labor to sweatshops. That is an entirely different subject, and she wants it to be clear that her views of that and white collar outsourcing are entirely separate.
She views outsourcing of white collar jobs as a "leveling of the playing field." For example, countries such as the United States have been on top for so long, but now 2nd world countries like India are on the rise and are being able to have the same opportunities as us. She likes the idea of everybody being able to have the same starting point. A lot of great things can happen, many new inventions and discoveries, if everybody has the same opportunity and chance to become all that they can be. While white-collar outsourcing does not affect all countries, it is at least giving some countries a lift. She does not look out for just my target group, but at the world as a whole.
As for my target group, she believes that outsourcing is an innovating phenomenon. Some jobs are being sent overseas, and now us Americans have our hands free to move onto other things, even better things.
She sees a lot of good in outsourcing, but of course acknolwedges the bad. Nothing is black and white, there is always going to be gray. She thinks that some things are inevitable. And irreversible. Like the technological groundwork that enables outsourcing (the miles and miles and miles and miles of fiberoptic networks) would be impossible to take back, outsouring is not something that can be stopped. It is now a way of business and economic opportunity. To halt it would be disastrous.
She takes the stand of if you can't change it, accept it, and maybe make it better. She then made the statement, "The train is going whether you're on it or not... So you've gotta either get on or get left at the station... your choice."
I learned alot from listening to Dr. Weber. To me, she seems like a very viable source of information and she doesn't seem to have any reason to be biased. I will definitely look in to her recommendations of readings and give more thought to her words.
We also talked about my reasons for choosing this topic (was interesting to me as well as relevent because I was worried that I would not find a job if I majored in anything to do with technolgy). She advised that I not worry about that, that I should do what I want to do and what I find that is interesting. It will work out in the end, and don't limit myself. Just because some jobs are getting shipped off, doesn't mean all of them are. And by the time I graduate there will probably be something new and exciting created because of off-shoring that I will love.
