Awkward political question

[Intaris]

I've recently noticed some experienced (and well respected) LViewers are out looking for work which surprises me a little.

At the same time we have had a large increase in members from other traditionally "low wage" (in comparison) countries.

My awkward question is:  Are we cutting into our own livelihoods by offering top-notch technical service to people who might end up winning out-sourcing contracts at our expense?  Are we giving away our expertise too cheaply?  Honour and geek pride aside, are we stupid to be doing this for free?  How important is the "on-site" aspect of LV programming?

Please don't flame me for this, it's just an observation.

Shane

PS I use the term "we" to refer to anyone who is currently working in LV and may or may not have to worry about the security of their position in the next years.

[tst]

I think this question is not specific to LV, but relevant to all support forums which are maintained by volunteers.

I can't answer for everyone, but I can speak for myself - in my specific case, the fact I'm doing LV is usually not relevant to the customer, so helping others does not create a lot of risk. More generally, the level of help I provide would not allow someone inexperienced to suddenly become an expert able of producing high quality stuff. There are some things I give which have required some effort to create, but they alone are not enough to produce good software.

That said, there's no way of dismissing your suggestion - if you help someone who's competing with you, you do hurt yourself to a degree. The question is whether those who are helped here compete with the helpers or not, and the answer - some of them probably are, to a degree.

Yes, I know. It's not a very useful answer. If it helps, I'm guessing it's not a large percentage, but I have nothing to base that on.

[manumohannair]

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@Intaris wrote:

I've recently noticed some experienced (and well respected) LViewers are out looking for work which surprises me a little.

At the same time we have had a large increase in members from other traditionally "low wage" (in comparison) countries.

My awkward question is:  Are we cutting into our own livelihoods by offering top-notch technical service to people who might end up winning out-sourcing contracts at our expense?  Are we giving away our expertise too cheaply?  Honour and geek pride aside, are we stupid to be doing this for free?  How important is the "on-site" aspect of LV programming?

Please don't flame me for this, it's just an observation.

Shane

PS I use the term "we" to refer to anyone who is currently working in LV and may or may not have to worry about the security of their position in the next years.

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Instead of putting it as "low wage" (in comparison) countries, I would say "emerging or developing economies" which are trying to catch up with already developed or shrinking economies.

There will be a time not so far when both divisions will converge and the wages will be same as it happens now in China. The low costs or cheap solutions will be for short term and thats due to their less used carbon credit.

The positive point of cheap labor will bring LV to new domains and the result will be more job opportunities in "Off-shore" and "On-shore". The same projects which are "multi-shored" will bring down overall project cost and it will bring more LV end-users. Also its time to understand that "On-site" is a reality and technological expertise is not an inherited skill by anyone :).

[Intaris]

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@manumohannair wrote:

Instead of putting it as "low wage" (in comparison) countries, I would say "emerging or developing economies" which are trying to catch up with already developed or shrinking economies.

There will be a time not so far when both divisions will converge and the wages will be same as it happens now in China. The low costs or cheap solutions will be for short term and thats due to their less used carbon credit.

The positive point of cheap labor will bring LV to new domains and the result will be more job opportunities in "Off-shore" and "On-shore". The same projects which are "multi-shored" will bring down overall project cost and it will bring more LV end-users. Also its time to understand that "On-site" is a reality and technological expertise is not an inherited skill by anyone :).

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I personally think "Low wage" is the relevant aspect here.  Of course the economies will converge but there are still differences between well developed countries (I live in Switzerland and compared to here even the US is a "low wage" country).

I also agree that increasing the total base of LV use is beneficial but I don't understand your last line.

"on-site" is a reality?  I don't understand what that's supposed to mean.  I also don't quite get the aspect of technical aspect being an inheritable trait.  I don't think anyone has suggested that.

[Ben]

So many thoughts, so little time...

The issue of helping my competition has been one my Boss never liked. There are other members of the forum that work for companies that my boss sees as direct competition and we occationally loose project to them.  Since I never do their work for them, and only offer suggestions, I see my efforts as more of a help to the image of LV to our mutual customers (if my competition can't get something working in LV, it will be a hard sell trying to use LV on future projects.)

As far as educating goes:

We don't sell all of our project the same way but for those customers that are game, we partner with them and I do everything I can to design develop and support he code so we are no longer required. Yes you read that correctly, I try hard NOT to have follow-up projects. My customers appreciate it once they realize that I am not attempting the leach thing. Occationally I fail in convincing the customer they can do it themselves and I ned with an on-going engagement sometimes called "Dial-a-Ben" here in the bull-pen.

Our attempts to educate and empower our customers is not just through the project work. We teach all of the NI LabVIEW course and we will do custom course development to fit our customers needs on occation.

Do I see the Q of educating others as a threat?

Maybe I am being a bit arogent (it would not be the first time!) but I really don't see the answer I provide as a threat to my job. I think that my "Tagging Tree of Knowlege" is evidence of the fact that my head is an open book that I would that someone read. even if I actually tagged evey possible thread that has good content that has been posted since the begining of Forum time, it would only be a big pile of trivia that would be useless without a good understanding of computers and their peculiarities.

Maybe I think this way because I have fun laying down the wires and watching the bubbles flow and my real effort is involved when desigining the app before the code is started.

So for those starting out in LV, there may be a bit of a threat to the younguns. In my case I call on more than 34 years of experience to forsee issues before the code is started. Customers that are not looking for that type of experience for their apps, probabaly don't want to hire me in the first place. But for customers that need someone to look them dead in the eye and tell them if it will work, I can offer that.

But Ben, after you design the app, can't you loose project to cheeper shops?

Yes, and it has happened more than once. I have developed prototypes to prove concept (see the DVD projects in another thread) and when it came time to start cloning and deploying, we lost that work to an off-shore company.

But where I do see a threat...

Express VIs and the like are dumbing down the noods!

Yes it gets them started faster but there just aint nothin like chasing an instruction thru the CPU over the bus, through the interface etc. to get a good apreciation for what we are really doing when we drop a DAQmx node.

If more people had studied VMS Internals and Data Structures we would have far fewer questions like "Why is app slugish" Why is memory leaking", "How do I serial" etc.

Propably time for me to tell or re-tell an old story for years ago.

Ben was talking to his manager and (as usual) his mouth got a ahead of his thoughts and used the tem "job security" becuase nobody else knew what was going on. So Ross (my boss) sat me down and told me how I can make the most of my career.

1) We all start out not knowing what we are doing. WE cant accomplish anything without someone assisting.

2) We become more competent and require little or no help or guidance.

3) We can do our jobs require no help.

4) We can do our jobs and help others.

5) We can do our jobs and other depend on us to get their jobs done.

many people stop at that point and call it job security. WRONG!

6) We train the other that depend on us to do their work with out us. Only them are we free to move to the next level.

So here at work and also on the forums I am working to free myself of dependancies of others, let them do their job and allow me to move to yet another level (so how you YOU pronounce LVOOP ?).

Ben

[Ben]

RE: "Low wages"

Although the elitist American snob in me wants to not give up the advantages I have learned to expect, the realist in me says that what we have in the US now is just a sham, and when the dollar colapses under the weight of the US debt, we will effectively be leveling the playing field so that the $140K a year US job paid in US dollars will be worth what you can get for about $14K now.

So invest in gold and lead.

Ben

[Intaris]

Ben,

thanks for the great answer.

But if I may draw attention to one small part of your reply: "The issue of helping my competition has been one my Boss never liked.".

This is what I'm getting at.  I'm asking essentially if your boss is RIGHT to think like that or whether (at the end of the day) your helping competitors to the company is helping or hindering your company's bottom line.

Bear in mind that I myself have always been a long LV programmer (Except the first 3 weeks when I was introduced to LV) and >80% of my knowledge was learned here on the forums so I'm a big "Share the knowledge" guy but I still appreciate the need to at least highlight this aspect of things.

There's a rather large shift in software development models happening (Although Ben'll probably tell me it's not new at all) regarding opening up the source.  Having developed my own code for a while now I'm caught between two stools regarding trying to judge the best access level to my code (Which required massive investment time-wise).  I'm inclined to think that we simply need to ride the crest of the wave and anything we can do to increase the size of the wave is good but trying to make ends meet can make you very wary of the risk of falling off the surfboard...... Then a big wave suddenly looks different.

When do you know you're in a safe enough position to be able to ride the wave (financially, not technically)?

Shane

[PhillipBrooks]

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Intaris wrote: 

My awkward question is:  Are we cutting into our own livelihoods by offering top-notch technical service to people who might end up winning out-sourcing contracts at our expense?  Are we giving away our expertise too cheaply?  Honour and geek pride aside, are we stupid to be doing this for free?  How important is the "on-site" aspect of LV programming?

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I thought long and hard about asking this very question about 6 months ago. I decided that it was easier just to make my own choice and live by it.

Since you asked, I'll share my thoughts.

I used to attempt to help with any question where I have direct experience or an understanding of how LV works such that the OP could 'learn' what I had learned. Most of my 'understanding/learn what I had learned' responses were from the great help provided by the Knights, Zealots and other old-timers on the NI and LAVA forums.

I've noticed an uptick in questions that contain signatures with info/HTTP links (and sometimes even CLD/CLA 'brags') that point to these 'lower-wage' locations.

I look at it this way. If the OP is working for an NI Alliance member and/or declaring that they are a CLD/CLA AND are asking a question that I know the answer to based on my experience or understanding (see above) then I don't answer.

If they work for an Alliance member, there should be someone in their office that can help them (CLD/CLA), or if they are a CLD/CLA they should know at the very least know how to find the answer on the forums or ask NI directly. If they can't, they shouldn't be an Alliance member or have the CLD/CLA certification in the first place. They are in more competition for the work that I do.

I most often offer suggestions to those that have demonstrated (by past questions or detailed research references) an honest attempt to research the issue. I don't have time anymore for "How do I save this to Excel" type questions.

[Ben]

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@Intaris wrote:

Ben,

thanks for the great answer.

But if I may draw attention to one small part of your reply: "The issue of helping my competition has been one my Boss never liked.".

This is what I'm getting at.  I'm asking essentially if your boss is RIGHT to think like that or whether (at the end of the day) your helping competitors to the company is helping or hindering your company's bottom line.

Bear in mind that I myself have always been a long LV programmer (Except the first 3 weeks when I was introduced to LV) and >80% of my knowledge was learned here on the forums so I'm a big "Share the knowledge" guy but I still appreciate the need to at least highlight this aspect of things.

There's a rather large shift in software development models happening (Although Ben'll probably tell me it's not new at all) regarding opening up the source.  Having developed my own code for a while now I'm caught between two stools regarding trying to judge the best access level to my code (Which required massive investment time-wise).  I'm inclined to think that we simply need to ride the crest of the wave and anything we can do to increase the size of the wave is good but trying to make ends meet can make you very wary of the risk of falling off the surfboard...... Then a big wave suddenly looks different.

When do you know you're in a safe enough position to be able to ride the wave (financially, not technically)?

Shane

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I like the surf borad analogy! I have used to describe my career since I road the hardware wave to the beach, paddled out using the money I saved from the hardware wave to pay for a colege degree (graduated at age 42) and am now riding the LV wave. From where I stand, it appears the LV wave is still building since technology really requires more measurements. I have retirement planned within the next 7 years and I see this wave lasting at least that long (based on watching C gradually replace other languages).

I can never KNOW I am in a safe position. Lacking knowleg of the unknown I am forced  to believe.

AS far as my involvement with the forums "I believe if I put in my best effort and give freely of myself for the benefit of others, that I will not be punished." But then agin maybe I have read Job a couple of too many times.

Ben

[tst]

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@Ben wrote:

"I believe if I put in my best effort and give freely of myself for the benefit of others, that I will not be punished." But then agin maybe I have read Job a couple of too many times.

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You may want to read it again*. Job suffers quite a lot despite his good behavior.

* Or not. It's an incredibly difficult book, although that bit at least is easy to read and is over about a chapter and a half into the book. It's the rest of the book that's hard.

Spoiler

The book does at least have a happy ending, sort of. He does gain back everything he lost, times two.