Saturday, January 12, 2008
Why India will always lag in terms of technology understanding...
I did some quick math and realized that folks in India don't have the opportunity to attend industry conferences at the same frequency as folks in America...
In times of budget crunches, IT managers feel that they can scale back the amount of folks who attend industry conferences. The notion of sending a delegate whose job it is to capture notes that others can simply read is fascinating but otherwise not back testable as making any sense.
I have asked several folks from various Indian outsourcing firms who have been in IT at least five years and have achieved about a 5% hit rate in terms of those who have actually attended an industry conference themselves. Much of the time, I receive blank stares whenever I ask this question with several indicating that the act of learning directly is somehow a privilege.
While I understand the economics of conferences and the differences in compensation, a smart business person would over time come to understand that if India is ever to achieve technical equality with America, it needs to ensure continuing education that is on par which goes above and beyond once and done academic degrees...
| | View blog reactionsIn times of budget crunches, IT managers feel that they can scale back the amount of folks who attend industry conferences. The notion of sending a delegate whose job it is to capture notes that others can simply read is fascinating but otherwise not back testable as making any sense.
I have asked several folks from various Indian outsourcing firms who have been in IT at least five years and have achieved about a 5% hit rate in terms of those who have actually attended an industry conference themselves. Much of the time, I receive blank stares whenever I ask this question with several indicating that the act of learning directly is somehow a privilege.
While I understand the economics of conferences and the differences in compensation, a smart business person would over time come to understand that if India is ever to achieve technical equality with America, it needs to ensure continuing education that is on par which goes above and beyond once and done academic degrees...
