Lunch with Pat Cox-thoughts on offshoring

On Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending a small group lunch in honor of Pat Cox, President of the EU Parliament. It was quite a treat as I got to hear his viewpoint on Spain, terrorism, immigration, and offshoring amongst other things. Since I tend not to write about politics, I thought I would share Pat's thoughts on offshoring. As you know, in the US, there is increasing political pressure on offshoring and a movement to put legislation in place to prevent and slow this down. Offshoring is certainly a key issue in the EU as well, and Pat offered an interesting and growing perspective on offshoring and how to deal with it. Pat believes strongly that it is not about protecting jobs but protecting people. The jobs will come and go but to the extent we can protect people and train them and teach new skills then we will all be better off in the long run. I certainly share this viewpoint and would like all of us to figure out how we can contribute to this line of thought.

If you want to stay on top of all things offshore, I suggest that you visit a new site called Offshoreupdate.com. The site is currently an aggregator of offshore outsourcing stories, but it will soon begin publishing news stories. This is a perfect example of what Jeff Jarvis calls "microcontent." Throw up a blog, some links, and some Google Adsense and see where it takes you.