In the past month I’ve blogged twice about offshoring and outsourcing.
In the first post, I summarized some key points in a BusinessWeek article about the outsourcing of innovation. From a skills perspective, it may have had some interest from those involved with orchestrating supply chains. Perhaps a bit of a narrow focus.
In the second post, I tried to draw in some additional focus on how significant the offshoring force will be on the overall economy. That might have drawn some interest from professionals looking out for themselves as to how to keep their skills fresh. A bit broader of an audience.
Here’s something also close to home but not necessarily directly associated with the aspects of keeping skills fresh and worrying about where jobs will go. The topic is how to make sure your children are adequately prepared for the global future with language skills. May be more important now than ever given the offshoring revolution I described. May also be a good domestic business opportunity for those that can be more aggressive with providing language tutorial services, value-added services, or lower-cost services to the youth market.
A quote from the article that triggered this post ("Great Toddle Forward"):
JaNiece Rush of Lifestyle Resources, a placement agency, says 35
percent more families have requested Mandarin-speaking nannies this
year than last. At the Pavillion Agency, requests for Mandarin-speaking
sitters are up tenfold since 2000, says Clifford Greenhouse, mainly
from “extremely affluent” parents. Some of these parents are Chinese or
have adopted Chinese babies. But others want to give their toddlers a
leg up in globalized society.
Timing for children on the language front is more critical that other learning areas. For me, I can only speak English. I waited until graduate school to take Mandarin – it’s hard to learn that late in life – and it would not be possible for me to conduct business in China without being immersed much more. So keep language in the back of your mind as you think about your kids. Transferring preconceived ideas from one’s own past about language may less relevant given globalization.
Steve Shu
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