SIGIA-L Mail Archives: Re: SIGIA-L: innies vs. outies
Re: SIGIA-L: innies vs. outies
From: Shawn.Smith_at_vodafone-us.com
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 17:40:08 EDT
Ah... sorry to have missed the Cocktail Hour this time, and the discussion
around innies v. outies in particular.
I was an outie for 4 years - first for a small consultant/developer on the
east coast, and then another similar firm in San Francisco. After being
downsized out of my last job, and a surprisingly brief (2 month) job
search, I was hired by vodafone and am going on 5 months as an innie for
the first time in my IA career. And while the bulleted summary Christina
posted on the CIQ site (see her link, below) fits my experience so far, my
exposure to inniedom makes me nervous about the job security of my outie
friends...
Not to spread doom and gloom, but ...
Vodafone hired me as part of its initiative to replace numerous contractors
(outies) with in-house personnel. My east coast employer ended its
relationship with its biggest client for similar reasons a couple years
ago, which put me through a similar transition (albeit from the other point
of view). The relationships ended amicably, but painfully for the
contractors.
Contractors can cost a client upwards of $2k per day per person. For the
same money, they can hire six or seven in-house personnel.
A few years ago, many companies didn't fully understand what it means to do
business online, to operate online. Beyond B2C e-commerce, there were few
examples of companies operating online in any significant way. Clients
thought they could hire a firm to develop their web site, and then their
work would be done. They'd launch it, and off it would go. Sure, they'd
hire a "webmaster" and their marketing people would review the site once a
quarter or so... Some companies still operate this way, and every couple of
years, they'll hire some consultant or design shop to give their
brochureware site a face-lift.
Most big companies these days, however, depend on the Internet and their
web presence in a much bigger way. They've realized that their online
initiatives require the ongoing full-time attention of numerous people.
They've made their online business a permanent part of their budgeting
structure. Money is set aside within IT, marketing... They've done the
math. Innies are much, much cheaper than outies.
The good news is, occasionally a project requires some outside expertise,
something specialized, often short-term. Like most companies, mine has a
budget to hire the occasional outie.
So rest assured all you outies, I'm trying my hardest to persuade my bosses
to farm out specialized work as often as makes sense. I'm doing my best to
spread the work around during these tough times.
But from my new perspective as an innie, the future is fairly dim for outie
IAs.
--
s h a w n s m i t h
information architect
vodafone global platform
T. +1 925. 817 6739
M. +1 510. 390 1645
"christina
wodtke" To: "List - SIG-IA" <sigia-l_at_asis.org>
<cwodtke_at_elegan cc:
thack.com> Subject: SIGIA-L: innies vs. outies
Sent by:
owner-sigia-l_at_a
sis.org
09/05/01 03:57
PM
Last night we had a pretty good discussion of in-house vs. consultant
IA's(innies and outies) at the San Francisco IA/UE cocktailhour.
I've coaxed the two key speakers, Erin Malone and Gabe Zentall to post
their
thoughts, and as things go along, hopefully more of the participants will
add their insights.
http://carboniq.com/events/cocktailhour/archives/archive-092001.shtml
I'd love to hear how others see the difference in the two types of roles...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2
: Sun Nov 23 2003 - 22:54:48 EST
|
