Analyzing Blue Glass...

Outsourcing: An Indian Perspective

Apurva Bose, a published architect, explores the rise and popularity of outsourcing in Indian, focusing on the outsourcing of architectural jobs from western countries to India in Outsourcing: An Indian Perspective.  She aims to inform and display the advantages and disadvantages obtained by both India and "the West" from the "outsourcing bandwagon".  She explores the degree of labor work produced by Indians as well as the degree to which they are losing their "creativity".  By building her ethos and using effective and rhythmic parallel structure, Bose creates a strong argument to simply illustrate the outcomes of western countries shipping off their projects and designs to poor countries such as India.

Bose integrates her back story on life after graduation to increase her authority on the subject of the architecture industry in India.  She even goes on to saying that she was invited into the world of outsourcing when she was "offered a position by a leading outsourcing architectural firm in Noida, India."  But introducing herself right from the start, she has already won our trust as a credible writer and encourages us to read further.  Further on, she explains why she declined her job, describing her fear of losing her "creativity in drafting plans, making 3D models".  She uses powerful diction when saying it was "killing the innovation" that she "could only give birth to".  Her honesty on the thought of working for an outsourcing firm proves her credibility even more and the confidence in her position exhibits her authority on the subject.

While keeping an unbiased perspective on outsourcing in India, Bose makes many small, explicit claims on how each individual aspect of outsourcing affects both the West (specified as US and Europe) and India.  Her overall point is that outsourcing had grown impressively as the times change in India.  She describes its immense popularity, especially among fresh graduates, such as herself.  To elaborate on the growth of outsourcing, Bose further explains the benefit it has on the West and their need to balance labor work with the actual "conceptual designing".  By shipping off the jobs related to drafting, modeling, and constructing to India, they have more room and time to develop stronger designs and ideas for future projects in their firm.  Later on, however, she mentions the limitations of creativity, once again, that are experienced by Indian workers and the "alienation" of their own identity in their home country when working for foreign corporations.  Despite mentioning their deprivation of creativity, Bose explains that Indians are ready to take on the outsourcing industry.  They are excited to be trained in fields that they are not quite experienced with and it is a learning experience for them.  By exploring the different dimensions of the growth of outsourcing, she effectively gives the essay an unbiased perspective.  Her counterarguments pertaining to how Indians feel about outsourcing despite the limit on creativity and her own personal view of outsourcing gains her more credibility thus, indirectly building her ethos through her claims.

Towards the end of the essay, when Bose concludes her thoughts on architectural outsourcing between the West and India, parallel structure is used to emphasize the importance of outsourcing and inevitability of the position it holds in the future of both economies.  By expressing that "outsourcing is here to stay, to grow, and to flourish", not only does it effectively summarize the prevalence of outsourcing in India, but she also implies that despite the disadvantages it may carry, outsourcing with always remain a part of our economies as long as we ask others to fulfill duties of our own corporations.

Bose's expansive perspective on the effects of outsourcing on Indian economy successfully states how India can gain skills and experience from the jobs shipped  to them from the US and Europe as well as how outsourcing is hindering their growth as talented architects with the capability of designing great structures.

Offshoring in Egypt

As of recently, Egypt has been appointed "Offshoring Destination of the Year" by the European Outsourcing Association (EOA) (2010).  It was ranked 7th out of the Top 50 emerging outsourcing cities in 2008 (currently ranked 12th).  A report by the Yankee Group mentions that Egypt is "by far the Middle Eastern country currently best positioned to take advantage of the boom in outsourcing."  Martyn Hart, a chairman of the EOA said that Egypt "stood out for its multilingual capabilities" and "has proven itself a strong player for European outsourcers and a gateway to the Middle East and Africa."  Egypt is quite strong in their outsourcing skills and have grown to be very powerful in their economy by doing business all over the world, associated with multiple countries in Europe, Asia, as well as with USA.

Egypt has been recognized for having the best average wages with low costs.  The diversity in population as well as language is ideal for many European countries.  Speaking Spanish, German, French, English, etc. enhances communication skills between countries and makes exportation and importation much easier and accessible between Europe and Egypt.  Location wise, Egypt is nested between Europe and Asia, which is their ticket to over 20 countries who they can potentially do business with them.  Because of they are on GMT, they are able to attend to all business in Europe, Asia, and the US.  Major companies have invested in Egypt including Microsoft, IBM, Satyam, Wipro, and Vodafone.

Many of the businesses that offshore in Egypt continue to offshore regardless of the chaos occurring in Egypt currently.  Vodafone is one company that is still committed to offshore to Egypt.  Kelly Moore, director of service says "Disruptions can occur anytime caused by any event. Location is not factor."  Although many staff members have had to return to New Zealand after attacks in Cairo, Moore still insists on offshoring in Egypt.  This proves that Egypt is a rising nation that has enough power to keep having countries offshore their employees and keep doing business with them.  

Businesses don't want to give up on offshore outsourcing in Egypt they are well known for their involvement in IT work with businesses mentioned earlier.  With it's incredible rank, they can do wonders for the economy of many countries including the USA.  

Works Cited:

• Chris, Keall. "Vodafone NZ Committed to Offshoring despite Egypt Chaos | The National Business Review." The National Business Review. N.p., 1 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
• "Egypt." Sourceline. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
• Sutton, Mark. "Egypt Appointed Offshoring Destination of the Year." ITP.net. N.p., 12 July 2010. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
• Ted, Samson. "Egypt Ranked among Top Global Offshoring Destinations." InfoWorld. N.p., 2 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

            

Is Auto-Correct Effective as a Mode of Language?

Language is a certain template we use in order communication our thoughts and feelings to others.  There are several template we can use to expresses ourselves.  Many times, they what a certain language to be the in language that everyone must fill.   By that isn't always the way it works.  We must accept it her modes of communization.  Over the years, did modes of communicate have been formed, such as using WMO and Alan.  These forms have developed as a useful way to express emotions when there is an absence of tone.  It has become such a Roy toast nobody takes the time to realize what they are writing. Autocorrect can be dangerously unhelpful while talking to someone.  Yet, everybody seems to use it because or is supposed to helpful.  Hence, this is another form of language that is formed in our generation and a way of communicating ideas with others.  It hinders our ability to communicate effectively because it may incorrectly correct our sentences, defeating the entire purpose of autocorrect.  For most, it has become an in convince. So, what's the point?  Why are we still using it after knowing how it truly work?  Is it driven by our lax?  Maybe.

Reflection:

I'll be honest here.  Originally, I had decided that I would write a post in my mother-tongue, Gujarati.  However, there were a few issues with that.  There is no easy way to transfer the characters of Gujarati onto blogger and even if there was, it would take my entire life to write this post.  When I decided that I would write it in transliteration, it dawned on my mother that some of the words just could not be written with the English alphabet.  Hence, it is obviously not a mode of communication that we write on paper.  

While writing my blog in autocorrect, I was unnecessarily slow and careful.  Obviously, I was supposed to make mistakes for the benefit of autocorrect.  I stopped and tried to figure out my painstakingly slow pace and came to the conclusion that I wasn't comfortable with misspellings and incorrect grammar and especially replacement of words.  But who is?

We grow up learning a certain way of speaking and writing and spelling, period.  We never really look out of the box of our particular language.  We don't realize that within our language, in this case English, there are many dialects and versions, whether it be Black English, autocorrect, emoticons, or even tweeting.  When I send a message and I realize that "communicate" was changed to "immunization", I literally go into panic mode.  And it because I have grown up being very particular about my spelling (well, most of the time) and it seems to be out of my comfort zone to see something misspelled or replaced in a sentence.      

Although autocorrect should not be relied on while sending messages to others, it opens our eyes to the idea that not everything needs to spelled right or have to make sense in order for a message to be conveyed.  Obviously, the above post is an extreme but sometimes, inferences can be made in order to decipher a message.  I don't think autocorrect is effective because it can twist the meaning behind a message but I don't think that it is wrong all the time because if you are able to understand something regardless of the imperfections, why try to change it?

Ukraine: The Role of Visual Propaganda

The recent and tragic events in Ukraine have created a devastating environment and atmosphere for all of the innocent citizens.  After Russia's invasion in various parts of Ukraine, including the capital, Kiev, destruction has been broadcasted all over the world.  Visual propaganda has played a major role in portraying the destructive and cruel behavior in Ukraine (primarily Kiev and Crimea) by Russia as well as using persuasive skills to display a certain message for the viewers concerned about the riots.

At first glance, your attention is drawn in my the joyous toddler sitting on the shoulders of who seems to be his father.  If you look further than the child, you realize that the setting are most probably in the middle of a protest.  So why is a child happily sitting on his father's shoulders in the midst of what could turn out to be an epic revolution?  This is what captures an audience.  A child showing positive spirit for his country appeals to a feeling of pride in a viewer.  It symbolizes the pride of the entire nation of Ukraine in one person.  I think, in any type of argument, using children creates a stronger emotion in the audience and a stronger message.  Without the child, we would still understand the abundance of dignity and honor in Ukraine.  However, we wouldn't FEEL the impact that we do with a young child.  This photo is an effective tool in presenting a persuasive case to audiences who could potentially oppose Russia.  Using pathos is sufficient for he context of this argument, only displaying protests.

This next one is slightly more political and favors the American point of view more.  In December, John McCain visited Ukraine to offer his support to the protesters.  Approaching the protesters with a friendly handshake and kind words created an acceptable reputation for John McCain and even America, as he was representing us as a nation.  If someone from a different country were to see this, they would initially believe that America is the "do-good" country and wants peace.  While that may be true, these photos definitely depict an ideal America that makes us look, frankly, better than we are.  But, nonetheless, it gives us a good reputation among other countries, which never hurts.    

The Bluest Eye: Exploring Gravity and Humor

In the The Bluest Eye, written by Toni Morrison, beauty and the severe consequences of a desire for beauty are written with such ease.  However, although the tone is nonchalant, it creates a massive impact on the reader and makes them question the importance of the event and message behind it.  For example, in the prologue, when we learn about the fact that Pecola's father impregnated her, we seem to skim that over until we reach our senses and understand that Pecola is having her father's child.  The entire novel is extremely serious and so are the events that occur within the story.  But the novel becomes humorous because of Morrison's negligence towards stressing such life changing and consequential events of the book.  

"We thought, at the time, that it was because Pecola was having her father's baby that the marigolds did not grow." (p. 5). 

While reading through this part, Morrison's voice speaks to the reader in a calm voice, almost as if she is trying to ease in the gravity of the situation at hand, Pecola's pregnancy.  But because her tone is so indifferent, it becomes funny, almost ridiculous.  It is almost as if she wants these tragic events to be not taken seriously or sympathetically.  A reader reacts in a humorous way because the tone gives off the feeling that the writer doesn't want us to take it seriously either.  

I was once told that some of the hardest things in life should be laughed off.  What if that is her true motive?  What if Morrison told us this story with no emotion and indifference to show us that at the end of the day, life still goes on and the hardest things should seem ridiculous to ease the pain?  

This also connects with her request to "take refuge in how" and not why.  She implies that knowing why is hard to handle and that the how leaves less room for emotional conflict.  And sometimes the why is not important.  Her nonchalant less appeal in her tone shows that although these events occurred, finding reasons for it won't change the occurrence.  The only thing we can do is laugh about it and minimize the seriousness held on to at the time.  

The tone and hidden motives of Morrison help us realize that although the events that led to Pecola's shame were  indescribably awful and tragic, our mindset should not be fixed on the negative belief towards why it happened and dwell on the sad parts of the story.  Readers should find hilarity and ridiculousness in order for the gravity of the story to be eased off as a heavy burden.  

  

Ad Analysis: Forced to Live in Peaceful Toleration

Handcuffs.  Hands.  Colors.  Denim.

Handcuffs.  Symbolize restraint.  Restriction.

Hands.  Symbolize surrender.  Submission.

Colors.  Symbolize diversity.  Different.

Denim.  Symbolize uniformity.  Similar.

Looking at this ad closely, the first thing I look at are the handcuffs.  They are firmly clasped on each wrist, symbolizing force and demand. Then my eyes move downward, to the hands.  Curled, weak fingers symbolize the reluctance and hesitation.  One white, one black.  Lastly, it moves to the clothes.  Both are wearing denim jeans and denim jackets, showing unity.

Subtlety is an incredibly powerful and important factor in creating a strong argument about racial peace for the general public in the ad.  Words and actions don't crowd the image, creating a simpler and clearer view of the message.  This ad shows the obvious reluctance and hesitance between both races.  The handcuffs show that they may not have to like each other but they must learn to tolerate each other and in order for them to do that, they must be forced through handcuffs.  At the same time, besides the color of the hands, everything else is uniform.  Both individuals are wearing denim.  This depicts the idea that just because someone's skin color is different, doesn't mean they are any different.  Denim proves this idea in the simplest way possible.

Notice that the ad is not promoting love.  You don't see a hug or a kiss, far from it.  Instead, you see surrendered hands in handcuffs.  Toleration is the main promotion.  Toleration of different races and different people.  The ad is, hence, less predictable and draws more attention from the audience.  It plays on a more realistic account rather than a fairy tale version, like a "happily ever after".  The structure of the hands show that neither one of them want to tolerate each other but since they are forced to, they will oblige.  Most influential ads go against assumptions and create an narrow angle of perspective that most of the general public may have never thought of before.  Depicting acceptance rather than perfect harmony shapes a more realistic and believable image in a typical viewer.

"United Colors of Benetton" is in stark green and quite hard to miss.  They have done their very best in letting people know that they endorse this cause.  And in doing that, they have gained more respect from the public and more customers.  Sales tactic?  Maybe, probably.  Creative?  Clever?  Definitely.