On Friday, President Obama chose Nike headquarters in Oregon to deliver a defense of his proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was an odd choice of venue. Nike isn’t the solution to the problem of stagnant wages in America. Nike is the problem. It’s true that over the past two years Nike has added 2,000 good-paying professional jobs at … Continue reading »
outsourcing
Is Google reading your bMail?
Both users of bMail and the campus itself have never received a clear answer to a simple question: Is Google subjecting data in Google Apps for Education to data analysis or mining for purposes unnecessary for technical rendition of service? A recently-filed lawsuit suggests that Google is indeed applying analysis to our messages, but masking … Continue reading »
The good, not so good, and long view on Bmail
Many campuses have decided to outsource email and other services to “cloud” providers. Berkeley has joined in by migrating student and faculty to bMail, operated by Google. In doing so, it has raised some anxiety about privacy and autonomy in communications. In this post, I outline some advantages of our outsourcing to Google, some disadvantages, … Continue reading »
Outsourcing is not the problem
President Obama is slamming Mitt Romney for heading companies that were “pioneers in outsourcing U.S. jobs,” while Romney is accusing Obama of being “the real outsourcer-in-chief.” These are the dog days of summer and the silly season of presidential campaigns. But can we get real, please? The American economy has moved way beyond outsourcing abroad … Continue reading »