Re: Outsourcing... Any experiences?
 

Thanks Dien!

On iWriter my instructions are usually a variant of these:

Please don't write in the third person ("one" etc.)

Please make the style several bullet points/tips (5 or 7 works well).

Please make sure your work is split into paragraphs, not just one long article.

Please don't over-do the keyword density - just write naturally.

Writing is relatively straightforward and is probably the easiest thing to outsource.

Graphics you need to check it's not infringing copyright - not always easy but Google's image search has helped. Or one project the designer sourced the images & I bought them from the recommended stock site.

Coding can be anything from a simple fix to a really big project.

Spaghetti code is always a problem - difficult to specifiy as most programmers have their own style.

Bug testing is the part I really hate as you can't assume that whatever got corrected last time has stayed corrected or something else hasn't got broken in the next iteration.

Microsoft don't get all the bugs fixed and they've got stricter procedures and bigger budgets.

There are so many variables to test and check for.

Even Google "broke" the internet a while back when something they hadn't trapped for happened.

Testing takes longer than you ever plan!

Thanks Dien and Trevor... and nice chapter.. TTS
 

I appreciate the input both of you gave on places to outsource. I'm a programmer by trade so I can agree on the challenges on outsourcing programming tasks. Two programs can technically accomplish the job but can be night and day apart in terms of quality.

Anyway, Dien I enjoyed the chapter 3 that you presented. And on a side note, I just discovered text to speech voices have come a long way. Last week I purchased Textaloud 3 and the premium voice Ava from nextup.com. Very impressive! Not only did it make reading that chapter easier on my aging eyes but I will likely incorporate it as the voice over in some upcoming videos.

Thanks,
Rob Yaggie

P.S. Demo for voices...
http://www.nuance.com/for-business/t...index.htm#demo

I like American English ... Female Ava, Male Nathan. Note, Nathan is not available yet for use on Textaloud but I hope it will be in the future.

P.P.S. - I also used Textaloud to proofread this post :)

Re: Outsourcing... Any experiences?
 

Thanks Trevor for these tips... Excellent ones!

Also, a great list of "do's" and "don'ts" for writers, too...

On graphics, that's good advice. I haven't actually checked to make sure that the graphics I've had made up weren't "stolen" from a copyrighted source. I'll make sure to find out the source in future (to make sure it's legal)! You don't want to have legal headaches down the track!

I know from my brother's experiences that hiring programmers can sometimes be difficult. I think his experience was more or less that you get what you pay for - and he did find that the more expensive programmers were better "quality" - they wrote better code, which was easier to modify or fix up later...

The thing which I didn't realize for a long time is that, hiring is a skill. I naively thought, if you want something done, you just hire someone, and it gets done! Of course, it's rarely that straightforward... However, the more you do, the better at it you get!

Best wishes, :)

Dien

Re: Thanks Dien and Trevor... and nice chapter.. TTS
 

Hi Rob,

That's interesting!

For a while, I was doing some "academic editing" work on the side... I partly kept doing it because I kept learning things, and I'd get the occasionally interesting paper... I'm a "sucker" for interesting stuff... :)

Anyway, I found that sometimes using "text-to-speech" helped with the editing process. I could sometimes catch errors by "listening" to them! (It was especially useful if I got tired of reading...)

On Ch. 3 of "Thinking Like an Entrepreneur" - Peter Hupalo makes a good point, I think...

One point is you'll never be great at everything! You might be great at a couple things, good at a couple others, yet suck at other things. For example, maybe you are great at creating websites, but you really suck at selling your services.

The point is, you could then focus on what you're great at, and hire or partner with one or more people to do what you suck at. So, in this case, you could make websites, and partner with someone, or hire someone, to sell your services for you...

The more complex the business gets, the more this is true...!

A friend of mine started a website building and branding company. He's a great graphic designer, so he focuses on that side of things (I think he does most of the "selling" too). Another partner does all the "coding" stuff related to the websites. And a third partner focuses on the financial side of the business. And in their case... their separation of responsibilities works very well, and they're quite successful!

Best wishes,

Dien

Re: Outsourcing... Any experiences?
 

The advantage of reducing operating costs! It appears because of the difference in wages between countries or just cutting employee compensation costs and office space expenses (and it’s still significant savings). You can save up to 60% of your budget by outsourcing some tasks to another company, so it's definitely the right choice for a business.

We prefer you pay for ads here, is that OK?
 

Dien may accept paid ads, ask him. But until then, we prefer participation, which is why I deleted your signature link.

Gordon