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Source:Mashable!

This is a guest post written by Michael Cerda. He blogs about startups, people and the variety hour at Cerdafied.

Outsourcing product development (or parts of development) offshore sounds like a good idea at the time. After all, you can augment your dev group quickly and on the cheap. But it only seems to work under certain conditions; mileage does vary depending on the company. Longer-term enterprise development projects tend to be better suited for outsourcing than shorter-term consumer Internet projects for example (I learned this the hard way). It has to do with development cycles, level of skill required for tasks, time to market, and the ability to iterate.

Arguably, you shouldn’t ever completely outsource your product development. Some things are just too strategic to lose control over. If you do decide to outsource some parts, here are some tips.

1. Hire one of them

Hire someone locally who was originally from the country you’re outsourcing to. Oftentimes different languages or dialects exist in other countries, so be sure your guy speaks the lingo. Also be tuned into other cultural nuances (for example, make sure there aren’t centuries-old bad blood between your guy and the people at the firm you use).

2. Nurture them

You’ll want to take the time and make the investment in having an occasional call or even a visit to the offshore location. Offering a face and voice from the top helps gain buy-in, support and motivation for the project. Obviously if you have to do too much of this, it’s not worth it.

3. Package the tasks

Be mindful not to overwhelm them with a complex project with multiple touch points and dependencies. Have a baked, signed off spec completed and committed to and assign straightforward pieces of it. When you assign something, ask for a time/cost estimate which you can measure back to later. Once the work has been verified and tested you’ll be able to establish a baseline level of quality and performance; from there you’ll be able to give them more rope.

4. Top grade

Offshore dev shops tend to assign you a mixed team of some good folks, some ok folks, and some green folks. These proportions are simply part of their business model. Just don’t let it get the best of your development cycle and product quality. Ask for resumes and interviews of the people they’re assigning to your team.

5. Communicate with one voice

Use the guy from #1 to funnel all communications between your team and theirs. Besides language and time zone issues, there are project management and accountability requirements. The more chiefs you have, the more fingers you have pointing. You can’t afford the he said/she said.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:VitaminT Becomes DaytipperIndian IT: Outsourcing To Decline?iexpenseonline: Personal Finance with User TipsVOIS: Virtual Outsourcing is Simple. And Now Social.10 Tools For The Best Earth Day EverTipit.to: Digg for Cash Tips?15+ Online Tools For The Perfect Prom

Source:Mashable!

Firefox can be made into so much more than just a browser via its huge extension base.  Yes, this means you can replace some of your instant messenger, chat and microblogging needs by adding just a few extensions. Here are 18 tools that will let you turn your Firefox 3 browser into a communications portal.

Whenever we discuss numerous Firefox add-ons, we like to remind you that we do not recommend you install ALL of them unless you like your browser slowing down.

Messaging

ChatZilla! - In a time before instant messengers exploded in popularity, Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was all the rage, and it is still quite popular.  This extension will add an IRC client to your browser so you don’t have to open a separate program.

Gabbly Chat Sidebar - A sidebar client for Gabbly chats hosted on any Web page or community.

Google Talk - Allows you to add Google Talk integration to your browser.

GTalk Sidebar - This sidebar extension allows you to use Google Talk in your window without having to stay on GMail all the time. It also lets you save yourself the effort of installing the stand alone GTalk application for your desktop.

Meebo - Adds integrated instant messaging via the Meebo system inside of your browser.  In the sidebar you can see which buddies are online, as well as which system they are using, and when need be, you can drag links and images over to them.  You can learn more about Meebo in this episode of Mashable Conversations.

SamePlace - Works in Firefox, Flock and Thunderbird to give you the ability to chat with your contacts on AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Twitter and Yahoo.

SMS Sidebar - This extensions gives you the ability to send SMS messages to just about any phone in the world.  It does cost money after the first 50 text messages, but seems to be reasonably priced and offers numerous features.

WataCrackaz AutoSMS - Allows free two-way SMS text messaging to phones all around the world and actually allows you to receive replies.

Yaplet - Adds the Yaplet chat system to your sidebar so you no longer have to switch tabs while you chat and can continue to surf as you talk.

Yoono - The Yoono sidebar can be updated with widgets for all major instant messengers.

Microblogging

FirePownce - An official extension from Pownce that allows you to update your account via a button added to Firefox.

Fownce -Allows you to post the current URL you are viewing to Pownce or just post a general update to your account.

Mahalo Share - Lets you recommend a page across numerous services, including Pownce and Twitter.

Shareaholic.com - Lets you update numerous services from one handy plugin, including Pownce and Twitter.

Twitkit - Highly customizable Twitter application that allows you to choose colors, look up your account information, manage your followers and more.

TwitterBar - An interesting extension for Firefox that allows you to use the browser’s address bat to also send Tweets to your account on Twitter.

TwittyTunes - Feel a burning desire to tell Twitter what you are listening to via FoxyTunes?  This extension will solve your dilemma.

Twitzer - Twitzer is not a Twitter client, but a tool to help you get more than the 140 characters into that little box.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:400 Million Firefox DownloadsFirefox Campus Edition LaunchesSave the Date for the New Communications Forum 2008Baidu Gets Firefox Deal in ChinaFirefox 2 Security Fixes ReleasedMozilla: Would You Like a Virus With That Add-on?Firefox Now Officially Hates Me

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Google Talk, web 2.0, web, social software, social media, IM, firefox, twitter, Pownce, chat, Lists, messenger. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.