Book links Kaavya debacle with ‘perils’ of outsourcing

NEW YORK: American tech writer and web architect Kay Stoner’s Bring Me the Head of Opal Mehta draws surprising connections between Kaavya Viswanathan’s failed plagiarism-plagued first novel and the risks lurking in shipping work overseas to “under-qualified or mismanaged offshore staff.”

Stoner said she may have been “Bangalored” while working for a multinational financial services company but her print-on-demand book soft-launched by Lulu.com this week is not a disgruntled techie’s bitter venting. The 141-page paperback priced at $12.95 will be distributed worldwide in six weeks through US online retail chains like Amazon.com.    

“I had really hesitated to write this book. But when Kaavvyagate happened it really crystallised so many ideas for me — everything fell into place. You all in India saw it happening — there was all this flurry of drama, chaos and this shock and horror,” the 41-year-old software engineer, told DNA.

“The scandal around Kaavya and her book is not rare, and it’s not isolated to publishing. It’s part of deeper problems in workplace globalisation policies that tear at the fabric of American lives and compromise the quality of our work product. This story isn’t just about a failed chick-lit novel, it’s about how multinational corporations do business in the world, and how local subcultures can defend their cultural integrity from globalised encroachment,” she added.

Time magazine recently said in a bantering tone that India is where “Wall Street gets equities analysed, where Kellogg, Brown & Root sources kitchen staff for the US Army in Iraq, and where your credit-card details might be stored-or stolen.” Stoner’s book takes this a step further by pressing the point that the mad rush to outsource everything may lead to US companies sourcing substandard products, including software from India.

“Well, not always substandard. That is a generalisation I don’t want people to make. What happens in certain instances is there isn’t adequate training for people or a good chain of communication — this can have an adverse impact on the work product that comes out,” said Stoner. 

She said that her book drew honestly on her ten-year-long experience in the tech industry where she had “worked with many, many Indian colleagues over the years” but recently found that offshore groups did not receive “proper guidance” and were not incorporated into the business process by the management. 

The book which has a stunning cover jacket of an image of Goddess Kali with a decapitated head is bound to set off a round of hand wringing over US concerns about the perils of outsourcing, especially privacy concerns about personal financial data. But Stoner, who has a popular podcasting site called Podtopia.net, said she was not dumping on India. 

“The Kaavyagate connection draws parallels between how the break down of processes will lead to a drop in quality,” said Stoner, adding, “I really don’t want people to get the wrong idea that I am anti-India. I don’t want anyone to think that I am opposed to Indian software developers because I have worked with them for years. But it is important for us to start addressing these issues because it is not happening at a management level.” 

She said her reason for writing the book was to start a conversation about issues surrounding cross-cultural communication and coordinating work in different time zones. “I spent a year and a half getting work from people on the other side of the world and I lost my job in the process. I know there is going to be a certain venting aspect to it but what I am trying to do is start a conversation. We need to start a dialogue in the industry about how to maintain quality in the US, pinpoint how we work well together and what doesn’t work for us working together. We need to figure out how to sustain the technical subculture in the face of global changes.”

Stoner’s book will put the spotlight again on Chennai-born Harvard sophomore Viswanathan who suffered an Icarus-like fall after the Harvard Crimson screamed plagiarism. It posted an update on her summer internship after weathering a media storm in April; “Life goes on for Kaavya Viswanathan ’08. The on-the-go life of an ambitious Harvard student, that is…During the summer, Viswanathan will be working at 85 Broads, a network founded in 1999 for female Goldman Sachs employees. And when she returns to school in the fall, she will be interacting with freshmen as a peer advising fellow. Viswanathan was selected as one of about 190 fellows out of nearly 500 applicants.”