Potential good news for snowbirds and investors in Panama
After a week of talks with high-ranking government officials and opposition leaders Prima Panama, a real estate developer, reports:
Panama Residential Developers Blog in Paradise recovered-Friday update:
It’s been less than a week since we starting receiving responses to our Internet survey and we’ve already achieved some spectacular results. Our sources in the Assembly have informed us that legislation is being introduced to return the length of stay for the tourist visa to 90-days (without requiring an extension) and issuing a temporary extension of the 20-year tax exemption on new property until December 31st, 2007. We have assurances that it has the full support of the President along with his cabinet.
At the very least it's interesting to see that in this small country (only 3 million citizens) it is possible to get into direct talks with the government. I can't predict what the outcome of all this will be, but my feeling is that the government will come up with some exception for European and North-American visitors while maintaining the 30 days limit for everyone else.
Deliver products on time and under budget with agile development
Another thought crossed my mind later today after posting Agile Development ranks #18 on CNN. CNN writes:
Agile also has a reputation for enabling managers to deliver products on time and under budget
That claim is a bit dangerous in my opinion. The idea of agile is definitely not to deliver something faster nor cheaper. The idea is to develop software in a way that allows the team to better understand the problem domain, to do knowledge crunching, as Eric Evans calls it in his book about DDD. It is about better quality. It is about integrating change instead of following a construction plan.
The outcome business people should expect from agile is a better solution that is more suited for their business or gives them a competitive advantage due to the input from the developers. Developers can be quite good at finding ways to streamline an existing business, because they are logic experts and not follow the same old patterns as domain experts tend to do, because they have grown up in a specific industry.
In the end agile is not about saving money or faster delivery of results. It's about higher quality, better solutions and early delivery of prototypes for the same amount of money.
Research study tells who really makes the iPod
Just found this pointer to a research study, which explains who really is making the iPod. That means the manufacturing. The idea and design is Apple's.
International Herald Tribune in Who really makes the iPod?:
Their study, sponsored by the Sloan Foundation, offers a fascinating illustration of the complexity of the global economy, and how difficult it is to understand that complexity by using only conventional trade statistics.
Agile Development ranks #18 on CNN
That's an interesting find for everything you loves agile development practices. CNN Money has ranked "agile" #18 on its "Top 50 Who Matter Now" list. That might get the agile idea on the radar of more business people. So in general it's a good thing.
CNN Money in The 50 Who Matter Now - Agile Software Development (33) - Business 2.0:
Agile teams work very quickly -- sometimes in as little as a week -- to create small chunks of code. Once a component is finished, additional features are added, with the process repeating indefinitely.
Unfortunately they use "A new approach to Web-based code" as their second headline and connect "agile" to web-based services in the text. That might cause the business person reading this to believe that "agile" is something limited to everything web while in fact it's simply a way of doing all kinds of projects and not even software alone.
Indian CIOs have to offshore work
Now that's interesting news:
Network World in Indian CIOs have to offshore work, says Gartner - Network World:
Indian CIOs will have to consider outsourcing offshore, because of the shortage of IT skills in the country, and inadequate services standards of local service providers, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
People who really know what they are doing are rare to find. In the IT industry good skills are not easy to obtain. A good developer or SysAdmin needs to live the job and not just do the job, because he needs money to feed himself and his family. The ever evolving technology demands that one is passionate about the topic and willing to learn constantly. Just performing a certain set of tasks over and over again will cause falling behind and in the end become useless.
Fostering good skills in its people is as well a responsibility of the company. For example in my own company I follow a bit the ancient pattern of apprentice, journeyman and master. The education kids receive in the local Universities here in Panama is not bad, but they lack guidance and practice. So I give them a chance and over the course of a few weeks I decide whether they are made of the right stuff or not. Once I found one who is, I put the new apprentice to work on real tasks that contribute to a real project and after a year he should have gained enough knowledge to solve some tasks on his own. Currently I have Fidel, who has been doing Java development since 1.5 years, and Enrique who is about to graduate from UTP. Currently Fidel, my "journeyman", helps me teaching Enrique and I expect Enrique to do the same in one or two years. It takes time, but I feel it's the only way for a company to grow in a sane way and have skilled people who can actually satisfy clients. Of course sometimes one can find a guy who has learned everything on his own, but I consider counting on that or hoping for the rare find a bad idea.
Venture Capitalists demand outsourcing
Wired Magazine in The Micro-Multinational:
Venture capitalists now routinely demand that the companies they finance outsource what labor they can. Yogen Dalal, a partner at Mayfield, says more than half the companies he funds have offshore workers. The Valley even has a name for these startups: micro-multinationals.
That's some very interesting idea. Further down in the article it says:
The president and chief executive of Solidcore, Rosen Sharma, is an unapologetic fan of outsourcing. "We were a micro-multinational from day one. It didn't mean I hired fewer people in the US," he says. "It meant that I could hire more people in sales and marketing, because I didn't have to concentrate on building R&D in America."
So, if you are a startup company working on some consumer oriented project or other project where you would like to do more in marketing and sales, you might want to consider outsourcing to a place nearby and within your timezone. My company Caimito Technologies operates out of an office in Panama (2.5 hours south of Miami; next to the famous Panama Canal) and we might be able help to you with your development efforts.
FBI: Universities and colleges need to protect against espionage
Usually I stay away from politics, but this news is a bit too creepy to me. I would have never thought that Universities and schools some day will be seen as a target for espionage. The FBI believes they are.
Scientists working on public Universities publish the results of their work and everybody can read it. Those publications have always been available on the whole planet and with the Internet the distribution of this material is even easier, which in itself is a good thing. Knowledge needs to be universally available, as that's the only way for the ongoing development of mankind. There is too much dumbness in this world. People who lack education don't know how to interpret things they see and hear and might eventually follow the wrong leaders.
These days a growing number of people seem to think that dangerous technologies are better kept away. There is a lot of talk going on about protecting the security of X, Y, and Z. You can insert your favorite item you want to protect. Who determines what a dangerous technology is? Is it only stuff that allows for the development of more powerful weaponry, is it something that creates vast amounts of cheap electric power without burning oil, is it crypto stuff useful to protect privacy (your own, your trade secrets, the secrets of any government), or might it even be software to streamline manufactoring processes of any kind?
I'm not a scientist working on anything security related, but still I have been affected by crypto regulations and fear that trade secrets might be disclosed in a jurisdiction other than the one where my client is located.
Since the very sad incident called 9/11 government agencies in a growing number of countries seem to be on a frenzy to protect everything and everybody of anything and anybody. What is required to put some rationale in to stop all that security hysteria? There is always a risk involved in anything one does. All that security talk on all channels apparently makes people believe more and more that everybody is under some kind of attack from "the others".
When will the development of Open Source software become outlawed? After all more and more important software that drives business and manufacturing processes, finance operations and more uses Open Source.
Isn't publishing the source a means to avoid manipulation, a means to create trust? Source code contains knowledge the same way as a scientific paper does. And there is a lot of software that can be used to protect or attack other systems out there. What about virtual rootkits or the Blue Pill technology?
Links:
- FBI seeks to enroll local universities
- FBI targets universities in new scheme to recruit informers
- FBI warns colleges of terror threat
- FBI fordert US-Hochschulen zur Spionageabwehr auf (German, English translation)
Someone interested hearing about software development in Panama?
Since moving to Panama City, Panama (the country in Central America where the Panama Canal is located, not the city in Florida), last year I've been involved in the project of a local client and started my own in March. Both experiences have given me a lot of insight what you can do in Panama. I may even do an educated guess about the possibilities in other Latin American countries based on my recent experience and what I know from previous travels throughout the region and conversations with people from those other countries (mainly Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Colombia).
Further I've been participating as a speaker and attendee local events like the Geek Fest Panama or UXcamp.
While I made my experience with Panamanian developers as part of my work for a local client and came to the conclusion that there are indeed smart brains in Panama capable of developing software using current Java technologies, I can now talk about how well an agile process works by telling the story of the development of our product Savila. There is a lot of talk going on about how to outsource development, whether outsourcing works or creates more hassle than it's worth or how to do "agile" with a distributed team or one that is in another country or culture.
So my question is whether companies or user groups would be interested in hearing more about these topics. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me.
Additional article about reduction of tourist visa term to 30 days
Update: Prima Panama, a real estate developer, did a survey amongst the expat community and potential buyers/investors and last week spoke with Ricardo Vargas, Director of Immigrations.
Update: The most recent information is available on Panama Guide. Don Winner went in person to immigration and conducted another interview with them.
Just found an interesting article detailing the background of the reduction of the tourist visa term to 30 days:
My Panama Lawyer in Term of Tourist Visa reduced to 30 days:
The Law was submitted as Bill 292 of 2007 http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/buscador/2007/2007_P_292.pdf "whereby measures are enacted for the protection of citizen safety" by Olga Golcher, Minister of Government, in April 3, 2007. The Bill had measures to counter the rising power of juvenile gangs, and buried into the text was a new definition of Tourist Visas.
One may ask what juvenile gangs - after all those are citizens of Panama - have to do with people visiting the country and spending or investing money earned elsewhere.
I like the subtitle of the page that reads ... or how to shoot the hen which lays the golden eggs.... It's all so true.
Developing countries and immigration laws
Lately there has been a lot of frenzy about the change in visa and immigration law in Panama. While Panama offered a 90 day stay by default this is said to be reduced to 30 days on May 25th. Strangely no official websites of the Panamanian government is telling anything about that change. All information available still talks about the 90 days at present date.
Obviously each and every country has an intrinsic right to set whatever rules they feel appropriate. Some countries with an economy stronger than average are attractive destinations for people looking to better their lifes and it's understandable that their governments put rules in place in order to protect the local labor market, as their citizens probably expect just that from them. But what about developing countries?
I remember that Australia - although not a developing country in the common sense of the word - allows immigration based on the value the potential immigrant provides to the country. Australia seeks immigrants of certain professions that it lacks and that way improves the knowledge available in the country. They don't limit tourism neither business travel in any way as far as I know.
Now, if all the reports are true, Panama has decided to cut back on the maximum default stay for tourists and business people visiting the country allegedly in order to reduce the influx of illegal immigrants who are blamed for an increase in violent crime. By looking at the report about Authorized Consulted Visas it appears to me that the majority of these visas are being issued to Chinese citizens. The majority of requests for Residence Permits seem to be from Colombian and United States citizens. Colombians can enter Panama without visa and there is already a great number of businesses owned by Colombian immigrants.
It's quite common in Latin American countries for a large number of people to not enter the process of obtaining permanent residency. Instead they leave the country for a visa-run to a neighboring country, stay a couple of days or even only 24 hours there, and then come back for a new 90 days term. You can read more about this in some of links provided below.
But back to the original question. What impact can restrictive immigration laws have on a developing country? To answer that question one should look at the motives for someone to leave his home country and live in another. For people from poor countries that may be answered easily. But what's the motive for someone from a developed country (Europe, U.S., Canada, Japan)? All of these countries have good social systems. If you have bad luck, you will not starve. If you have bad luck in a developing country, you may find yourself without any help and even experience hunger. It is my perception that the primary motive for people from developed countries is to start something new by becoming an entrepreneur or to seek a place for retirement in a more relaxed and probably cheaper environment than at home. In the case of entrepreneurs the local economy will cleary benefit from the presence of these people, as they will inevitably create jobs and transfer knowledge by educating their new employees. Retirees have a positive impact on the local economy as well, but I believe it's more indirect and mostly in sectors like construction and health care. After all a retiree doesn't seek direct involvement in the local economy.
The new situation for Panama now seems to be that you are welcome as a real tourist visiting the scenic sites for less than 30 days (think of organized tours), as an investor (deposit 200,000 USD at the national bank to essentially buy your residence permit) or as a real retiree on a government pension and older than 65 years (that's the other change reported ). Update: apparently the age change for the pensionado visa did not happen. I confirmed this with my own lawyer as well.
That leaves potential entrepreneurs in a tricky situation. Before these changes (again, if all of that is indeed true) one could come to Panama for 90 days, explore, open a business and try out things, and then either request an extension or simply do a trip to any neighboring country and come back for another 90 days. The entrepreneur will probably schedule business trips accordingly and include a little vacation for his family members. All the while his doing in the country has a positive impact although he does not commit any money upfront. One should keep in mind that in this modern world not all entrepreneurs want to set up brick and mortar shops. That means they probably won't be eligable for something like the small-investor visa, which requires an investment of 40,000 USD in cash and at least three employees.
See "What do computer consultants, immigrants and Dominican fruit sellers have in common?" for some additional thoughts about small businesses and immigration.
Raising the bar for immigration or a one-size-fits-all approach seems to be a bad idea for a developing country from my point of view. I would rather suggest to follow Australia's example and make it extremely easy for skilled people from developed countries to apply their knowledge in new ventures to the benefit of the people. That way the level of knowledge in the general populace will raise and create over time a self sustaining economy leading the path to become a developed country.
Following links to other blogs with more details about the new regulations:
- May 29, 2007 30 Days For Tourist Visa
- May 29, 2007 Tourist Visas Now Valid For 60 Days Max
- May 29, 2007 Additional Information on the Visa Issue
- May 31, 2007 Tourist visa change frustrates many
- June 5, 2007 New change in tourist visa's not so bad
- June 5, 2007 Update on the 30-Day Tourist Visa Issue
- June 6, 2007 More 30 Day Visa Questions
- June 7, 2007 Tragedies On The Horizon
- June 7, 2007 Panama Private Pension Pensionado Age Change??
- Jun 7, 2007 Another Clarification on the Tourist Visa Issue
- Jun 8, 2007 panama tells tourists - go home!
The most current and reliable information about current regulations should be available from the National Directorate of Immigration and Naturalization. Unfortunately it may be that their website is not always up to date. On the other hand I do believe it is as they are publishing the results of each request processed online.