Everyone assumes that outsourcing is trend for major corporations to save money. But journalist Ben Hammersley has recently discovered that he himself is outsourcing more and more tasks — virtually anything that can be done digitally. As he wrote in a recent Guardian column:

I needed a webpage built. Web designers are everywhere, and web hosting is cheap. It is just much cheaper in India. So, £30 paid via PayPal.com to templatekingdom.com got me a website design, an hour of the designer’s time for changes, and a year’s hosting for good measure. In 24 hours, and for less than the price of a few rounds in a pub, I had a new, uniquely designed website up and running. For small businesses needing a home page, why spend hundreds of pounds on a domestic designer, when something just as good can be commissioned from designers in India or Bangladesh?

I should also note that I’m not actually writing this. I’m dictating it. Like many journalists, I interview a lot of people, and find that transcribing the interviews afterwards is the least fun part of the job. So I don’t any more. Like many legal firms and large hospitals, I have found a company that will do it for me. Mine is in New Zealand, where the time difference works in my favour.

Personal outsourcing. Man, the world in about four years is gonna be so very weird.