标签: Translation

A blow of serious proportions hits you when you least expect it. You can't escape. It's you and only you. The collective experience of your lifetime searches for the approach within you. Sure, it was easy to give advice to others when they faced difficulty. It seemed so clear and straightforward. But that was then, and now this is you. There is no place to turn. Sure, there are others with advice, but there is no downside for others. They are simply free to go on without any retribution. It's not the same. You are all alone.   That was then, and now this is you.   This is responsibility. This is using all you have within you -- all you have been trained and taught. But inside, you know that you are alone, searching for the right path and using everything that has only been tested briefly before but now is under full assault.   Leadership knows this setting, but not well. It seldom occurs. Sure, numerous decisions flow in any enterprise. These are usually "rubber stamped" outcomes that have been vetted up the chain. No, this is a major blow -- a vital flare-up that won't go away and potentially threatens you and everything. It can't be modeled. It can only be addressed with your judgment and yours alone.     There is no place to turn -- only to turn within oneself. Each of us has the capability, but do we have the judgment? We are all filled with answers, some learned, some emotional, and some political. This is much different. This is your personal test. This will define you.   As the president of a company for 40 years, I have faced just such a tumultuous time twice. No, it wasn't products, people, or anything tangible. But it meant the pure existence of my enterprise.   In 1992 (OK, it was 22 years ago, but still highly relevant), we were informed by the GSA, the government agency that buys items from hammers to electronics, that it was going to sue Data Translation. The charge was that we had offered a product for sale to a government agency at a higher price than what was offered to our best customer, which bought in very high volumes.   Now, the lab that bought the product purchased just one unit through the GSA. Our best customer bought units in hundreds, and these units were specially manufactured and tested under another part number. Even so, the GSA insisted that it should get the very low price of a volume user.   We were confounded, and we tried to explain differences to the government's attorney. This was all to no avail. The only avenue the US attorney gave was for Data Translation to settle, admit guilt, and pay the treble damages of $15 million. The problem was that we were innocent, and we didn't have $15 million.   Larger companies faced similar suits from the government over GSA pricing. These firms quickly settled with the government and wrote it off. We couldn't do that. It would have killed us as a company.       So we did what we had to do. We fought in court. It was an all-or-nothing decision. Luckily, the jury unanimously found in our favor. We were cleared of any wrongdoing. Whew.   But those are the times when you summon all you have and make a big decision. There is no one else responsible but you. As Rudyard Kipling said in the poem, " If- ," known to many youngsters for more than 100 years:   If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'   Fred Molinari President CEO Data Translation    

You would have it half right if you assume it is easy (fun?) to run a company for 40 years. The other half is akin to skating on thin ice almost every day. In fact, who would want to do such a thing? Just keeping a job that long is remarkable. Some things just happen. After college, I had two rather substantial positions, but I didn't last in either one. Essentially, I got fired from both. So how does one have that record and then keep a long-term job for many years? The short answer is that, in the other jobs, I thought my ideas for products were better than those the company was pursuing. I wasn't the boss, so I went packing. You know the old story about companies like HP getting started in a garage? We didn't do that at Data Translation. We started in my basement in New England (where nearly every house has a basement). But we didn't stay there long—maybe three weeks. We found an old office building about four miles away in downtown Framingham, Mass., and we (all three of us) grabbed it.     An early Data Translation product, the DT2762 data acquisition card for the QBus. Its acquisition hardware is built from discrete components housed in a module on the board. Even though this was an office building—housing insurance agents and paper pushers of some kind—it had some unique character. On the third floor (the top floor) was an old bowling alley with six or eight lanes. On the ground floor was a restaurant. I never ate there, because it was grungy. We did everything in our office, which was one small room. We designed and assembled circuit boards, met the UPS truck each day with deliveries, and on and on. Of course, we started on a shoestring—no salaries. Each of us mortgaged a house to get $10K from a bank. That was our capital. We surmounted some large hurdles, including legal ones. (A former employer said we stole trade secrets, but it never said what they were.) One of the three founders left; he was concerned about the legal matter, but really he didn't think a one-room company was going anywhere. But we just kept digging. We'd sell some modules, run some ads with the money, and then sell some more. Sales kept growing enough for us to get a more realistic office, hire two more people, and finally shake the legal morass, and away we went. After several years, we took the company public. We were listed on Nasdaq and were ready to begin a new phase of growth. Of course, there were some very notable occurrences. Let me mention a couple. First large order Orders for the first two years of our endeavor went along haltingly, with ups and downs, until we attracted a possible order from Western Electric. The company was building a Navy ship-based system that could use one of our modules in each system. Western Electric wanted to visit us. Imagine a large company sending an inspector to see four people in two rooms of an old office building. Our visitor was Bob Servilio, who was taken aback by our size but quickly warmed to us. He saw that we were determined, technically smart, and capable. What we didn't know then was that, as a large company, Western Electric needed and benefited from buying from a small company. So the first check (cheque for banks) for $75,000 as a pre-payment for this order was a big win. Visit by big French distributor We received a note that our newly appointed French distributor would be visiting in a week. Two top executives were making a US tour of suppliers. These executives had no idea our company was just four folks in a two-room office. Our reaction was to set up more soldering stations and ask two friends to come in as production employees. This boosted our employee count by 50%. They came in dressed in beautiful business suits, which was in sharp contrast with the jeans and T-shirts that reflected our small, hands-on approach. Somehow, the distributor stuck with us and kept buying and selling our products. We were honest and straightforward. It worked. Many other surprises followed, but suffice it say that there was never a dull moment. I think a Cheers -type situation comedy would be needed to give it justice. The one good thing going for any new business is the goodwill of customers, suppliers, and press folks, but not bankers, lawyers, and large companies. Fred Molinari President CEO Data Translation

You may think it is easy (fun?) to run a company for 40 years. You have it half right. The other half is akin to skating on thin ice almost every day. In fact, who would want to do such a thing? Just keeping a job that long is remarkable. Some things just happen. After college, I had two rather substantial positions, but I didn't last in either one. Essentially, I got fired from both. So how does one have that record and then keep a long-term job for many years? The short answer is that, in the other jobs, I thought my ideas for products were better than those the company was pursuing. I wasn't the boss, so I went packing. You know the old story about companies like HP getting started in a garage? We didn't do that at Data Translation. We started in my basement in New England (where nearly every house has a basement). But we didn't stay there long—maybe three weeks. We found an old office building about four miles away in downtown Framingham, Mass., and we (all three of us) grabbed it.     An early Data Translation product, the DT2762 data acquisition card for the QBus. Its acquisition hardware is built from discrete components housed in a module on the board. Even though this was an office building—housing insurance agents and paper pushers of some kind—it had some unique character. On the third floor (the top floor) was an old bowling alley with six or eight lanes. On the ground floor was a restaurant. I never ate there, because it was grungy. We did everything in our office, which was one small room. We designed and assembled circuit boards, met the UPS truck each day with deliveries, and on and on. Of course, we started on a shoestring—no salaries. Each of us mortgaged a house to get $10K from a bank. That was our capital. We surmounted some large hurdles, including legal ones. (A former employer said we stole trade secrets, but it never said what they were.) One of the three founders left; he was concerned about the legal matter, but really he didn't think a one-room company was going anywhere. But we just kept digging. We'd sell some modules, run some ads with the money, and then sell some more. Sales kept growing enough for us to get a more realistic office, hire two more people, and finally shake the legal morass, and away we went. After several years, we took the company public. We were listed on Nasdaq and were ready to begin a new phase of growth. Of course, there were some very notable occurrences. Let me mention a couple. First large order Orders for the first two years of our endeavor went along haltingly, with ups and downs, until we attracted a possible order from Western Electric. The company was building a Navy ship-based system that could use one of our modules in each system. Western Electric wanted to visit us. Imagine a large company sending an inspector to see four people in two rooms of an old office building. Our visitor was Bob Servilio, who was taken aback by our size but quickly warmed to us. He saw that we were determined, technically smart, and capable. What we didn't know then was that, as a large company, Western Electric needed and benefited from buying from a small company. So the first check (cheque for banks) for $75,000 as a pre-payment for this order was a big win. Visit by big French distributor We received a note that our newly appointed French distributor would be visiting in a week. Two top executives were making a US tour of suppliers. These executives had no idea our company was just four folks in a two-room office. Our reaction was to set up more soldering stations and ask two friends to come in as production employees. This boosted our employee count by 50%. They came in dressed in beautiful business suits, which was in sharp contrast with the jeans and T-shirts that reflected our small, hands-on approach. Somehow, the distributor stuck with us and kept buying and selling our products. We were honest and straightforward. It worked. Many other surprises followed, but suffice it say that there was never a dull moment. I think a Cheers -type situation comedy would be needed to give it justice. The one good thing going for any new business is the goodwill of customers, suppliers, and press folks, but not bankers, lawyers, and large companies. Fred Molinari President CEO Data Translation  

Do you remember my recent post about the folks who believe that engineers could do with more social skills ( Click here )?   As Dave Typinski said: "With rare exceptions, engineers and scientists know as much about social skills as the rest of the world knows about engineering and science. In other words, everyone on the planet could stand to learn more and broaden their horizons." Dave then provided a really funny "Final Exam" against which we can all test our overall knowledge. In addition to this test, there are all sorts of other interesting things (both serious and humourous) on Dave's website at www.typnet.net . Thus it was that, while meandering my way around Dave's site, I ran across another really funny item that Dave was kind enough to say I could share with you here. I don't know about you, but every now and then I have to read research papers as part of... well... performing my own research for writing projects I'm working on. The problem is that I almost invariably find these papers to be really boring and hard to fight my way through (I'm talking about other people's papers of course ... my humble writings are acknowledged far and wide as being a delight to read :-) When reading these research papers, I've often thought to myself: "Are they really trying to tell me something or are they actually trying to NOT tell me something?" As Dave says on his site: "Do you ever wonder what the authors of research papers are really saying with all that stilted jargon?" Dave then goes on to provide the following "handy-dandy" translation reference (Dave credits this to Hodge, M. H., "A key to scientific research literature", American Psychologist, March 1962, p. 54.):