THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RHONDA SCHAFFLER, HOST: Ahead on BUSINESS UNUSUAL, Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky brings "palm reading" mainstream. Companies of all sizes reach out to bridge the digital divide. And a Seattle fish market inspires businesses to boost morale. That's all ahead on BUSINESS UNUSUAL.
Welcome to BUSINESS UNUSUAL. I'm Rhonda Schaffler.
Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky is no stranger to the world of personal computing. She started her career two decades ago with Apple Computer. In 1992, Dubinsky left to co-found Palm Computer. Its PalmPilot became the fastest selling consumer product in history.
Despite all of her success, Dubinsky is still taking a hands-on approach to personal computing with her new company. Gayla Hope has the story from Mountainview, California.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONNA DUBINSKY, CEO, HANDSPRING: Hi, Mita (ph), it's Donna.
GAYLA HOPE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donna Dubinsky is CEO of Handspring, a handheld computer company running at full throttle in the personal digital assistant race. The PDA company is looking for $500 million in sales for fiscal 2001 ending this June.
DUBINSKY: We did $116 million in our last quarter. And it's our fifth quarter of shipping product. That's almost unheard of. I mean, that is definitely a pace of growth that is rare.
Our biggest challenge is just managing growth. It's very challenging to be adding people at the rate we are. We've created today with the results we've already posted one of the fastest growth companies in the history of American business. It's staggering.
And we've done it with very few people, only 400 people. That's very small relative to the scale of this business.
HOPE: A business that in the long run is expected to outsell the entire PC market.
DUBINSKY: So we have so many challenges in that. How do we manage our partner relationships? We're hugely dependent on a wide variety of business partners, from manufacturing partners to customer relations partners to development partners. So how do we manage those relationships and continue to grow them?
HOPE: The chemistry at Handspring is described as magical and innovative. It has a marketing whiz, a technology wizard, and Donna Dubinsky, the glue that holds it all together and inspires her team to take big steps.
DUBINSKY: I'm really very much a generalist. And my job at the company is to help set the direction, allocate the resources, make some of the real strategic decisions of how we're going to run the company, how we're going to address the markets, what we're going to invest in.
My style is I'd say sort of informal. I'm not a very formal kind of a person. I have a lot of respect for the people who work here at Handspring. I think they're amongst the best in the world.
And I see myself as much an enabler and a facilitator as much as a leader to help bring together all the various components of the business and make sure that they're headed in the same direction.
HOPE: Dubinsky's direction has been unwavering.
DUBINSKY: I got in the computer business about 20 years ago working for Apple and really got excited about the notion of these computing tools getting to broader populations. And then after about 10 years of doing that, I met Jeff Hawkins (ph). And he was working on products to take those same computers and get them to an event smaller point and even more ubiquitous and even more personal, handheld computers.
So I got very excited about his vision and joined up with him in the early days at Palm in 1992 to work together to create this new generation of computers, handheld computers. So that's when we started the design of the original pilot product. And that turned out to be one of the most successful new products in the history of the computer business.
HOPE: Jeff Hawkins is technology wizard, chairman, and co- founder at Handspring. But he is also known as the father of the handheld computer industry. One notable industry magazine published a mystical picture of Donna Dubinsky, labeling her the "palm reader."
No doubt, Hawkins and Dubinsky had a great product at Palm. But they just didn't have enough financing to take it to market. U.S. Robotics bought the company and launched the groundbreaking PalmPilot.
DUBINSKY: 3Com acquired U.S. Robotics. And so we found ourselves running a division of a global networking company that was struggling to put together two massive companies, 3Com and U.S. Robotics. And we felt it was quite clear that we needed an independent presence in order to be able to optimize the opportunity.
So we tried to convince 3Com management of that. And when they disagreed.
HOPE: They left and started Handspring in July of 1998. With a proven product and track record, the duo found two venture capital firms willing to give a helping hand.
DUBINSKY: I rented three desks, and Jeff bought a plant, and we were back in business.
HOPE: What did they learn from the perils at Palm?
DUBINSKY: We went through that whole experience and developed sort of a sense of confidence. OK, we understand this category as well as anybody. We understand the customers and what their needs are. And we think we could do a good job of serving that. And we have the confidence that we could pull that off.
And we shipped our first product in October of '99. So it took us roughly a year from the time we had the first engineers working on it to ship the first product, the Visor. And Visor was differentiated from the products we'd done at Palm by virtue of expansion capabilities. So it has a slot in it. You can add other stuff to it.
HOPE: And the springboard slot is the key to the future, integration of voice and data.
DUBINSKY: The way it works is you just take the lid off. And this is sort of the equivalent of this slot that I showed you here. It's the equivalent that snaps right on the back of the Visor Edge.
HOPE: The idea is for the new slim Visor Edge to become whatever you need it to be, an MP3 player; a Visor phone, which is the first product using voice and data; an e-mail communicator, complete with portable keyboard.
DUBINSKY: You just plug it in. All right, smile.
HOPE: An instant camera, and a game face complete with joystick and exploding targets.
Over 40 add-ons are shipping so far with 8,000 developers brainstorming new products.
DUBINSKY: We licensed the software platform, the operating system and the Hotsync (ph) architecture from Palm. We have a very good relationship with them. We pay them a royalty per unit that we sell.
HOPE: Palm has the largest share of the PDA market by far, with Handspring coming in second. Several other big-name players have licensed from Palm, including Sony and Motorola.
(on camera): One thing Handspring has going for it is that the handheld computer industry hasn't reached the saturation point of, say, laptop computers or cell phones. So this relatively new market still has a lot of room to grow.
For BUSINESS UNUSUAL, Gayla Hope, CNN, Mountainview, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHAFFLER: Coming up next, a look at some corporate efforts get the Third World wired when BUSINESS UNUSUAL returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHAFFLER: Despite all the hype, the Internet revolution has failed to reach 98 percent of the people on this planet. In fact, half the world has never even used a telephone.
Today, there is a growing debate over the consequences of a world split in two, where part of the world has access to e-commerce and information and the other part -- usually the poorest part -- is left behind. In the first of a three-part series, Valerie Morris takes a look at this digital divide and some efforts to bridge the gap.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VALERIE MORRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Ghana, West Africa, people live on little more than a dollar a day, putting them squarely on the have-not side of a growing digital divide. In fact, fewer than five percent of the world's Internet-linked computers exist in the developing world.
Recently, high-tech companies have been stepping in to help bring the information age to poor nations. Internet equipment maker Cisco Systems is putting its muscle into education.
JOHN MORGRIDGE, CHAIRMAN, CISCO SYSTEMS: The digital divide is really a reflection of an education divide. And education is often also influenced by economics.
MORRIS: In three years, Cisco has opened 6,400 networking academies in more than 100 countries. Each offers students a course in creating networks, which means enabling computers to talk to each other.
BRIGITTE AGBETSOAMEDO, STUDENT, CISCO NETWORKING ACADEMY: The world is becoming a small village. And networking is becoming very important.
MORRIS: This class has just opened in Accra, Ghana's capital city. The goal is to have 660 trained technicians by the end of the year.
MOHAMMED-SANI ABULAI, ADMINISTRATOR, CISCO NETWORKING ACADEMY: It's good for the economy to have more skilled people because we are on the verge of networking our institutions and organizations, even the government ministries, the departments and agencies.
MORRIS: But this is only the first step in a larger plan to wire Africa. For the average African, there is no computer at home. And even if there was, the cost of dialing up makes the Internet unaffordable. Instead, people flock to Internet cafes springing up all over Africa. Customers pay three to six cents a minute to log on. Most of these cafes are set up by local entrepreneurs.
Africa Online, a leading Internet service provider, has set up 750 cafes in five countries. We spoke to the CEO in Davos, Switzerland.
AYISI MAKATIANI, CEO, AFRICA ONLINE: Having done our research, we know they do have a communications need. And if you provide them with a means to access the Internet, they will actually come and pay for it.
MORRIS: Nearly half of Africa Online's 60,000 subscribers log on from Internet cafes where they are spending a third of a day's wages in about five minutes.
NII QUAYNOR, CEO NETWORK COMPUTER SYSTEMS: The market is hungry. But the market needs to be stimulated.
MORRIS: Nii Quaynor, CEO of Network Computer Systems and Ghana.com, was one of the first to see information and communications technology, or ICT, as critical to Africa's future.
QUAYNOR: Too often, we ask, "Do you want water, or you want ICT?" But the young says we want both (sic). Whatever you give me, I use. In fact, if you give me drums, which are also wireless, I will use it. All we want is more and more infrastructure so that we can spread our networks on the continent.
MORRIS: Another hand reaching out from Silicon Valley is nonprofit Geekcorps.
ETHAN ZUCKERMAN, CEO, GEEKCORPS: How are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, all right. Thank you, man.
MORRIS: The brainchild of Ethan Zuckerman, an early Internet millionaire from the U.S.
ZUCKERMAN: Geekcorps is a digital volunteer corps. We make it possible for people from the high-tech industry in the U.S. and Europe to come overseas and work with small businesses in developing nations to help them use information technology to expand their businesses.
MORRIS: But some say the rush to bring technology to the developing world is misguided.
BILL GATES, CHAIRMAN, MICROSOFT: There are things those people need at that level other than technology.
MORRIS: Microsoft founder Bill Gates says health and literacy must be priorities.
GATES: Do people have a clear view of what it means to live on a dollar a day? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do in this Congress.
GATES: There's no electricity in that house, none. Now, so is somebody creating computers that don't require electricity?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, but there are solar power systems.
GATES: No, there are no solar power systems for less than a dollar a day. Honest, you can't afford a solar system for less than a dollar a day. You're just buying food.
MORRIS: Others say limited resources should be spent fighting disease.
ADRIAN LOVETT, DIRECTOR, DROP THE DEBT: For the price of one laptop, you could actually vaccinate 2,000 children against the six killer diseases that claim so many lives in Africa.
MORRIS: But high-tech executives argues that access to information will enhance both literacy and health.
JOHN GAGE, CHIEF RESEARCH, SUN MICROSYSTEMS: Your child has a fever. How do you find out about what you should do? Well, today you ask someone if you're in a village, and you do the best you can. Tomorrow, with connectivity, you ask the world.
MORRIS: Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorino is a fierce advocate for bridging the digital divide. HP has committed $1 billion to its e-inclusion program, which supports local technology partnerships in poor nations.
CARLY FIORINO, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, HEWLETT-PACKARD: Well, certainly it's absolutely true that people need food and shelter. But I think it's also undeniably true that information technology can in real ways and in immediate ways improve people's standard of living.
MORRIS: One of HP's projects along with MIT Labs is Lincos, or little intelligent communities. This one in Costa Rica is a solar powered tech center. Situated in a recycled shipping container, it has high-speed Internet access.
FIORINO: A little information can go a very long way. And in this case, information is being provided about soil, about water, things that are important to them.
MORGRIDGE: You know, if we were in the seed business, that's where I'd be operating. That's where I'd be pushing my corporation to make an impact.
But we aren't in the seed business. And we're not in the water business.
We're in the technology business. And guess what? That's where we think we can uniquely contribute. And we're going to.
MORRIS: At the end of the day, the haves and the have-nots still exist. But the drumbeat of progress grows louder. And for people with access to technology, the world of possibility is a little closer.
For BUSINESS UNUSUAL, I'm Valerie Morris, CNN Financial News.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHAFFLER: And next week in part two of our series on the digital divide, we'll take a look at how Cisco Systems is bringing high-tech classrooms to some very unlikely places.
Coming up next on BUSINESS UNUSUAL, what you and your company can learn from a Seattle fish market. Stay with us.
Coming up next on BUSINESS UNUSUAL, what you and your company can learn from a Seattle fish market. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHAFFLER: The parable has become a powerful tool in corporate education with the recent success of such bestsellers as "Who Moved My Cheese?" and our next guest's book "Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results."
Co-author Stephen Lundin joins me now from Minneapolis to explain what a fish market can teach us about business -- thanks so much for joining us.
STEPHEN LUNDIN, CO-AUTHOR, "FISH!": You bet.
SCHAFFLER: How in the world can a fish market teach us things about a corporation's bottom line, and perhaps more importantly how to motivate some employees?
LUNDIN: Well, the wisdom of the market is old wisdom. What the market provides is an image that people can look at. And it gets by the resistance that we often have to something like that. And it just shows us what's possible.
I mean, these guys and gal live their life at the market with such enthusiasm and such energy that it's hard to say it's fishmongers.
SCHAFFLER: So there's an enthusiasm and energy that we can take from a fish market and put it pretty much in every corporation in America?
LUNDIN: There's no reason why not. As it's been said often by people who have observed that market in various ways and read about it in the book, if a group of fishmongers can create that kind of customer intimacy and that kind of energy, there's really no excuse for anyone.
SCHAFFLER: It's about changing your attitude primarily, correct?
LUNDIN: It's about choosing your attitude. It's not about choosing a positive attitude. It's about choosing. But once you realize that you have the power to choose your attitude in just about any circumstance, it's kind of hard to want to choose a bad one.
SCHAFFLER: Let's take this very much up to date. We do so many stories on corporations that are seeing sales being squeezed a little bit, corporations that have lay off employees. In that kind of environment, how do you take the lessons learned from a fish market and choose an attitude that's positive?
LUNDIN: It's the most important environment. It really all starts with the person saying, "My life is valuable and the life that I spend at work is valuable. So why don't I live it with as high a quality as I can find?"
And that kind of a conversation is one that's very compelling. It doesn't really make any different what you do. It's how you are while you're doing it. It's who you are while you're doing it. It's the live you live while you're doing it that really is your legacy.
And so you may have your dream job. Or you may be doing something to make ends meet. It really doesn't matter.
It may be in a time of layoffs. Or it may be in a time of prosperity. You still have to make a choice about how you're going to live your life at work.
SCHAFFLER: Generally, employees don't have as much fun as you think they should.
LUNDIN: Early on in my life, we spent time with children that were serious challenged. And they were the most joyous people we ever met. And I began to wonder why it wasn't possible for more organizations to have a little bit of that joy.
And what organizations are now realizing is that they can. They may not be throwing fish. But they can certainly be lighthearted. And they can certainly be playful.
SCHAFFLER: Well, some might argue if you're having too much fun, how do you get any work done?
LUNDIN: Well, the "Fish!" philosophy, as we call it, or as the fish guys call it, the "Fish!" philosophy is more than play. It also includes being there and making other people's day and choosing your attitude. When you put all that together, the play is appropriate. And your focus is on the mission of the organization as well as on creating a high-quality work life while being there.
But when you...
SCHAFFLER: And I...
LUNDIN: ... yeah, go ahead.
SCHAFFLER: ... I'm sorry. I'm thinking it must be contagious then. We go from a manager to an employee to a customer. LUNDIN: Yes, that's the way it spreads. It often is an employee or a team or a task force that gets together and says, "Well, why can't we just have a little more fun, a little more energy here?
And it does start spreading. It starts spreading outward. It starts spreading to customers.
Even if it's on the phone, the voices start carrying more energy, more enthusiasm. And then management says, "Boy, I want to support this. This is great. In fact, I think I'll get involved."
SCHAFFLER: Stephen Lundin all about "Fish!" and changing an attitude in a workplace. Thanks so much for joining us.
LUNDIN: You bet.
SCHAFFLER: And up next, a look at the unusual beginning of a soft drink colossus when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHAFFLER: Finally, like countless other corporate giants, Coca- Cola has become a household name. But it's been a long and windy road. Myron Kandel takes a look at the unusual beginnings of this American icon.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MYRON KANDEL, CNN FINANCIAL EDITOR: Coca-Cola is probably the best-known brand in the world. And despite some recent ups and downs, it's probably one of the greatest success stories in American business history.
An Atlanta pharmacist named John Pemberdon (ph) is credited with making the first batch of Coke syrup in a three-legged brass kettle in his backyard on May 6, 1886. His concoction was sold at nearby Jacobs Pharmacy for five cents a glass, a hefty price for those times.
Asa Candler (ph), an Atlanta pharmacist and drug manufacturer, acquired the rights to the business for $2,300.
Shortly afterward, Candler formally organized the Coca-Cole company with several partners. The company grew steadily until the U.S. entered World War I. Those troubled times led Candler to sell the company for $25 million in 1919 to a group of investors headed by Atlanta banker Ernest Woodruff (ph). His son, Robert W. Woodruff, who became president in 1923, is credited with making Coca-Cola an international success.
Today, the company produces more than 200 brands of soft drinks, sports drinks, juices, coffees and teas sold in every part of the globe. Its sales last year topped $20 billion, a far cry from its very humble and very unusual beginning.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHAFFLER: And that is BUSINESS UNUSUAL. I'm Rhonda Schaffler.
Thanks for joining us. Goodbye from New York.
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