Copyright ©1999 Richard Seltzer
This book is currently in limbo. The editor who asked me to put together a proposal and intro was unable to convince his management. So my agent has been looking for a new publisher. In the meantime, I've gotten over a hundred very interesting and insightful responses to the intro. Whether a book eventually gets published or not, I'd like to capture these insights and help promote some dialogue about what happened and why, and what was unique and memorable about the experience. Hence, with permission from the writers, I began posting a selection of those responses here. You can see them at the end of this document or by clickign on these links:
DEC is what employees and customers called the company, in spite of edicts and branding campaigns.
Digital made computers and became the second largest computer company in the world.
DEC made loyal, fiercely competitive and entrepreneurial employees. People at all levels built their own jobs by what they did and how they did it. "He who proposes does," was the corporate truism. "Do the right thing," was the number one company rule. You didn't wait for a corporate plan to trickle down, you did what you believed needed to be done. "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." Corporate meetings encouraged risktaking and individual initiative, rather than obedience. Managers were held accountable for their mistakes, but were moved, not fired, and were given the opportunity to come up with new initiatives which they could then lead.
For four decades, Digital had its ups and downs (mostly ups, until the end), as the computer industry rollercoastered along.
Other computer companies pleased Wall St. by laying off workers in lean times, then hiring when business picked up. But DEC valued its employees not just for the work they did but for their ideas and initiative. A down time was an opportunity to catch your breath and reorganize, to try new ideas, to genereate new businesss that would be ready for the next inevitable upturn.
At its peak Digital was a multi-billion-dollar, multi-national company, a head-to-head competitor with IBM, acknowledged by many to have the best technology in the industry. It was a common joke that its best products were "well-kept secrets," that it used "stealth marketing," that they were often beaten by inferior products which were better marketed.
At its peak DEC was 130,000 employees who directly and indirectly served tens of thousands of fiercely loyal customers. Remember, rule number one was "do the right thing," not "say the right thing." Marketing was no where near as important as products and service and filling customer needs. The message didn't get out to everybody about what they did and how well they did it, but their core customers knew. The company and its customers stuck together through up times and down. And the innovative demands of leading-edge customer-partners kept DEC's people challenged and often led to creative product and service breakthroughs. Often it seemed that DEC was in business not for the money, but for the challenge and the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that could come from doing what was very difficult to do and doing it well, and doing it the way you knew it should be done.
Sometimes Digital, the corporate entity, the publicly traded company, seemed at odds with DEC, this chaotic assemblage of creative individualists. But both Digital and DEC had the same leader -- Ken Olsen. And he and his company thrived not despite, but because of the unique management style that allowed such diversity and apparent chaos.
At the top, Ken defined his role as that of a gatekeeper -- the ideas came up from below, fought for by the people who had conceived them and who tested them with pilots which might be funded without corporate approval. These people owned their projects and were willing to stake their careers on them. And the teams that worked on them were also devoted -- feeling they owned pieces of the project, and sometimes working ridiculously long hours, not because someone told them to, but because it was the "right thing to do." After internal competition had taken its course and made it clearer which were the fittest to survive, Ken picked the winners -- the projects that would get the corporate resources necessary to make a major difference in the marketplace.
Computer technology ages quickly. The innovations in computer engineering that were the basis of Digital's corporate prominence in the 1980s are now mainly of historical interest -- as forerunners of what we use today.
But the human engineering of DEC -- this unique corporate culture, fostering self-motivated creativity, pride, loyalty, and competitive spirit -- is of enduring interest and value.
DEC with its internal entrepreneurship and competition, with its heavy reliance on a massive internal computer network for communication and teaming, was in many ways similar to the Internet today. Managing in that environment was similar to managing a virtual company today -- or a company dependent on many complex and tangled partnerships. As a manager, you were given responsibility without authority. You needed to make things happen but, to succeed, you had to enlist the help and support of other people and groups over which you had no managerial control -- you had to convince them that what you needed done was the right thing to do. What to outsiders might have sounded like a hollow phrase, "do the right thing" was an important tool for resolving disputes between individuals and groups, and for enlisting the help you needed to pull together teams and to succeed in your work.
Compaq bought Digital. DEC was never for sale.
I may be more jaundiced about DEC than you are. In addition to the qualities you mention in your introduction, I think of "boat people" wandering the halls, "tin-cupping" (which may be the Venture Capital side of intrapreneuring), the South Boston Politburo who never grasped global reach, the protectionist provincialism which clung to IVIS not to mention NOTES without permitting their expansion, the managers who were matrix managers (my first boss kept Machiavelli's The Prince in his desk, my second kept Mao's Little Red Book)...
on the other hand, I've got to give credit to any corporation that would hire me.--which was Joe Santini and Del Lippert in Ed Services in 1984....
best,
Harris
From: Tim Horgan <thorgan@cio.com> Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 18:06:53 -0500
I have tingles going down my spine, and tears in my eyes. Your last sentence is one of the most powerful I've read in a long time. What a great piece--you've summed up the DEC I knew and loved for 18 years.
Thanks. Wow.
Tim Horgan, CIO Magazine
From: Meyer Billmers <billmers@sitescape.com>, Date: Sat, 06 Nov 1999 18:48:55 -0500
I think it's great! The last line says it all.
And, FWIW, although the internet may cause products to recycle every 3 months, it's precisely that commitment to the customer, not to marketing, that made us great within DEC and promises to make SiteScape great too. It's hard to put a value on that these days, and yet I believe the value is still there, and people appreciate it. Try calling Microsoft with a problem, and see if you get to talk with a senior developer, who will stay with your problem day and night until it is solved. I don't think so.
DEC was never for sale. Neither was Microsoft ; there was never anything like it to sell.
From: Alfred C Thompson II <act2@tiac.net> Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 08:39:29 -0500
That's a positive step. I've very excited about your project and hope it works out. I like the idea that you have a view from the trenches rather then the typical views which are either completely from the outside or from top management.
I love it. The last line, "Compaq bought Digital. DEC was never for sale." almost brought a tear to my eye. It is so true.
You may want to contact Stan Rabinowitz BTW. He was a top engineer in Spitbrook. He left in 1986 and gave a famous fairwell address in the Babbage Autotorioum called "I was hired by DEC but I'm leaving Digital."
Regarding the expression "He who proposes does." I often heard it pharased "he who proposes disposes" in engineering circles. How something sounded was often more important then its grammatical correctness. The phrase "any noun can be verbed" tended to drive the tech writers crazy but engineers loved it.
Do you know the story of the binary ASCII "sign" outside ZKO? It once said "DIGITAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING" but was changed to "CUSTOMERS WIN WHEN WE DELIVER" to the disgust of the engineers who worked there.
Regards, Alfred
Alfred C Thompson II, Teacher, Life Long Learner, www.tiac.net/users/act2/
From: AnnHowe1@aol.com, Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 08:57:04 EST
I read the introduction and I thought I was going to cry. I don't think I will ever have that "experience" again in my lifetime. I will certainly look forward to the book.
Just a couple of nits though (the editor in me): According to Mark Steinkrauss, at its height, Digital had 137,500 employees 'that it could count.' (translation: there were tons of contractors, consultants and the like that were everywhere). Some will say that Digital had to many people, to many ideas and too little focus.
Also, I thought Digital was a global company and not a multinational. There is some distinct difference between the two (I don't know what it is specifically but I hear it brought up at meetings in Compaq). Compaq is regarded as a multinational and not global -- which Deccies claim is one reason why Compaq 'doesn't get it.' This may be an interesting point for the later chapters of your book.
Ann
From: Eli Lipcon <Lipcon@aol.com>, Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 21:55:13 EST
Richard, I read your article with interest. It struck me as a "glass half full" view of the world, placing the company and Ken in particular in a somewhat more positive light than I view it in. In my view, what isn't said, is that Ken and the company were in the right place at the right time; did, no question, have great products, but in many ways succeeded in spite of itself. I remember the market crash of 1987 and how after the DOW recovered and DEC stock did not, beginning to realize that if we had been entitled to take credit all those years for the great success of the company, then we had to be accountable for the years of losses and failure. Maybe we had never really been as good as we had thought we were after all!
The culture was great in many ways, but it wasn't one which could endure.
I had lots of opportunity to compare and contrast the culture of DEC and NYNEX/Bell Atlantic. Believe me, the rigidity and structure of BA was very frustrating at times, but the discipline has allowed that company to manage
cost growth to under 1% per year with 3-5% revenue growth, which is why the stock price has basically tripled over the last five years despite lots of competitive in roads. This was something the Digital culture could never manage.
I've rambled on long enough. Digital was great, but the culture carried fatal flaws.
Reply --
Thanks for the good feedback.
If the publisher goes for this approach, I'm going to need to get a variety of viewpoints.
I suspect that Digital's strengths and weaknesses were entwined in interesting ways. What some saw as Camelot, others experienced as Hell. The same environment that sometimes inspired workers to long hours and creative feats, at the same time doomed many projects to failure in the marketplace. The internal competition could be brutal, and could lead to lots of duplication and wasted effort and misuse of resources. The flaws should be an important part of the story.
Richard Seltzer
From: Fernando Colon Osorio <fcco@acumenbc.com> Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 12:29:49 -0500
I read the article with interest. You make some great points, however, the question that is left unanswered is: If it was so great - how come it disapear? Unless you can address this critical issue, it will be seen just as nostagia.
regards,
fcco
Reply --
Indeed, that is the critical question.
If the editor goes for this approach to the subject, I'm going to do quite a bit of digging and track down a variety of viewpoints to try to put it all into some kind of perspective and try to make sense of it.
But I believe that could be well worth doing.
Richard Seltzer
From: "Carolyn Unger" <carolyn@expertcentral.com>, Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 16:19:37 -0500
Richard -- I'll be interested to see where you go with this!
Unfortunately, I think my own personal experience was a whole lot "Digital" and not a lot of "DEC"!
Carolyn Unger
From: Jay Owen <theowens@world.std.com>, Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 07:24:45 -0500
I like it. Since I spent the last 16 yrs. at DEC in sales and marketing, I have a different perspective on the company that may be helpful. It complements your observations...
The market (not just customers) was always keenly interested in developments at DEC. With a telephone call and mention of DEC I could usually get a meeting with anyone that I needed to reach. It was always intriguing to me that our customers were fiercely loyal and incredibly demanding. Those who were "interested" always demonstrated a polite, though sometimes skeptical, demeanor. This is all relevant because the opening implies that persuasion was mostly internal activity. However, the accomplished sales and marketing professionals at DEC took the same messages to the street to prove the viability of their ideas.
Entrepenurial behavior wasn't bounded by DEC's four walls.
For example, DECtalk was initially built by a renegade group of engineers, linguists and a few marketing folks within the terminals group (no where else to put it). The product was promoted internally and to various external parties. This created the ground swell of interest that spawned numerous technical derivatives over the years.
Bottom line, I think "the market" was interested because they knew us personally.
Hope that helps.
Jay
From: Bob Mader <n3lym@amsat.org>, Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 20:00:05 -0500
"... Compaq bought Digital. DEC was never for sale."
I hope that your book is not going to have a tone of post-Olsen DEC (or Digital?) bashing. I agree with the essence of your introduction except for one thing. You refer to "DEC" in the past tense! In my opinion, "DEC" as you define it is still very much surviving in the current company. Sure, the VAX cash-cow glory days are history, but the people and the culture are still very much alive in many parts of Compaq.
Best of luck with your book. I will be looking forward to reading it.
Warmest Regards,
Bob Mader, DEC, 1988-present
PS... some interesting slightly related history: http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mader/delta
From: Anne Kreidler <anne@kreidler.com>, Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 11:04:37 -0500
I love the energy and direction of the article. It feels like it could be the preamble to a book. You've captured the spirit of what I knew and loved.
My only caution is one of credibility (depending, of course, on your target audience). Many people in business simply see DEC as a huge failure. So, I find, as do most folks I know who interact in the business environment, that to brag about Digital can be construed as being blind to reality. The issue is credibility as perceived by those who weren't part of the whole, beautiful, human experiment.
So, not knowing where you are going with this article (preamble), I can only say bravo and be aware of the balance.
Fondly,
anne
From: Dan Kalikow <drdan@kalikow.com>, Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 14:27:07 -0500
I have one cosmetic comment on your fascinating paper: the phrase "Human Engineering" normally connotes (at least to me, who once professed it) ergonomics or human factors. I think that perhaps a better term might be "An experiment in organizational engineering." Given the endpoint of the paper, perhaps a bit of foreshadowing might work? -- "An experiment in networked innovation."
To the content-oriented comments. Right on! And furthermore, I found your thesis *very* viable. Even though DEC was highly insular (to its ultimate detriment!), it was way more collaborative than I think Microsoft was through approximately that same time period. Everything I hear from MS leads me to believe that it was & still is an email culture, with all the secretiveness and lost info that that implies.
Whereas DEC, as you point out so trenchantly, was massively networked from early on, and that led to the sort of culture that later sprang up on the 'Net. Interesting that we had to drag them kicking & screaming from the DECnet intranet to the TCP/IP internet, but in retrospect it was a major (cliche alert) paradigm shift that we were pushing on them.
I think there might be another aspect to DEC's "massive internal network for communication and learning" to which you might not be giving enough credit for forming the culture -- DECnotes.
The presence of virtually free, universal and effective client-server groupware fostered efficient projects, sometimes competitive projects, and let them reach fruition far faster -- so that then, Ken & the top VPs could select the ones that would go to market. And always on the side there was ongoing discussion of "The DIGITAL Culture" in the DIGITAL notesfile, to keep the "Do The Right Thing" ethic alive and well, and to puncture Corporate pomposity more than I've seen it done anywhere, at least until the more recent days of the Web.
Like for example, to point out the sublime stupidity of crapping on a fine brand like DEC in favor of an obsolescent adjective like "digital," as if to say "We know you THINK that by using OUR name as an adjective, you can take our brand away from us. Well you can't." But they had. And since some of the major accelerants of the digital age came from DEC, we had only ourselves to blame. King Canute, presumably, was either drowned or bought out by the King above the tide-wrack. Our King Ken was kicked off the beach as the tide reached his waist, but Palmer soldiered on instead of withdrawing. But don't get me started...
Cheers,
Dan
From: Dave Griffin <daveg@sitescape.com> Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 12:07:39 -0500
I've read your article about one and half times and I'm not exactly sure what to think of it.
On one level it stirred memories of days long gone at that company. I was there "only" 18 years so, from a certain perspective, I missed some of the glory days that you discuss -- but the afterglow of DEC persisted for quite a few years after the Digital began to assert itself. I liked what you had to say about it and I should probably think about it some more to see if there were any other critical bits or coincidence that fostered that unique working environment.
Perhaps because I joined in 1981 my view of the corporate history is less rose-colored. The cancer of "Digital" had already taken hold and it would only be a few years until people whom I had (and have) a great respect for saw the early warning signs and bailed out.
Comments from them like "I joined DEC, but I'm leaving Digital" echo a lot of the feelings you are trying to convey in the article.
What happened to DEC? How did it fade away? Was it size, the stock market crash of '88, competition, the complete lack of control of management? I'm hardly qualified to comment, but I'm pretty sure most of it came from within. I have a deep and great respect for Ken Olsen. I often stroll around this Mill where SiteScape is located and can't help but feel the echos of what he built here. But for all the accolades you proffer on the inner workings of DEC, there were still plenty of problems. Politics, like anywhere a few humans gather, was deep in the culture as well. I can point to quite a few less than well-reasoned decisions by Ken and others that kept DEC from becoming even more successful than it was. Maybe the point of the article is that, on balance, the human engineering experiment that was DEC worked more than it didn't -- and that's probably true -- but it wasn't perfect and it wasn't even pretty.
In the Digital lexicon "Do the right thing" had been pushed quite a ways down the list long before Compaq came a-knockin'....
If you are looking for a slightly better "hook", I might suggest that your analogy of the DEC and the Internet could go one step further.
Very early in Digital's history as a company (mostly due to its phenomonal growth) it became a *distributed company* -- and we're not just talking about a few remote manufacturing sites. This spreading of people -- first across New England, then eventually around the world -- was also like the Internet. Many voices from different cultures mingled to create the ideas (and the confusion) that was DEC and it fused together first by e-mail and then VAXnotes (e-mail played a much bigger role) over the world-wide network (at one time the largest private network in the world).
That it was swallowed by a company that, until recently, existed pretty much on a single campus has always been a source of personal confusion for me -- since I believe that such a centralized approach is inherently the wrong model for businesses. (But my bank account doesn't provide much evidence for those convictions.)
Good luck with the book,
dave
Reply --
If the publisher goes for the idea, I'm going to need to do some digging, and gather a variety of perspectives. I suspect that their was a gradual erosion of DEC-ness over the years, which was then greatly accelerated with Palmer took over. And I also suspect that the good and the bad were inextricably mixed -- that some of the same cultural factors that helped DEC rise, also contributed to its fall.
Richard Seltzer
From: Berthold Langer <berthold_langer@avid.com> Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 13:35:08 -0500
Overall I liked it a lot. I think it as a great summary of DEC vs Digital however, I think the title does set expectation of a deeper analysis around the experiment. I believe your last paragraph is a very good summary, however, I am sure it scares the heck out of any corporate manager trying to be successful in such an environment and certainly in todays environment of bottom line dollar successes.
I think the final line is brilliant.
In your paragraph starting with "At the top, Ken..." I would add that some/many times competing internally was more important than competing externally. At least I think that was the one point I thought missing after the reading of the whole intro.
Again, I would make it clearer what the experiment was. I like the idea of you writing a book about DEC vs Digital. I hope that this time more of you content stays in the book at the end. I still have the copy of the original AV book you submitted. It had much more long-term appeal and could have served as a case study for Internet spirit/entrepreneurship.
I am glad you allowed me to give you feedback and am looking forward to other chapters of your book.
Cheers,
Berthold Langer
From: Ken Alden <kalden@rsn.com> Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 17:27:20 -0500
I never liked working for Digital, only DEC. When Compaq bought Digital, they wanted the employees who worked for DEC to now work for Compaq. I think most of us who left on our own, were still looking for some way to return to working for DEC. Working for Compaq was even worse than working for Digital...
Good luck,
-Ken
From: Karen Kolling <KatKolling@aol.com> Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 13:21:29 EDT
What I remember most about DEC are two things -
What a great CEO Ken was and person he is. In contrast to the after the megabucks self-centered CEOs that seem to be the norm today, Ken really cared about his employees and the company, and was totally unpretentious. Many stories abound such as someone running into Ken at the local supermarket buying Swanson tv dinners, or arriving at work before everyone else, or stopping to talk to people in the hallway and knowing every single employee. I remember once when the company was in financial trouble, we all accepted, including Ken, a freeze in our salaries instead of having some people laid off. What a guy - I'd go back to work for him in a second.
Secondly, I remember the great projects we got to work on. Really exciting, and everyone so enthused about them. Not like today in other companies when the only object is to make a buck and the heck with the product.
Karen Kolling
From: Bob Fleischer <robert.fleischer@compaq.com> Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 16:26:42 -0500
It was good, and I enjoyed reading it, but I wonder about how the "hard nosed" among us would respond. Clearly some things were wrong -- fatally so! But I don't think anyone really knows what was wrong, including Compaq. Compaq bought Digital because it wanted to be like Digital -- and they may be succeeding!
Bob Fleischer www.tiac.net/users/rjf/
From: Bob Farquhar <rjfarqu@attglobal.net> Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 19:37:57 -0400
I was delighted to see your name in the latest Digital-transition egroup mailing. Even more interested to hear you're writing a book about DEC.
The last line is dynamite. The rest of it, however, lacks feeling and direction. Particularly feeling, despite the fact that the latter is what DEC (not Digital) was about.
I'm running a dot.com startup, believe it or not.
Let me hear from you.
Best Regards, BobF
From: S. Jancourtz <Sjancourtz@aol.com> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2000 07:52:49 EST
I hope you plan to make it clear that in spite of the fact that DEC was a swell place to work (and believe me, I know, every place I've been since then treated its employees like shit)--it was that very quality that contributed to its downfall.
We let too many stupid, incompetent people draw paychecks for years on end and just shuffled them from department to department rather than firing them. (We NEVER needed 130,000 employees. At least 30,000 of those were just dumb sheep, showing up for work and generally geting in the way of the workers.)
I also hope someone goes into Ken Olsen's tragic flaw--his unwillingness to let anyone smart be in charge besides him. Starting in the early 1970s, he drove away dozens of brilliant middle managers and promoted mediocrities (like the Chip-Man, who invested half a BILLION dollars into Alpha chips instead of getting serious about networking, and left us out there to be swallowed whole by the Internet; like a VP of Sales, who insisted that we constantly RAISE prices "because IBM charged more" instead of LOWERING costs; and the whole bevy of Corporate Message Goddesses out of Marlboro.)
The last ten years I worked at DEC (81-91) were enormously frustrating. My smart friends and I could see the writing on the wall--the growth of PCs, the need to figure out how to sell stuff in great volume very cheaply, networking through cable TV--and we couldn't get anyone high up to listen or take a look. Ken Olsen's skepticism about the viability of personal computers made TIME magazine's "Ten Dumbest Remarks of the Century" list. Ken couldn't figure out how to hand his company off to the next generation of leaders. So he planted land mines, left the equivalent of the French World War I generals in charge, and just walked away. It blew up, and took us all with it.
Write your book, but take off the rose-colored glasses.
Unfortunately, I don't think you'll EVER get a book published unless you title it "Gone Without a Trace: How the Ultimate Entrepreneur took a $15B Company Back to Oblivion". Most of the people in their 30s that I work with never HEARD of DEC--and we're in the software business.
good luck,
From: Jerry Beeler <beelerj@swbell.net> Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 19:56:47 -0600
Alfred Thompson forwarded me the introduction to a book that you have in progress.
It truly "struck home". I spent 20 years at MotherDEC and for the most part loved every minute of it. For the first 18 years I felt as if DEC was paying me t have fun. The last 2 or three years were pure unmitigated Hell -- when it got to the point that I was pointedly asked to lie to customers -- I had to leave.
God, how I loved that company. When I left, I was the dubious title of the longest tenured sales person at Digital. No other person had been selling, nose-to-nose, day-to-day, as long as I had. There were no "breaks" for anything .. just selling. How I loved selling.
You are right -- Digital was sold. DEC was never for sale.
Jerry Beeler, (Former) Sales Executive
From: Judith Burgess <jburg@mediaone.net> Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 22:11:05 -0400
I read in the DBM newsletter your introduction to the book you are writing about DEC. I love the line, "DEC was never for sale..."
I worked there 17.5 years. I grew up with so many people. It was so far from what it was when I started, that it was dysfunctional. I don't miss that. What I miss is the people and what we built together. It was a great company.
I am happy for the time I had and the flexibility I had to raise my two daughters. I am now adjusting to the culture at a major financial company where I started working in December.
Congratulations on your book and the interesting work that you are doing.
Best regards,
judy
From: Fred Hurwitz <fred.hurwitz@supplychainalliance.com> Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 10:33:16 -0400
I have read your introduction and submit the following for your consideration.
I was a DEC employee (and then Compaq one) for 25 years. The year I joined, the company did $260m in world wide product and service revenue. I provide this background only to solidify the point that I too recognize the traits you write about, as does every pre - 1986 employee I know.
Further, I too believe the culture of the company had a lot to do with it's success. The "product line" structure reinforced the experimentation and made it easy to pick the winners to fund.
We all know the common wisdom of what went wrong, missing the PC revolution. What has always been a curiosity to me is, why? Without going into detail, we had all the technology needed before Microsoft and Intel. We saw the risks to undermining our own business with our own technology. What we didn't see was the opportunity. Why? Was there something about the organization or the values that prevented this? Or was it that we had already meandered too far from our values?
Exploring these questions would interest me more than then a review of what I already "know".
I hope this feedback proves useful to you.
From: Rick Tagg <RTagg55448@aol.com> Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 11:46:49 EDT
My name is Richard Tagg. I was hired by Dec in 1977 as a material handler. I had somehow graduated from high school :) ....at the time employee's numbered around or should I say 72334, somehow I'll never forget my badge number.
After a few years of running payroll records to payroll from one building to the other (Pk1 to Pk3), I was asked by Randy Condon if I would like to work in Corporate Accounting, (it was $3.00 per hour more than I was making as a material handler) I said whats the deal? Randy said, you have to take some Accounting courses at the college of my choice and that Dec would pick up the tab, I said "I'M IN!"
Thus began my inner ability to Account for what ever Dec wanted me to Account for, the fact that I could type in excess of 100 words per minute would prove to be beneficial later on. (Thanks Ma and Dad for the piano lessons)
I moved through the ranks of clerical intermediate supervisory levels rather quickly and often said NO to entry level MANAGEMENT positions in order to avoid what I learned later was just POLITICS.
When I informed my manager that he had a month to replace me after 10 years of service he was more than concerned that I was the contact/person installing a new software accounting system, which at the time was rather complex to say the least.
So, I started a business of my own and still am self-employed (13years) today. What I learned on my own was a series of tools that had I known when I worked at Dec, would have certainly placed me in a V.P. position. Those tools that I learned include SALES, MARKETING, MANAGING, SERVICE, and the rest of everything you should know, should you be running your own business or business's.
Well, thats about it Richard, I enjoyed reading about how Compaq bought Digital and not Dec, I still have my personally signed Ten year Recognition Plaque, signed by Ken Olsen, I will never forget meeting him, nor working for him, nor training the Bently College Gradualtes of Accounting, how to Account, how to find what someone tried to hide/writeoff, usually in the 7 to 8 digit dollar amount.
I had a feeling when I left Dec that someday I would work for Dec again. If I do, Im glad to say that I would be able to contribute many new tools that I have learned over the past 13 years, added to the Accounting that Dec taught me.
Hope this was not boring, and if you worked for Dec and remember Corporate Accounting, say hi to all my friends for me.
Sincerely,
Rick Tagg
From: D.D. (prefers not to have his name or email address appear) Date: 2 April, 2000
I do not want to burst your bubble or anything, but here are my comments for what they are worth (which is approximately what you are paying for them!).
I was at DEC for about 10 years in the 80's. Since then, I have had a pretty successful career in small companies, both start ups and some established for awhile.
I am constantly amazed at the numbers of people who have a very hard time leaving their DEC experience behind them, and who refuse to recognize what DEC eventually became: a lumbering dinosaur unable to change who ignored customers (famous DEC quote I remember: "we don't spend money on marketing, we invest in technology" which can be translated as: "We are smarter than customers, we know what they need better than they, so we don't have to listen to them"). Sadly, Ken O. actually thought that way, and probably still does.
While nobody can take away what Ken and DEC did, growing to $12B and #2 in the industry, we should all be ashamed that DEC vitually invented computer networking and P.C.s (what were mini-computers anyhow but PCs for engineers), and was so arrogant and ingrown that it did not capitalize on it.
When I left DEC, I as assaulted by resumes from scores of DEC people trying to get out. If I added all the $100 Million projects they were key players to, DEC would have been bigger than IBM and Microsoft combined. I did not hire any of them, as the word was (and still is), avoid DECCIES until they have been in the real world at least 2 jobs removed.
It would be a great to research the success and failure rates of senior DEC managers, compared to DG or WANG. I bet the DEC alums would not come off so well.
Sooo, why am I bothering with this note? Two reasons:
1. I am avoiding doing my taxes
2. To ask you, if you really are doing a DEC book, don't make it a syrupy stroll down memory lane with the "Wasn't DEC wonderful" theme, because it will only encourage those poor folks to keep looking back, but make it into an analysis of what they did wrong, how they/we blew it, and maybe folks will learn some valuable lessons. At the end of the day, DEC was a business that was wildely successful for quite awhile, and then failed miserably.
Thanks for reading, and good luck,
D. D., former TIG product line business manager, marketeer, DEC telecom industry salesperson, and former DEC fanatic who has learned better.
From: Alan Kotok <kotok@w3.org> Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 15:28:50 -0400
As one of those DECies who did some of the technology of the "1980s now mainly of historical interest", I thought I'd put in a few cents worth.
I'm a bit concerned that you might characterize DEC as a utopia, and be disinclined to call Ken Olsen to task for his failures.
I'm not exactly sure when I first saw this happening, maybe in late 80's, but at some point I saw Ken become so sure of his instincts and knowledge of the industry that he stopped listening. Missing the PC revolution I lay at his doorstep.
You might want to research when working at DEC stopped being fun. For me, (who started in 1962), I'd say sometime around when Jack Smith took over as VP of Engineering. My recollection is notoriously flawed, but it seems to > me that Gordon Bell left in a disagreement with Ken. Jack, while a fair manager, was easy prey for the politically connected, because he wasn't expert in technology or engineering. Gordon, too, had started to develop an aura of infallibility about him. Too few people were willing to walk into his office and tell him that he was wrong.
Anyway, just some lines to investigate.
Alan Kotok, Associate Chairman, World Wide Web Consortium
Reply -- From a variety of folks, I've been hearing:
1) DEC hasn't completely disappeared; elements of the old spirit persist within Compaq.
Reply to Reply -- It must be damned hard to maintain!
Reply -- 2) The decline of DEC began in the mid- to late-80s, long before Ken left.
Reply to Reply -- Consistent with my view.
Reply -- Some feel that the DEC culture was in part responsible for the decline and fall of Digital, that the bad was inextricably entwined with the good. Others believe that the problems that arose in the late 80s (while the company seemed to be at its peak) might be traced to a turning away from the old culture (a new arrogance, trying to take IBM headon, trying to act like a major corporation).
Reply to Reply -- In my view the "Take IBM headon" was a mistake, advocated by Bob Glorioso, head of large computers.
Reply -- Another way of putting it might be that the old DEC had unwritten social goals that were at least as important as financial goals (at least for the rank-and-file) -- (at times the company almost acted like a non-profit -- doing the right thing was often the best long-term approach for business because of the customer and employee loyalty it built; but you also did it because that was the right thing to do, regardless of whether there would ever be a financial payback).
Over time, that aspect seems to have faded, and the financials became more important, which changed the flavor of internal politics and the relationship with the customer and the motivations of many key players.
If the editor/publisher go for my approach, I'm going to want to get inputfrom lots of DEC people to try to get a balanced view and to represent the diversity of experiences.
From: Therry Neilsen-Steinhardt <therryns@nh.ultranet.com> Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 12:22:03 -0500
I started work with DEC in 1976 as a secretary. I only once made coffee for my boss, and I almost never typed anything. Good thing. Jim Bailey asked me instead to do things like midnight acquisitions of hard drives, installation and teraining for word processing systems, making creative meetings for the ne wVAX com-puter, and lots of training, lots of it. I managed typesetting systems, and typed in all the alphabets. Yeah, I think you've got DEC. But don't forget what happened when management got hold of us. After the big reorganziation in the mid-eighties (must have wanted to make money), things were never the same. People stopped hiring comparative literature majors, history majors, and art history majors to do the tecnhical writing and started hiring technical types.
By the early nineties, people were being dropped like flies already stuck on flypaper. Me, I left because I had a crippling attack of multiple sclerosis, and couldn't work. I've been on long term disability for seven years, and I'm about to graduate from seminary and become an evangelizing pastor in the United Church of Christ.
Go with this book, but don't forget the warts. Our philosophy was not only Do the right thing, but if you build it, they will come.
Best regards,
therry
PS -- Are you aware of the very rich musical culture at Spit Brook? I remember that for the fifth anniversary of the Spit Brook Singers we put together an orchestra with the unemployed classical musicians who worked at Spit Brook. The same parts of the brain that do math do music as well. We performed some choruses from Messiah, and I remember that The Ken was present.
We had very few strings, and the clarinets took the string parts. We sounded like baroque Klezmer -- never heard anything like it. We used to have concerts, too. There were so many things to do at Spit Brook other than write software!
From: "Dr. Thomas Blinn" <Thomas.Blinn@compaq.com> Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 13:02:08 -0500
But the words are good. Where does it go from there?
Tom
Reply --
Good question. If and when the publisher/editor likes this approach, the real work begins. I want to gather memories, insights, characteristic anecdotes from folks like us who worked in the trenches. I'd like to provide a balanced and varied view of what it was like to work at Digital -- the strengths and the weaknesses.
Richard Seltzer
Reply to Reply --
I was particularly interested in your comment that Compaq bought Digital, that DEC was not for sale. Because Compaq got so many people from Digital some of whom were the DEC folks to whom you refer, Compaq clearly needs to have that DEC spirit at work.. But Compaq also got (and still has in my opinion) some of the DEC dead wood. There seems to be a remarkable lack of vision in some places, a lack of a will to do what needs to be done..
Tom
Reply --
I believe that Compaq needed to buy Digital to survive in the long term -- selling commodity PCs is not a long-term profitable business. They needed to get into the solutions and service business. But while they may have realized that on some philosophic level, when it came to actually implementing the takeover, their old habits and procedures got in the way -- they evaluated cost structures and business plans based on models they had built for commodity PCs sold only through channels; and they couldn't make sense of much of what Digital did; and before they learned they killed or shedded important pieces of the business, and let go some of the very people who they would need to be successful in the long term.
Eventually, maybe they'll get it all sorted out -- but while I was there, it felt like there was an enormous clash of corporate cultures and that the two mind-sets simply weren't compatible. Compaq would have to transform itself to take advantage of the resources and opportunities that the takeover put at their disposal.
But people are resilient. And because it swallowed Digital, many of the people now working for Compaq and helping it to survive and change have DEC in their blood. And being clever and ambitious and flexible, many will find ways to push Compaq in new directions, and will come up with new business approaches.
At the time of the sale it was DEC vs. Compaq. But over time, it probably becomes more like a single company with some characteristics left over from each and some new ones as well. (Like divorced parents getting married and patching the two families together.
Actually, at the time of the sale, I suggested that they name the new company digital.com or dec.com (with the "com" standing for Compaq.)
Richard Seltzer
Reply to Reply --
I like that.. [dec.com] but so much of the old Digital is STILL not getting it, as far as I can tell.. But things do change with time, and as you say, people are resilient and resourceful..
Tom
Afterthought -- Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 07:39:05 -0400
It's interesting how much of the old "DEC" is still alive and well. We still don't seem to "get" just how important effective marketing is, how important it is to have very strong relationships with the industry consultants (that you have to nurture at least as effectively as any other personal relationships), how important our education customers really are, and so on..
But some of the Tandem folks (some of whom are ex-Digital folks, but left long before the end) seem to have good ideas.
There is still a core of "whiners" who don't seem to realize that simply complaining because, for instance, some other part of the company does a good job of marketing Intel based products isn't going to fix the lack of effective Alpha marketing. Or that stealth activities around Linux aren't going to win new business.. And so on..
Tom
From: M. R. (prefers not to have his name or email address appear) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 12:36:57 -0500
It looks like an interesting book, but I had conflicting feelings reading the intro. You don't specify an exact time frame, but the company was not the same throughout its history. I joined in 1990 when it was already on its slide. It seems to me that momentum had kept it up for some time before I got there. Yes, "do the right thing" and being first into the minicomputer market gave it that momentum, but the company I came to know was already downstream of what I read about in your intro.
In my six years with DEC I saw more people coasting than I saw doing the right thing. I saw too many people ignoring the customer, the product, or the contract details because it was just too much work.
Those hard workers you mention couldn't hold up the rest of the company. The scales tipped and the company fell. There is ample material to write a good history of the "human engineering", but there is also ample material to write a set of case studies on the lunacy of the company management and the dark side of its style.
When I first started there, I was one of those who worked long hours not because I was told to but because it seemed like the right thing to do. There were many people who told me I was crazy. In retrospect they were right. Marketing had forecast wild sales for our product and management had written contracts with our suppliers that guaranteed large orders or else heavy penalty clauses. The product was a solid machine but never sold well. Our follow-on product was more in tune with the market, but a very funny thing happened. Another group had formed within the company that wanted to build a similar system and market it to a different industry. How did they do it? They used political maneuvering to get our group killed and then filled their ranks with the freed up people. It turned out their product was still a year away from market. It, of course, had its wild marketing predictions also ... at first.
That project was one of the first that Palmer axed, which I'll give him credit for. Why the new group couldn't have gone into partnership with the old group and sold the existing system into both markets can only be explained by the "not invented here syndrome". The way it was done was definitely not the right thing to do. I could go on endlessly with unbelievable stories, but I feel I've taken up enough of your valuable time. I just thought you should think about providing a time reference to your points or possibly add the counterpoint of those employees who chose to "do the easy thing".
Good luck with the book,
M.R.
From: Carlos and Sonia <borgiali@prismnet.com> Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 10:32:42 -0700
I read a draft of the introduction for a book about Digital and I enjoyed the precise and clear descriptions of the company.
In a few paragraphs you captured the essence of what it was like to work for DEC. I retired after 21 years in engineering, with some great memories and others not so great. Engineering was extremely loyal to Ken. He was human and made mistakes, as we all did; however, he understood engineers. I remember meeting Ken late at night after only 3 months on the job, in my cubicle writing code and I was extremely impressed with his knowledge of the details of the project on which I was working. I was 7 levels from his position and he knew about my project and the details regarding it. Very impressive!!
Yes, KO underestimated the PC revolution, the Unix competition, etc, etc. but nonetheless, he knew how to deal with engineers.
DEC died in 1991 when Robert Palmer took over; he killed some sacred cows that were part of the culture and never understood the core values of DEC. Yes, Digital pleased WS for a few more years with, at times, downsizes that did not make any sense. When you begin losing the heart of the engineers, no company can survive and that killed the company...
I am very eager to read your book.
Carlos G Borgialli, Ariel Corporation, VP, Engineering.
From: Greg Longtine <glongtine@outsource-solutionsinc.com> Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 16:24:03 -0400
Hello, Good Start,
Having been at DEC from 73 - 93 I had a chance to see the unprogrammed changes manifest, and the failures where hydra headed. Everyone has their own prospective on the decline. My role was in Logistics and Service and I noticed on things that seemed to be a thread. MBA's trying to deal with the culture of "DO THE RIGHT THING". If you can't spreadsheet it "don't do it". This I think had a profound impact on inventive behaviors. When IBM tossed the idea of image copying and a company named XEROX pick it up (short version) it was instructive. IBM vs. Microsoft/Open PC's. Yes the early days where fantastic/ 24 hr three day sessions to ramp up Holland and other projects of the like where engaged in willingly and without hesitation [one for all/all for one] I think concentration on the sift of DEC>DIGITAL/COMPAQ would be very interesting.
From: P.P. (prefers not to have his name or email address appear) Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 15:23:59 -0400
I read your introduction to the book on DEC and really enjoyed what you said .... As a longtime employee (1976-1999)I definately relate
From: Ken Aldous in New Zealand <k.aldous@irl.cri.nz> Tuesday, January 29, 2002 3:39 PM
It is no more than an impression, but I have this memory that DEC's descent into the arms of Compaq started about the time that we customers were told that the company's name was now "Digital", and would we please stop calling it DEC, especially if you are a member of DECUS, and more especially if you are on a DECUS board. I do not recall the uglified "DIGITALUS" crossing my mind. In retrospect it seems apt, but it would probably have been ineffective.
DEC's demise was, without doubt, caused by thrombosis brought on by the hoards of bureaucrats, spin doctors and mountebanks who flocked to the company chasing the wall of money that engulfed it following the staggering success of the VAX.
These people generated no new ideas and improved no products; their marketing was hopelessly ineffective compared to the enthusiasm of the DEC nerds whom they displaced, and who had spent the previous ten years eagerly selling DEC gear to their bosses, friends, friends bosses, and even their mothers.
But the bureaucrats did spend massive amounts of the money flood. They invented new logos - first blue, then brown (or was it brown then blue?) - they manufactured vision statements mission statements and statements of corporate intent; they drew up strategic plans (strategic, in this context, means related to plans or planning, so a "strategic plan" is a plan that is plan-like - it is, as a journalist once pointed out, a planny sort of plan), business plans, and all manner of documents that they had been told about at business school; and they continually promoted all kinds of fads that you can grow dizzy from reading about in the endlessly earnest, self-satisfied business journals.
But they added no value; like a gigantic cosmic sponge they absorbed
the flood of money, then sixty-thousand strong they quietly (well noisily
really, with clamorous
demands for large severance payments) folded their tents, and vanished
into the depths of business wonderland.
From Tom Morrow, morrowtom@hotmail.com, Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada, September 23, 2002
I was on your website reading, “DEC not Digital”, and I would like to share my DEC experiences with you.
Started DEC on June 10th 1977– Packaged out November 15th 1998.
In 1976 I started working for DEC in Kanata, while I was still in High School; I left briefly to finish school.
Ever since High School I have always loved working with computers, and even today I play with my own, over clocking and water cooling.
I am not highly educated as many of your readers are but DEC still promoted/counted on me to help make it the great company it was! They offered many courses in-house, sent me to Brazil many times to help set up a subcontract manufacturer to build PC’s.
I had good times and bad times at DEC. My best experiences in my life were my trips to Brazil for DEC. Our teams were always successful and ahead of schedule!
I learned so much from Rick Maxwell the team leader and I still communicate with associates (friends really) from Brazil.
I can’t help looking back and thinking how different my life would be if I was still working for DEC. Near the end of DEC, I was doing some exciting work training and technical support for Kanata and in Brazil.
I miss the whole package at DEC the people and the work.
Best Regards,
Tom Morrow, http://www.geocities.com/morrowtom/
Richard,
An interesting project. We all know that fuzzy line that we crossed from DEC to Digital. Former customers remember it as well as former employees.
You don't say who you are trying to get to publish the manuscript. I assume (hope) you're aiming it at a business publisher. But I am not surprised that it has been a struggle. When I teach classes and refer to Digital or DEC only the grey-heads in the class know what I am talking about. ("A division of Compaq," helps the others.) To think it was #2 in its industry...
I think this should be aimed at saying what worked and what didn't with the goal of helping people avoid what didn't while injecting what did into their organizations. I worked at DEC from 1984 until I left in November, 1992. I have seen warning signs of some of the behavior that led to Digital's downslide and death in a small company I was with and even in a local church's organization. It'd mean a thorough analysis, but possibly worth it.
But if all it will be is a reminiscence, well... not interesting or useful.
Fred
from: Anonymous 12/02/00 01:44 AM
Absolutely enjoyable. I smiled while reading the third paragraph "He
who proposes does," was the corporate truism. "Do the right thing," was
the number one company rule"...
It certainly reminded me of a few customs and people.
How many meetings did we attend? Those Important meetings for our critical
projects probably to make us feel important and keep us connected.
Anyway, Thanks! When and Where can I purchase this book??
from:
Don Montgomery (Badge #147210) 01/17/01 05:39 PM
3 interesting angles for the book
I was at DEC from 1983 to 1993, saw the highest highs (the QE2 in Boston Harbor in 1988 for DECworld) and the lowest lows (I red-lined 126 Customer Services employees for the 12/7/92 layoff, and had to watch the BTO (Burlington VT for anyone who doesn't remember all their site codes) plant get laid off a few weeks later. I co-founded one of the businesses that is actually still successful for Compaq (Value-added Implementation Services, or "VIS") and helped grow it from zero dollars in 1989 to a highly profitable $300M systems integration business in 1993. So I experienced the DEC culture of working all-nighters, and doing ANYthing for my team while creating this really great business -- but it was while the entire company was going down in flames around us. When one of the VP's asked me how I could explain VIS's phenomenal growth over a sustained period, while DEC and VAX sales were evaporating, my answer was that "Whenever we need to make a really important decision, the three guys that run the business get together, mull over the alternatives, and ask `What would the great DEC leaders of days gone by do? What would the Executive Commitee do?' Then, once we've determined what they would do.... we do the opposite." Almost got fired for that one, but it was true. That's how DEC had become Digital. That's how the young fast-trackers like myself and some of my very good friends from those days viewed ourselves. We knew what to do; how to succeed in the rapidly changing world of "computers"; how to avoid the consensus and matrix management traps while keeping the team spirit alive. But we were all 28, 29, 30 years old in 1990, and our bosses were only 40, and their bosses were 45. All the young talent was squashed. My buddy Kip Quackenbush (a great Digital UNIX talent in SZO, selling VAX System V boxes to Pac Bell like candy to a child) and I even created an informal "DEC Young Managers Association" to try to get our voices heard above the arrogant middle. But it was all squandered... Anyway, there are three enduring angles for this book: (1) By all means, seek to answer the question that Fernando Colon Osorio asked earlier in this thread: If it was so great, why did it disappear? You could use the framework of great nostalgia, great human experiment, great culture as the backdrop of a very interesting scholarly tome on the tragic flaw of hubris. (2) If it is even remotely humanly possible (and I'm betting it is), get your hands on the backup tapes from 1986 to 1992 for HUMAN::DIGITAL where the VAXnotes conference on working at Digital was hosted. Someone earlier in this thread made reference to it, and I was one of the loud (foolish youth) contributors about the "dead wood" (I was the one that posted the Webster Dictionary definition of deadwood, for any that remember the uproar it created) and the utter missing of the market for "digital equipment" (PC's, handhelds, entertainment devices, set-top boxes, networking). The notes in HUMAN::DIGITAL could be published verbatim, and you have a book that will interest a publisher. (3) Like any catastrophic disaster, the annihilation of DEC left positive residue. I once gave a talk at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1993 where I talked about how the great tech companies of the "Massachusetts Miracle" had now all imploded, but I predicted that, like a forest fire creating a fertile carbon-rich soil for seedlings, the dispersion of 75,000 technical professionals in Massachusetts would create hundreds of new companies and concepts. That prediction has now come true. Some of those seedlings went west to Seattle and Silicon Valley, but look at all the DECalumni running or staffing the startups all up and down 495 and 128 and 93. This would serve as the literary denouement leading up to your already-famous-ahead-of-the-book line "They bought Digital; DEC was never for sale."
Don Montgomery
Still Happening?
I worked for DEC from 1976-1993, running the UK Software Products Group and still delivering all our financial goals (with lots of help from colleagues in ESSB Galway and right across Europe) right until the end. However, a victim of the "Palmer twist" from product to industry focus in the end. My 25 strong group got turned into 6, which was a great shame.
I've had three employers since leaving DEC and none rank in the same league - an environment where (for the most part) I could trust everyone around me and was given the room to grow without fear of being handed enough rope to kill ourselves with!
In the end, too many people past their sell-by date in key places letting KO down - not least the big Jack Shields push to get bigger than IBM, which was a complete diversion from the nibbling we got underneath our core business.
So, best wishes in this project. My only request would be to get hold of a few Ken Olsen parables - which all of the UK Dexodus community would value. Anyone got any (if they have, anything machine readable to ian.waring@btinternet.com would be most welcome). ;-)
Digital Equipment Corporation:
The Internet Company -- case study
Alumni page for Digital's
Internet Business Group
The video, "A Glimpse of the Future," which helped Digital get into
the Internet business can now be seen and heard online broadband
(256K), dialup
(56K); requires RealPlayer. You can read the script at http://www.samizdat.com/glimpse.html
For Richard Seltzer's Internet books and articles on CD ROM -- My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities -- please check our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat, where you can buy a library for the price of a book.
Can we help you build an Internet business? Richard Seltzer is an independent Internet writer/speaker/consultant. Click here for details. or send email to seltzer@samizdat.com
This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
Check our sitemap page www.samizdat.com/sitemap.html from which you can get to any other page at this site in one click.
<
| Internet Business Showcase: | |||
Dog Training and Pet Care Veterinary, Dog/Cat Veterinarians |
Viatical Settlements RFID Tags, RFID Readers Link Popularity & Link Exchanges |
Hair Restoration for Hair Loss Hair Restoration Plastic Surgery & Surgeons |
Used Cars Guide Homecoming & Prom Dresses Dropship & Wholesale Sources |