Coming Full Circle

Chavah Golden , United States

It was 1985. Using innovative new technologies (the personal computer!), ingenuity and initiative, I was able to develop a whole new industry from the ground up. It was exciting because it was built from nothing but a fresh graduate degree and will. It shows that lack of money does not have to be a deterrent.

It also gave me lifelong confidence that being real and sticking to what I know works, works. It works in spite of the fact that many people said no and wanted it delivered differently. Thus, even though it was the fast, slick magic that customers asked for, it not only helped me be successful, my clients genuinely and sustainably succeeded 100% in what they were asking from me. I like nothing more that surprised and happy customers.

I have always been a bit daring and fearless, which frees me to take big risks. I tend to construct seemingly impossible situations that require masterful crafting and shaping for many years. I enjoy coming back from the brink of impossibility with great strength and benefit for all involved.

I have never watched TV or movies, and I have only rarely read a newspaper or magazine, both of which quickly exclude me from many conversations and the humor the lies buried in movie quotes. This left me a lot of time to exercise initiative and a longing to learn.

I have a Master of Science degree in Organization Development and Training. I have worked in non-profit, academia, and small companies. I’ve been a change agent, professor, instructional designer, telemarketer, entrepreneur, and post graduate education administrator, and consultant. My clients have mainly been large corporations.

I had just shaken off the world of psychiatry and a locked psychiatric unit where I had worked as a therapist. Having just competed a Masters degree in Organization Development, no company was looking for people from the “helping” professions.
What could I do but start a business? I designed a life coaching program and enjoyed developing materials with my pen and typewriter. My imagination widened. Like others who start businesses I had a passion. My passion was circles. I had to have circles. Circles still help me build coherence of disparate elements and concepts. Through circles, I build ideas and communicate.

You might wonder, what business would a person who has a passion for circles start?
This was before desktop computers were common. I set out to find a computer to help me communicate. It had to be able to make circles (not DOS). It was 1985, and the Super Bowl Apple ad shook me and changed the world.

I instantly bought a 512K Macintosh with two floppy drives and set out to make circles.

I had just married my husband, a print shop owner. The innovation started in a tiny space near his print shop. I didn’t invent or discover anything. I only created a big something out of basically nothing, and defied all sensibilities.

I started a computer graphics company. I had never done business, didn’t know graphics, didn’t know the difference between marketing and sales, had never before touched a computer, had no printer, no real estate, and no capital to speak of with huge school loans to pay off.

My real skill is that I am a synthesist. With the help of circles, I can disassemble and reassemble concepts and make them all work together just in time. I trust the invisible without a doubt, and I make things happen. This came in handy in 1986 when I went to a Macintosh users group meeting. Someone in the audience asked if anyone in Chicago had a laser printer to rent. No one out of 100 people in the room responded. Suddenly I noticed my hand in the air. Every head turned in my direction. I had no idea what I was about to embark upon. Suddenly everyone stood up and crowded around me for contact information.

The next morning I conjured up how to purchase one of Chicago’s first $6,000 Apple laser printers. Soon thereafter, I had seven Macintoshes named after the seven dwarfs. A person would rent time on Dopey, another on Grumpy, another, Sleepy, etc. They printed on Snow White, or soon after, Prints Charming. Eventually, each computer had a 20 megabyte hard drive each costing $2,000, and each LaserWriter had a font library. This was top of the line. Kinko’s wasn’t even on the horizon yet.
People created documents, and my husband printed or copied them.

Fast forward… I learned that a Chicago corporation had Macintoshes. I saw an opportunity to turn the operation into a custom Macintosh training company. I arranged a meeting. The prospect asked how we could train with the smell of ink (the print shop). I told her it was temporary. Space was being prepared.

Now I had to find space! I found it on a lower floor of the same building. Within 3 weeks, I had signed a lease, turned our graphic artists into trainers, painted, cleaned, purchased eight new Macintosh SEs, some tables and chairs, and moved downstairs. When the company came in for the second meeting, we looked established. The truth was, we were exhausted from making financial deals, getting delivery, installing computers, and cleaning and painting until one day prior.

Two years later, we upgraded to the latest Macintoshes, moved to bigger space, and landed our first large long-term high volume client. Now we were in the big league of publishing and workflow, at which I was a novice at best. I competed against several graphics training firms in Chicago to win a contract with this Fortune 500 company. During the meeting, I listened carefully and took notes on what I was promising (and knew we could do). They needed up to one hundred employees in four departments at all levels of skill — some who had never used a keyboard of any kind — to be proficient in electronic publishing — workflow and technical skills. I kept pace with the fast moving graphics terminology. Then I ran back to the office to learn the meaning of such words as “story boards” and “cut and paste.”

This company was about to embark on a seismic shift. We were responsible for its success. We would help them transform everything from how they stored their art, to their working relationships among themselves and with their clients. I promised quality and everything necessary for success in their bold venture to be the first to transition to digital publishing as a competitive move. We won the bid, and it wasn’t the lowest.

We succeeded in saving the company $1.8 million in the first year and a half. No one lost their job, and no one quit. The client said, “I knew I had only one chance to succeed, and I trusted Computing Solutions to do it.” We were soon providing custom training for corporations across the country on Macintosh, running Apple’s Market Center, and much later, training Windows users.

The real overall innovation was a clever and risky 100% customer satisfaction guarantee with no time limit. The client could receive phone support or retake the training at any time if we failed to meet our agreed upon objectives. Our formula had to be impeccable. We had an incentive to provide unbeatable service, and we did. It is still a lesson for today.

We assessed needs, custom co-designed content (and got a signed agreement) for a maximum of six people from the same company with the same skill-level and the same goals. We held multiple 3-hour sessions of intense hands-on learning with practice between sessions. Instructors were multidimensional – industry experts with teaching expertise and technology savvy. The larger implementations hired temp workers to do the work while employees learned. Once workers were on the job, we provided on-site “roving” to seamlessly integrate the learning into day-to-day work. We also set up and monitored internal support systems to assure sustainable productivity.

We became well-known for delivering high quality, high-end innovative solutions. We catapulted many corporations seamlessly into the digital publishing and graphics world.

I was invited to deliver keynote speeches and facilitate sessions at trade shows, conventions, and graphics association meetings. I was on the 100 Women to Watch list in Today's Chicago Woman, on the cover of an entrepreneurial magazine, and more.

I did this with great pleasure from 1985 until 2000 when babies seemed to be born knowing how to use computers. All in all, I became familiar with my deepest and best skills as a synthesist and an innovator with tremendous will power and persistence, which, by means of circles, continues to be a source of inspiration today.

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