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Digital Divide Data Newsletter – September 2007
DDD Doubles to 450 people and $1.5 million DDD’s fiscal year 2007 – which ended on June 30, 2007 – was our strongest ever. Our sales to clients increased to $1.3 million (from $400,000 the previous year). Our donations from individual donors doubled to $200,000. Our total budget of $1.5 million included $900,000 of earned revenue and $600,000 of donor funds. Our gross operating margins increased to 34% from 21%. And to date, a total of two hundred and five employees have graduated to better jobs or been promoted internally, with an average salary of six times their country’s per capita income. Four hundred fifty people now come to work in DDD’s three Southeast Asian offices each day. We are proud of the number of people whose lives we have helped to improve. Mai Siriphongpanh reports on DDD’s First Management Retreat As Asia’s Regional General Manager and on behalf of DDD management, I feel very proud and privileged to have this opportunity to share with everyone news of our first management retreat. At the end of June, twenty-two managers from our three offices – half of whom had never flown before – gathered in Cha-Am Beach, Thailand, two hours south of Bangkok. Despite the travel and effort involved, these managers couldn’t wait to meet at the retreat--for work and for fun at the beach. A month prior to the retreat, each local office was involved in planning for the retreat. This gave local managers an opportunity to better understand and better prepare for full and constructive participation. This was important as it was their first time attending such an event. Everyone felt so excited about the event-- excited to see managers from other offices, and, for some, very excited to travel by air for the first time in their life. In advance of the retreat, DDD’s eight senior managers met for two days. Many critical issues and challenging goals have been raised, such as DDD vision and mission, balancing life and work, competitive compensation, management capacity, communication, operational issues, profit margin, capacity-building and social mission model implementation. The next two days were for office presentations, updates and strategic plan followed by Q&A. Each team actively and fully participated. Everyone had great opportunities to share their personal goals and aspirations. We ended the two days with a very fun assignment from Eric’s presentation on Task Versus Goal-Driven that made all of us burst into tears and with a very fun Karaoke event. What made the day even more special was that it was our CEO’s (surprise) birthday! We feel that our greatest achievement was that we were able to sum up five clear DDD-wide goals for the coming fiscal year and have a clear follow-up plan for how to help each office set up its own office goals that link up with our company’s wider vision. We were able to work and have fun at the same time. We were able to work effectively in an offsite and relaxing environment—and end our day with a banana boat ride! Reader’s Digest Goes Digital with DDD DDD is delighted to announce the launch of its new project with Reader’s Digest. In addition to its monthly magazines, Reader’s Digest is a publisher of books, and has hired DDD to digitize 25 of these titles. Our operators are sure to get a more intimate view of domestic American life as they comb through books such as Storage and Shelving Solutions, Dream Backyards, The Householder’s Survival Manual and Free Money, Free Stuff--to name a few. We are, of course, excited about our partnership not only because we will learn how to clean cloth-covered buttons, but also because this project represents a new and more sophisticated service that DDD will now be offering. For each book, DDD operators will extract text and images from an existing file, tag its vital elements, transform and recode the book using xml, and export it in hundreds of separate files that conform to international records management standards. In this digital incarnation, the books will be fully functional: they can be searched easily online, neatly archived, and flexibly manipulated through a digital system. Reader’s Digest can then convert ink-and-paper manuals to interactive tools, increasing their usefulness exponentially. The stranded driver can get instructions for changing that flat tire. The gardener can identify that pesty Japanese beetle, learn about the most effective method for expelling it from her garden, build a shelf for the pesticide, or design a fence to keep Rover away from the poisoned patch—all with the help of digitized information from Reader’s Digest publications. The project is well underway in Vientiane. We anticipate completing this project in October, at which point we hope to expand the partnership between DDD and Reader’s Digest.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia My name is Ton Doeurn. I was born in 1982 in Prey Chamnar village. I have four sisters and three brothers. My parents are old and they are not so healthy and they cannot work. I became disabled when I was one year old because of sickness. Disability makes my life very difficult. I am ashamed to be involved with other people, and it is difficult to study and difficult to commute back and forth from home to school. I had no hope because I could not do thing others did. Especially when I read job announcements, they required strong people, so I felt hopeless. I had worked for one souvenir shop for three months. Later on my friend told me that DDD recruits trainees to a computer training program, so I applied immediately. I got called from DDD for an interview. I was very happy and after the interview I passed as a trainee at DDD. When I first came to DDD I felt very happy and a bit worried. I was afraid—I cannot do that work well. When I started a typing session, it was very slow—only six to seven wpm --but now I can type 55 wpm. I have learnt a lot from DDD-- especially all kinds of jobs, English and computer programs. Now I am an operator. DDD provides me with work and study that make my life successful. These are the most important things. It is a chance I try to find for very long time ago so I can support myself and family and change my life. The DDD staff is very friendly and helpful, they have a very good relationship with each other, and they don’t discriminate against disabled people like me. They are helping each other to grow. I like to work here so much. If I did not come to DDD I would go back to do farming with my parents because it is hard to find a job and it costs a lot to study in Phnom Penh. I know that DDD provides growth opportunity to disabled people, orphans and poor families, and, especially, scholarship to continue studying. I would like to say thanks so much to DDD especially DDD management team that provided me with a chance to grow so that I can reach my dream. I would also thank the donors and founders of DDD. DDD is very important to Cambodian people. Other News:
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Employee Profile: Ton Doeurn