Synopses & Reviews
Two months before David Silverman's 32nd birthday, he went to the Charles Schwab branch in the basement of the World Trade Center to wire his father's life savings for the purchase of the Clarinda typesetting company in Clarinda, Iowa.
He and his business partner and mentor, Dan Coyne, a late-middle-aged professional manager, planned to turn around the 50-year-old typesetting company, then raise venture capital for a "roll-up" of the then mom-and-pop industry scattered over the farmlands of the Midwest that were crucial to the big textbook publishers like Pearson, Harcourt and McGraw Hill in New York City. They would then take the company public and make millions.
It wouldn't be easy. Clarinda had been losing money for years and was essentially in receivership. India-based competition was driving prices lower every day. Publishers were merging and needed to cut costs to cover their self-inflicted debts. And morale among the aging workforce in Iowa was at an all-time low.
This was no dot com play. David believed in the moral ideals he had learned from his father, which in turn came from the "old" IBM the one before layoffs at which point it had become, as his father said, "just like every other company." He wanted to succeed while respecting the employees.
When David had met Dan, he had found a mentor who sounded like his father, but who knew how to run a business. He had taken three companies public before and espoused "benevolent capitalism." While every other typesetter in America was either while firing their US employees and secretly sending their work to India, or simply being bought out by Asian-based companies, Clarinda would, under Dan and David continue to hire Americans and even open new plants including their own Manila plant that paid triple the going wage for out-sourced "cheap labor."
In a year they had doubled the revenue and staff of the company and were well on their way to purchasing two competitors. So could they buck the "offshore" trend, deal honestly and open with employees and customers, and turn their and their employees dreams into millions?
Absolutely not.
Typo tells the true story of Clarinda company's last rise and fall. And with it one entrepreneur's story of what it means to take on, run, and ultimately lose an entire life's work.
Typo is an American Dream run aground told with humor and moments of tragedy. The story reveals the impact of losing an entire industry and answers questions about what that means for American business.
The reader sees in Clarinda's fate the peril faced by Everycompany, and the lessons learned are applicable to anyone who wants to have their own business, to succeed in a large corporation and not to find themselves stranded by the reality of shifting markets, outsourcing, and ultimately, capitalism itself.
Review
"[Silverman's] story is amusing, appalling, infuriating and wonderfully written." Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
Two months before David Silvermans 32nd birthday, he visited the Charles Schwab branch in the basement of the World Trade Center to wire his fathers life savings towards the purchase of the Clarinda Typesetting company in Clarinda, Iowa. Typo tells the true story of the Clarinda companys last rise and fall and with it one entrepreneurs story of what it means to take on, run, and ultimately lose an entire lifes work. This book is an American dream run aground, told with humor despite moments of tragedy. The story reveals the impact of losing part of an entire industry and answers questions about how that impacts American business. The reader sees in Clarindas fate the potential peril faced by every company, and the lessons learned are applicable to anyone who wants to run his or her own business, succeed in a large corporation, and not be stranded by the reality of shifting markets, outsourcing, and, ultimately, capitalism itself.
About the Author
David Silverman moved up the ranks from tech geek to owner and president of Clarinda, the largest American owned typesetting and publishing company before it ceased operations due to overseas competition in 2003. He has been captain of his college computer programming team, worked in a deli, written computer manuals for IBM, designed electronic publishing systems in London, and sold "offshore" keyboarding services he thinks he liked the deli best. He has spent a decade and a half working with the Philippines, India and China, and has a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science with a minor in writing from Drew University. He has published articles on technology and publishing in industry publications, including Wired magazine and Publishers Weekly. In addition, he has been a consultant in the industry, a frequent speaker at publishing conferences, a member of international publishing technical committees, and been a guest lecturer on the typesetting industry at New York University's master's in publishing program. David has studied writing with William Zinsser, Bill Roorbach, and Susan Shapiro, attended non-fiction writing workshops at Goucher, Marymount, and Manhattanville Colleges, performed a one person show entitled "American Loser". He has recently had a non-fiction essay accepted by Snake Nation Review and runs a monthly reading series at the Drama Book Store in New York City. He currently works as an executive at Citigroup where he is responsible for, what else, disaster recovery.