Article

When Francie talks . . .

the kiosk world listens. Francie Mendelsohn went from being a computer programmer to kiosk guru. Part I of II

February 2, 2004

Before she became a kiosk guru, Francie Mendelsohn won a car on "Wheel of Fortune." Yes, Francie Mendelsohn, the consultant billion-dollar corporations call for brutally honest reviews of their latest kiosk ventures. The same Francie Mendelsohn whose reports on kiosk triumphs and tragedies are considered must-reads for anyone serious about mastering the business. "I didn't care about being the big winner," says Mendelsohn, the 51-year-old founder of the Rockville, Md.-based kiosk consulting firm Summit Research Associates Inc."I just didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of 42 million people."

Wheeling and dealing

It's no surprise that Mendelsohn, in her 1987 brush with game-show fame, parlayed her skills at buying vowels and spinning wheels into a big prize. Pat Sajak and Vanna White may have been impressed with her puzzle-solving skills, but the most telling aspect of Mendelsohn's triumph didn't come until afterward, when she attempted to negotiate her way to a better prize with the show's producers.

Mendelsohn says she didn't really want the "little Mazda" she won on the show, and the show's producers wouldn't give her a cash prize instead. After a frustrating couple of months, she said the show's producer finally called and asked what it would take to make her happy.

Her reply: "A sapphire blue MX-6."

She traded up to the sporty new car, paying the difference in cost. Today Mendelsohn laughs about the experience of taking on game show producers to get what she wanted. Seven years later, in 1994, she started her own business, using the same determination and persistence to create a successful consulting business.

Summit enjoyed its most successful year in 2000, boosting revenues by 62 percent from the previous year. Summit's three-person operation focuses exclusively on the kiosk industry, and Mendelsohn says it's that single-minded focus that has allowed the company to prosper.

Mendelsohn's expertise isn't limited to the retail sector.

"I've talked to people in the federal government that think that all you have to do to build a kiosk is put a touchscreen on a computer, stick it out in the mall and have it point to your Web site," said Sam Gallagher, associate Web manager for the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development. "We sort of knew it wasn't that simple and Francie helped us get over that hurdle."

Mendelsohn has been a HUD consultant for three years, helping its HUD NextDoor kiosk program enjoy a successful launch in 1998. Listings of HUD homes for sale, how to find rental housing and other features have been deployed at 89 kiosks in 47 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

"She's been terrific," Gallagher said.

Midwest Roots Mendelsohn, the daughter of Austrian immigrants, grew up in a middle-class Milwaukee, Wis. home. Her father, who had been an attorney in pre-Hitler Vienna, sold tires while her mother was a pharmacist. The family included Francie's younger sister Susie, and her paternal grandparents also lived in the home.

Mendelsohn said her parents stressed the importance of education while struggling to provide for the family. In most ways, though, she said hers was a happy childhood. She says the tenacity and determination she now displays in business was instilled early on by her parents.

She enrolled at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor after high school, earning a degree in economics in 1965.

Career start

After college, Mendelsohn moved to the Washington, D.C. area for a new job with the federal National Security Agency. Her introduction to computers came after three months of training on code breaking and traffic analysis. As part of her training, she enrolled in a two-week computer programming course which, she says, hooked her on computers. Mendelsohn scored high on a portion of a test for new recruits that involved reading, writing and translating a make-believe language. Because of her high test scores, the NSA assigned her to translate German from written text but never hear or speak the language. But Mendelsohn, newly-trained in computer programming, wanted a job involving computers.

Changing jobs wasn't easy within the NSA, but Mendelsohn talked her way into a computer programming position. When she discovered there was more money to be made in the private sector, Mendelsohn left the NSA to become a full-time programmer in 1968. "The fact that I got into computers at all, I have myself to thank," she says. "I've been pretty proud of that, that I spoke up when I did and made it happen."

A brief timeout

Mendelsohn's computer programming career began with Documentation Inc., a software development and systems analysis company based in Bethesda, Md. For two years, she worked on projects in support of NASA in the State Department.

But Mendelsohn's life outside of work was changing. She and her husband Eric became the parents of three sons. For nearly a decade, she stayed home to raise Steve, Dan and Mike.

In 1979, she returned to the work force as a programmer, systems analyst and computer specialist for the U. S. Food and Drug Administration. It was during the decade with the FDA that she was first exposed to the personal computer.

"Because we had an Apple computer at home, I qualified as a big PC expert," she joked. "They set up a little microcomputer support center, which I ran, and then from there it grew into the information center."

But Mendelsohn soon grew weary of fighting with her managers at FDA and found work in the private sector. She was hired as program manager for International Data Corp., a Virginia-based market research company, in the fall of 1988. At IDC, she was in charge of the micro technology service, handling anything that had to with PCs. IDC's parent company, International Data Group, publishes more than 150 publications in as many as 70 countries, including Computer World, Info World, Mac World and the popular "Dummies" series of instructional computer books. Ninety percent of IDC's clients were federal government agencies or government vendors. Mendelsohn was perfect for the job. "Because of my government background - I spoke governmentese," she said. "I understood the government client all too well because I was one. I knew what they could and couldn't do and the frustrations, so I started working for the other side." At IDC, Mendelsohn studied future technology and produced monthly bulletins. Occasionally, her duties included managing custom consulting projects.

Taking a Census

In 1993, Mendelsohn took on a project with the Census Bureau to determine a way to use technology to get people to complete census forms. When Census Bureau executives suggested an interactive cable television program that allowed subscribers to fill out a census form by remote control, Mendelsohn disagreed. "We said wait a minute. The very people who are not filling out the census, the poor, the homeless, the disadvantaged, aren't going to have interactive cable, aren't going to have cable and probably don't have a television," she said.

Kiosks were on the Census Bureau's list of projects. Mendelsohn's research said it would take 18,000 kiosks to reach 85 to 90 percent of the population.

The price of the units, about $20,000 each, could not be justified, however, and the project was scrapped. She suggested other uses for the kiosk after the census ended, but the idea was dead.

"The next thing you know, I got a phone call from the Postal Service," she said.

The Postal Service wanted to use her idea for a network of kiosks, and wanted Mendelsohn to direct it. She discussed the project with a colleague at IDC who suggested she take it on independently.

"To be honest, it had never occurred to me to go after it on my own," she said.

But she knew there was a huge profit in the business. "What gave me the push to do it when I managed that custom study for the census, we made a huge profit. Most of these custom consulting things basically lost money or at best broke even. We made a huge profit and I had been promised a percentage of that. I never got a dime, so I was less than thrilled." That was the start of Summit Research Associates in May 1994. It got the contract for the Postal Service's Government Connection kiosk project, which lasted six months.

Mendelsohn didn't give up her day job, remaining a part-time consultant with IDC until 1998. She still counts the company as a client.

With Summit established, the budding entrepreneur soon found a way to keep her firm on the minds of kiosk companies worldwide: writing and selling reports on what separates a good kiosk from a bad one.