These guys in the computer and modem industry were always trying to find out how big DTT was. Seems the measure of power was how many people and plants you had. By now I had learned how to babble on about our offices in London, Nairobi & Hong Kong, all of which were legitimate {shared with addresses etc}. While I never answered their questions directly they knew that we were multinational and weren't going to tell them details.

One afternoon one of the Chinese bigwigs asked me for some information. I said that I would try to get it for him. That evening I called back to Chicago (12 hours time difference) and talked to John, my only employee at the time and told him who to call. John got the info and FAXed it to the hotel that same day. The next morning I stopped at the hotel communications room, and for a minor fortune retreived my FAX with the answer.

In the course of the morning's meeting I passed on the information to our Chinese guest without thinking much about it.

Two days later as were preparing to leave Bejing the translator told me how impressed the Chinese executive was with our company. I enquired as to what impressed him the most. He replied "he was so surprised that you got the information immediately, the he knew you must be the head of a large and powerful company to get such prompt response".

I swallowed hard to choke back the impending laughter. The secret of course was that there was only one person and so no way for it to get lost in a massive corporation..

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