11March
Dr Kramer: In his own words
By Angus Douglas.
Dr Joseph Kramer's name is well known in the pro AV industry, but the story of how a pharmacist and keen photographer created Kramer Electronics is not so well known. PROMAG magazine did an exclusive interview with Dr Kramer and Hannah.
Dr Joseph Kramer, founder of Kramer Electronics, and his wife, Hannah, recently visited the country as a guest of Bruce Genricks – managing member of Electrosonic SA. In an interview with Promag Dr Kramer talks about secrets to success – including his 'rabbit survival technology. And Hannah Kramer reveals her secret to staying happily married.
Dr Joseph Kramer, founder of Kramer Electronics, and his wife, Hannah, recently visited the country as a guest of Bruce Genricks – managing member of Electrosonic SA. In an interview with Promag Dr Kramer talks about secrets to success – including his 'rabbit survival technology. And Hannah Kramer reveals her secret to staying happily married.
Promag: You spent 12 years studying to be a Pharmacologist, why did you switch to electronics?
Dr Kramer: To continue in my field of Endocrine Pharmacology I would have had to leave Israel, something I was not prepared to do, so I joined an audio company as one of their chief engineers.
Promag: Any regrets?
Dr Kramer: No, I'm not sorry, I learnt a lot and I learnt to think methodically, and that helps me a lot today. But I still consult with people about fertility problems relating to hormones – as that was my field of research. I'm still being quoted in medical journals even now for a discovery I made in 1976 that shocked the world.
Promag: So how did you get into electronics?
Dr Kramer: While a student I did photography as a hobby and developed my own pictures, for which I needed a timer, so I was counting '1, 2, 3...' I went to the shop and a timer cost $50, but I didn't have the money, so someone said, 'Make it yourself'. I took courses in electronics to understand the basics and then went further and made my own timer and light meter. Next I started developing my own amplifiers which are today collectors' items in the hi-fi world. 35 years later people are still asking me for those amplifiers. So as a student I designed and built stereo systems and loud speakers – which kept me happy and financially independent; but, at the time, I never thought of making it my profession.
Promag: So the thought only came to you when you were faced with the possibility of having to leave Israel?
Dr Kramer: Yes, my research ended in 1979 and then I took the job in the audio company and stayed for a year and a half before going it alone.
Promag: But not in audio, in video.
Dr Kramer: That's right. At that time video was just at the beginning.
Promag: What made you want to go into business on your own?
Dr Kramer: I decided what I wanted to do with my life, and I made the decision to go in a bigger direction. Video was a new field, and there were opportunities. I decided to look for a problem with this new technology, and then find the solution. The problem I came up with was generation loss; at the time you edited video by copying and pasting and it led to terrible generation loss. The next step was to get myself a customer. I found a guy in Israel and a guy in Belgium (both are still friends of mine) and I said to them, 'if I developed this product would you use it?' they both said yes. I was poor, and needed to support my wife, Hannah, and our two young children. So I built my own table, bought 4 chairs, rented a place, and brought my oscilloscope and soldering iron from home.
Promag: Did Hannah not encourage you to stick with a secure job?
Dr Kramer: I consulted her about starting my own business as the decision would affect all of us. She said, "Go ahead I'm behind you". So Kramer Electronics is all her fault. (Laughs)
Promag: Did your friends in Israel and Belgium like the products you sent them?
Dr Kramer: Yes they did and I felt encouraged to carry on. But at a certain point I started getting bigger and bigger orders and couldn't finance it. So I went to the bank to ask for credit. Even though I had a letter of credit from a top Belgian bank for $30 000, my bank refused me a loan. I was choking with orders and I couldn't deliver on them. Fortunately I found partners who were willing to invest in the business.
Promag: Were they involved in the day-to-day running of it?
Dr Kramer: No, they just put the money in and forgot about it. It was pennies compared to what the company is worth today, but it helped me. That's how I got going at first, and after the sales from Belgium, I got orders from Germany, the UK, the US and the business started growing and growing. I developed more products along the way and got more confidence that I was doing the right thing. Ten years later I went to them and said, 'Hey you've got to help me manage this place, it's becoming big and complicated.' So they joined me to pull the wagon, not on the technological side, but in finance, administration and so on.
Promag: You make it sound easy.
Dr Kramer: It wasn't. I made mistakes and I had to look in the mirror and own up to them. But I also learnt to analyse my mistakes and fix them. In business, and in life, there are no short cuts and no miracles, you have to work hard: blood, sweat and tears.
Promag: Surely success is not just about hard work?
Dr Kramer: In everything I've done, whether it's medicine, photography or electronics – I dig into it all the way down until I know everything there is to know about the subject, from then on it's just a game.
Promag: A game: I thought this was about blood, sweat and tears?
Dr Kramer: It is, but who said you can't put blood, sweat and tears into a game.
Promag: That sounds like rugby. Okay, so what gives you the most enjoyment about your work?
Dr Kramer: I appointed a CEO recently to take care of the running of the business, as it was taking me away from the thing I love – Research and Development (R&D); new products; new developments. That gives me a kick.
Promag: So you enjoy sitting in your laboratory dreaming up and developing new products?
Dr Kramer: No, I like to travel around, listen, get ideas, come back, and implement them. And that's what we like to do – wake up in the morning with an idea and a month later we have a new product that the world is raving about. That gives me a kick. And what gives me a bigger kick is when I'm sitting at a trade show and a competitor walks over and looks at the new wall, slaps his forehead, and says, 'Why didn't I think of that?'
Promag: Kramer Electronics is famous for its product development.
Dr Kramer: Yes it's called the rabbit survival technology.
Promag: Rabbit?
Dr Kramer: A rabbit has no sharp teeth or claws, and it can't even run fast; but it can reproduce. (Laughs). And that's what we are doing, by the time they knock off our machine we already have a new one to the market. We have 3 new products every week – that's over 150 new products a year – it puts a lot of pressure on our R&D team.
Promag: What about patents?
Dr Kramer: We sometimes sue to protect our designs, but you can't 100% protect yourself, there's always someone to knock you off; so we're on fast forward and using rabbit technology.
Promag: Your annual conferences are well known in the industry – you seem to have found a way to combine business and pleasure.Dr Kramer: Yes, we always meet in a nice place, the last one was in Italy, the previous one was in Budapest, and the next one is ... I'll let it be a surprise for those who don't know. We have updates on all the new technologies, and lectures to bring in a fresh look about something new that's not necessarily connected to our business. People have to have other things besides work in their lives. The great thing is that it's like a family reunion, they hug each other, kiss each other; they're even nice to me. And that's what I like – the family spirit of Kramer, we are friends, not only business colleagues.
We know each other's families; it's a much deeper commitment than just buying and selling. The best thing is that since they know each other so well they are actually exchanging a lot of valuable information among themselves. They teach each other about all sorts of interesting tricks they discover, and this is because there is no competition between them. Each is allocated his own space, his own 'house', and they share information from other people in the family. I don't know of other companies who work that way.
We know each other's families; it's a much deeper commitment than just buying and selling. The best thing is that since they know each other so well they are actually exchanging a lot of valuable information among themselves. They teach each other about all sorts of interesting tricks they discover, and this is because there is no competition between them. Each is allocated his own space, his own 'house', and they share information from other people in the family. I don't know of other companies who work that way.
Promag: So what do you expect from your 'family'?
Dr Kramer: My world is divided into two types of people - the zeros and the pros, there are no in-betweens. A pro means you don't have to be the best, you have to give the best you can, that's enough. It's a bilateral game, you give us the best and we'll give you the best; and we do a lot for them.
Promag: You mean you take personal care and interest in the people who work for you?
Dr Kramer: Yes, my door is always open, you come in and just say 'Hi Yossi, do you have 2 minutes for me?' If they have financial or legal problems I will get a company lawyer or accountant to help them. I'll even help them with personal and medical problems.
Promag: So loyalty counts for something?
Dr Kramer: Yes, I had someone working for us, up to just a few months ago, and he was 94. He arrived when the company started. He said, 'I'm 63 – in 2 years you'll fire me and put me on pension.' I said, 'it depends on you – if you work well I don't have age restrictions'. So at 65 he said he wanted to stay, then 70 was his next stop, then 80 his next stop and then at 90 he said he wanted to continue. I said to him, 'hundred is your last stop'. He was our icon – he worked faster than 3 young men – he could put a machine together in the speed of light. There is a Jewish blessing that says, 'May you live to 120'. Moses lived to 120; the blessing from God was that when he died at 120 his ears and eyes were in perfect order. Live like Moses, it's good enough - the last 20 years you can have fun in your life. (Laughs)
Promag: Tell us about your passion for photography.
Dr Kramer: It's a way of balancing my soul, it's a creative outlet. I have an active website, with about 2000 people participating in my forums; I've written 760 articles on photography - test reports, news, essays; mostly in Hebrew, but I've had some of them translated.
Promag: I believe you're the resident photographer at Kramer Electronics.
Dr Kramer: Yes, I take pictures of our products; backgrounds for stands at trade shows; calendars...all sorts of things. If people need a shot we can put the new product in my light box at work and 3 minutes later the whole world knows about it. But they are technical photographs, and not as exciting as conveying the feeling of a sunset.
Promag: You've written about the difference between 'clicking' and 'taking a picture'.
Dr Kramer: With digital photography a lot of people have lost the border between them. Clicking is not taking a picture. There is a distinction between documentary photography and art. The first has nothing of the photographer's personality, their special contribution. The second is about the sensitive eye showing linkages of things that are seemingly unrelated. Like a painter takes a brush and creates something that wasn't there before, an art photographer will see something interesting and capture it so that the audience sees things they haven't seen before.
Promag: Can the artist ignore photographic technique?
Dr Kramer: No, it's the opposite; you must study photography all the way down and know the rules, then you can break them. The famous French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, talked of the 'decisive moment', when you link your eye, head and heart on the same axis and click the shutter. There's art in it and I'm happy to create something; show my views on something and hopefully get into people's souls.
Promag: But you've also broken new ground in the field of digiscoping - combining a digital camera with an optical telescope to record distant images.
Dr Kramer: With digiscoping you can count the hairs on the eyelash of an eagle 100 meters away; it's a technique I'm trying to master. I took pictures of the moon; you almost see the steps of the astronauts. There's nothing special about it, it's just very technical; but in Israel I'm a pioneer of digiscoping because my countrymen lack patience; you need patience to do it. You use an extremely long focal length and if you touch the telescope it blurs. Like many things in life you need patience.
Promag: Of all your achievements, which makes you most proud?
Dr Kramer: My family. My biggest challenge has been to raise 4 children; to nurture them into responsible adults who are happy in their lives; who have respect for themselves and the people around them; and who understand the world. And to do all that without forcing them and being brutal to them. That's a much bigger challenge than just making electronic boxes. Together with my wife Hannah we did it. They've all grown up happy kids, not touching drugs; and doing what they feel is their calling. This is my biggest achievement.
Promag: What are your impressions so far of this country?
Dr Kramer: This is my first time in South Africa, and my second time in Africa. (I went on safari to Tanzania with a group of photographers; that was a real kick). You have an absolutely beautiful country: big, beautiful, rich and interesting. After Kruger I plan to come back here...if I see lions. (Laughs)
Promag: I don't know how it works in Israel, but in South Africa it's customary for women to have the last word, so Mrs Kramer can you tell us the secret to Yossi's success?
Hannah Kramer: Yossi is very talented. He's also really hard-working and focussed, and takes everything very seriously. He doesn't do anything without thinking, checking and learning the basics. If he goes into something, like photography for example, he goes into every aspect of it, the technical side, the basics, everything. He has a gift for seeing all the details and the whole picture, and this allows him to make the right decisions. He has a vision for where he needs to go, and is able to follow the path to get there.
Promag: And the secret to your long and happy marriage?
Hannah Kramer: First of all I think we are lucky and blessed. But there is also hard work. The Catholics say, 'Till death us do part'. That was our approach, and family for us is very, very important – we put a lot of work into it. Like Yossi says, if you work you get results; blood, sweat and tears, and lots of smiles and love.
All photographs by Dr Kramer.
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