March 25 "Fix this, please?"

I started the week by giving a presentation to an advanced management class of city employees. They were particularly interested in administrative systems, so I discussed the hiring, payroll, and budgeting processes in Seattle in rather excruciating detail. They actually seemed interested. Then I demonstrated some of the on-line systems Seattle has available for citizens, including the ineractive, map-based “My Neighborhood” application. They really liked that! My interpreter, Cho Jung Jae, pointed out that not many people in Daejeon were fluent enough in English or knew enough about Seattle to use this application. I tried to explain that I was showing it as an example of how a city government can leverage technology to deliver useful information to residents, and not because I expected a lot of Koreans to want to know where all the parks in northwest Seattle were located. I think the students were with me on that one.

Much of my work in Daejeon involves editing documents (brochures, surveys, speeches, presentations) so that they make sense to an English-speaking audience. This involves more than just copy-editing or even dealing with things like tone and nuance. Sometimes it drives some major discussions about purpose, organization, and overall content.

This week, however, I was given a catalog of products produced by Daejeon companies. The mayor wants to take it along and distribute it when he meets with Seattle area businesses in a couple of weeks. The woman who brought the 26 page draft to me said that the mayor was very concerned about it. “Fix this, please?” she asked.

Here are a couple of my favorites, verbatim from the catalog:

Organic Cotton Towel
Our Hanshin Towel co is producing LOHAS (Lifestyle Of Health and Sustainability) connection ability towel product that is becoming issue all over the world the latest as Republic of Korea towel company venture 1 specially, and has towel full text production know-how of 40 odd years and completes Italy and France computer automatic towel machine facilities in the world best and is producing world highest grade product with many patent and utility model

Solar Crystal Road Block
Features :
· Using solar modules interior LED lighting and EL Light. Implement the existing product as a color crystal greater durability Poet environmentally friendly products are very good night.
· My intensity of the exterior surface altitude geulhimeul minimize.
· To minimize contamination and discoloration caused by ultraviolet charge of increasing efficiency.
· No maintenance costs.

I’d probably buy one of each of these, just to find out what they are. Especially with no maintenance costs.

But no time for that now. I’m off to Seoul to meet Patti’s plane (hopefully, with Patti on it.) A few days in Seoul, a few days in Daejeon, a few days in Gyeongju (the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom) and then back to Seattle for her and five more weeks of loneliness for me.