Various ideas have been proposed throughout the generations in order to “westernize” Hebrew; for example, dropping the right to left Hebrew alphabet and writing “Hebrew” in latin letters. While most Israelis will tell you they are proud of their heritage – and their language – many will also tick off stories about how Hebrew has made doing businesses or briding cultural gaps more difficult.

What Israelis don’t realize is that the use of a “backwater” language, spoken by no one but themselves and a few million Jews outside the country, has been a boon – and has saved them from one of the great banes of modern western life, the plague known as “outsourcing.” This is mostly an American issue, but a recent face to face (or rather, phone voice to phone voice) encounter with the outsourcing monster on a recent trip to the U.S. made me realize just how lucky we are, conducting most business on the phone in Hebrew, with people who have likely faced the same things you have, and who understand what it means when the service you rely on is broken.

On my visit, I dealt with two separate instances of what I call “outsourcing telephone tag” – calling an 800 number (a free U.S. call) for service, only to be connected to service people in faraway places like India, Mexico, and even Ireland. Unless you’ve had to deal with a major service crisis – like in the case of the situation my hosts found themselves in of having a “broken internet” – you don’t realize just how service standards have fallen, ever since the jobs involving helping people fix things over the phone have moved abroad. Yes, it saves companies money, but it’s hell on the customers.

“So what,” you may ask. The people on the phone are just order takers who are reading a script, and they’re limited in what they can help you with (in one case, trying to restore a broken internet connection from Verizon, that help was mostly limited to “did you unplug the modem and wait 30 seconds”). Back in the days when 800 number phone service people were natives, they were also reading scripts. Is there any difference? Yes; the whole tone of the conversation, the agility with which the service person recommends solutions, and the willingness to help are far different when you are dealing with someone who can identify with you, as opposed to someone who cannot.

Not that I don’t think Indians, Mexicans, or the Irish can be empathetic, sympathetic, or willing to help. But especially in the case of countries like India and Mexico, it’s hard to expect the service people to understand what you’re going through, when they have their own problems – far more serious ones. When you have a problem that needs fixing, you expect that the “voice on the phone” to have a modicum of empathy for your situation. The likelihood of that happening is far lower when the person you’re speaking to lives in a tougher, less economically successful society.

It’s difficult enough to get your countrymen, who have “been there” and realize what’s at stake, to understand just how important a service issue is to you. How much more difficult – if not impossible – is it to get a resident of India or Mexico to understand your angst, when they earn maybe a tenth of what you do and has much more important things to worry about than whether you’re going to be able to connect to your online video chat?

As a “computer expert” (whatever that is), my parents, with whom I recently spent some time, asked me to help them fix their DSL connection, which had mysteriously gone down a couple of days before I showed up. Since I was relying on that connection to do some work while abroad, I, too, was very interested in getting it to work. After 15 minutes of checking, it was clear to me that the problem was the DSL service provider’s (Verizon). And of course I called the service number – day after day – with each person giving me the same advice, even though I made it clear that I had already taken all those steps before calling for the first time.

The calls to the 800 number all wound up in India (I asked), and when they couldn’t help, I was transferred to the “technical department” (in Mexico, also confirmed by the service person). Here I got at least some sympathy (because Mexico is closer to the U.S.?), but no help. Only after copious amounts of yelling, screaming, wheedling, begging, and crying, was I transferred (after six days of calls!) to a U.S. service center – at which point the problem was solved within 12 hours of their taking the case. Why? Because the person I spoke to at the U.S. center knew whom to call and what strings to pull to finally get the local office to fix the problem (G-d bless you Sheila from Verizon, wherever you are!). The second problem (also involving lots of wasted time and Indian 800 number phone answerers)  is another tale of phone tag woe, too detailed to go into. Suffice to say I do not recommend using Tracfone if you are in need of a pay as you go phone while visiting the U.S.

Like I said, this can’t happen in Israel. Yes, we may have surly service people and grumpy operators, but at least you can get through to them. And despite all the surliness and grumpiness, I have never had to go a week without an internet connection here. Bezeq, I will never complain about your service again!

“Trade” shows aren’t always the best place to get detailed information about the specifics of a company or a technology, but they’re a great place to get an overall impression of an industry. So it was with this year’s mid-May IVA show, coming after the traumatic financial events that have rocked the world in recent months. No doubt about it – Israeli hi-tech is limping as a result of those events, which have resulted in layoffs and company closures. Venture capital funds, meanwhile have become much more conservative in disbursing their largesse on startups; the performance bar has been set higher, so only ideas with the most merit – as in moneymaking potential – are going to get funded. It makes sense.

In the past, shows have been great places to score fun fan fare – T-shirts, hats, keychains, etc – all those little “status symbols” that show you “know someone” in the business (don’t try to deny you think those trinkets are cool!). But as usually happens in a downturn, the giveaways are the first to go; I was lucky to get business cards out of some people! Clearly, if we are to judge by the “freebie index,” Israeli hi-tech is in a major funk.

Without freebies to pursue at the show, I was forced to pay attention to the presentations and the technology of the companies attending; for balance, I sought out some investors as well (these were far more reluctant to speak than the tech people, of course, and demanded absolute anonymity). Thus I was able to gage the opinions of several people on the investing side of things, including one (very) heavy-hitter.

To tie these diverse observations together: It’s possible that next year’s freebie index will be somewhat improved, as investors are itching (at least one told me) to get back in the game, and if the recent good news on the stock markets continues, investors will feel more confident to invest in some of the technologies that clearly are going to have a major impact on the way we live, when they finally come to market. And those technologies are definitely worth investing in!

First, the technologies: At the show, I spent a lot of time in the area called the “Startup Pavilion,” where the real bootstrap companies hang out (as opposed to the more established startups that were presenting in the show’s sessions). Among the very cool companies I came across were: InphoDrive (http://inphodrive.com/), which is developing a voice-driven “infotainment” system for vehicles that will make driving safer; MobileRL (http://www.mobilerl.com/), which has a product that lets advertisers and media researchers determine with much greater accuracy the effectiveness of their campaigns; Leviathan Energy (http://www.leviathanenergyinc.com/), which believes that wind is a much better bet for alternative energy production than are solar photovaltic systems; and BioSpiral (http://www.biospiral.com/), with a technology that uses cooling & heating technologies to destroy prostate cancer, without need to resort to a knife.

I may have summed up their ideas in a line (because of space considerations), but rest assured that all four of these companies – plus numerous others – are doing unique stuff; VC’s would already have pumped millions into these and other technologies if this were 2007 (I intend to profile many of these companies in future articles). But 2009 isn’t 2007, as so many of us have found out in recent months (it should be noted that a number of these companies have products and services that are ready for market, and some are even working on ‘big deals’).

While trying to secure funding for a great technology nowadays is perhaps harder than it’s ever been, being an investor in times like these is no picnic either. VC’s are in business to make money, not lose it – hence their conservatism in matters fiduciary at this juncture. The investors just aren’t handing over the money the way they used to. But what are their alternatives? Sticking the money in the bank for a grand 1% return? It works for awhile, several investors have told me, but banking investment money is not a long-term strategy; they didn’t get where they are today by avoiding risk. Just the opposite.

This is where the strategy being pursued by many governments around the world, which are pumping money into the local economies, comes in handy, one major investor told me. “A trillion dollars is big money,” he said, referring to the potential deficit in this year’s U.S. budget, “and there’s certainly a risk of inflation. But it’s helping to build confidence, without which investors are just going to be too scared to invest in hi-tech. And we do want to invest in hi-tech, especially Israeli hi-tech, because Israel has traditionally had some of the most important startup technologies anywhere.” Among the people I spoke with were representatives of the New York Stock Exchange/EuroNext, who told me there were four IPOs so far this year on their global exchange. Considering where we were last October, it’s a good sign – and hopefully augurs a change for the better.

When things turn sour, it’s customary for pundits to push the “grim slide” theory – that things are bound to get worse. But keep in mind that some of the greatest innovations were actually first sold or marketed during recessions and depressions (http://tinyurl.com/cuwt8m). Sooner or later things bounce back – and no doubt some of the technologies that are going to be poised to help turn things around were right there at the IVA show. And I expect some cool freebies when those companies do start making it big.

Where do new hi-tech innovations come from? From the minds of hi-tech innovators, of course. Okay, but where do those innovators do their innovating? Usually, in the basement or spare room of the innovator’s house, or in cheap digs in some industrial zone, where a couple of college buddies get together to come up with the Next Big Thing. They certainly don’t come from large corporations that have a business model, and a strict, rigorous hierarchy, where workers are busy meeting performance goals, dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s on the voluminous paperwork required by the various layers of management.

Forget that stereotype, says Tal Givoly, Chief Scientist of Amdocs, which operates around the world and has a large center in Raanana; large corporations are just as capable of coming up with breakthrough technologies as bootstrap startups are – and maybe, in the current economic climate, a little more capable. “Sooner or later the economy will turn – and the companies that used their time wisely, investing in innovation will be the ones that reap the benefits when things turn around. As a large company, Amdocs has the financial wherewithal to withstand the storm – and we expect to emerge stronger than ever when the economy bounces back.”

But hold on a minute – Amdocs as a hi-tech innovator? Absolutely, says Givoly – as Chief Scientist, a position usually identified with technological innovation on a national basis, it’s his job to identify needs and recognize trends, and discover and promote ideas that answer those needs and trends. “Once you know where the market is going, you can come out with products and services that provide your customers, in our case, the world’s largest service providers, what they’re looking for,” he says.

But – Amdocs?! Yes, and yes again, Givoly says. “We’ve been unfairly typecast as a firm that deals chiefly with billing solutions – but we actually offer more than 100 products and services, many of which have absolutely nothing to do with billing.” Besides billing, Amdocs produces systems to manage contact center systems, customer self-service, mobile portals, operations support systems, and commerce systems for multimedia content, to name a few. For example, says Givoly, “we serve content on 60% of all cell phones in the U.S.” Indeed, the fact that he works at the job he does is a sure sign of the innovative, start-up spirit of Amdocs, Givoly says. “Not every large company has a Chief Scientist, and the fact that my job is to identify and act on future needs and trends should make it clear that far from being a ‘corporate dinosaur’ interested in perpetuating its business model at all costs, Amdocs is an innovator that seeks to meet future challenges, and provide the products and services tomorrow’s customers will be looking for.”

To that end, Amdocs recently hosted an “innovation camp,” where managers and employees from Amdocs locations around the world – along with well-known internet innovators, like Yossi Vardi and Jeff Pulver – got together to exchange ideas and concepts, seeking to figure out where the world of media and communications is headed. The gathering was as freeform as you could get – “there was no set agenda, as there are at retreats of this type sponsored by many large corporations,” Givoly says. In fact, some of the biggest ‘innovations’ weren’t even tech-based, but involved demonstrations of the talents of participants – with demonstrations of swordplay, how to make a “potato rocket,” and a musical band where every instrument was based on an iPhone! All with the idea of getting the creative juices of participants flowing. And there was a method to the madness Givoly says – by the end of the camp, participants had come up with a list of top-ten “hot” issues or ideas, which Amdocs will now consider in detail how to address and pre-empt upcoming needs.

Givoly wouldn’t give me the specifics of those trends (like a good journalist, I asked), but he did tell me in what direction he believed the internet/communications market was heading. “There’s been a clear trend on the part of telephone and communications companies to increase their value added by offering not just technology or methodology, but content as well.” As recently as just ten years ago, says Givoly, a hardware manufacturer would produce a device – computer, cellphone, PDA – and sell it, with the content for use on those devices supplied by others. “The Apple App Store is a good example of the change, and many service providers, including our customers, are working on ideas to sell applications in the same manner on cellphones and devices other than Apple’s that will enhance the digital lifestyle. In fact, we have recently launched an offer to help them do just that,” he says. Add to that innovations in instant messaging, massive multiplayer on-line games, social networking, and the way kids use media on their devices, and picture of a digital future shapes up – one that Amdocs is plugged into, and intends to capitalize on, Givoly says.

The current recession is also going to have a big impact on the way people do business; for example, electronic communication is already becoming far more important to many organizations. “Businesses that need to cut their expenses will be looking to lowering costs wherever they can. Video conferencing technology today is good enough to allow multiple groups to get together in cyberspace, but as dependence on teleconferencing grows, there’s a greater demand for quality control, ensuring that everything runs smoothly.” That, Givoly says, is a good example of how technology evolves even during bad economic times. When things improve, chances are that video communication technology will remain popular in the business world, and any product Amdocs develops now to help keep conferences running smoothly will pay off for the company now, and in the long run. “We have other ideas and offerings we are working on in response to the global economic downturn, with these, we’ll help our customers emerge stronger when things improve.”

Recognizing the importance of innovation, Amdocs has a number of programs in place designed to discover new technologies, Givoly says – such as Amdocs’ Open Innovations programs, sort of like “free agents” week in baseball, where the company checks out hi-tech startups and matches what they have to offer with the needs of Amdocs customers; some of the companies are invited to work with Amdocs and build a product that the company will market (last year, Amdocs reviewed about 200 companies). “It’s a win-win idea all around, because our customers get exposed to great new technologies that can help them, and smaller start-ups get access to an audience of large organizations they probably would not have been able to reach otherwise,” he says. In addition, Amdocs actively promotes innovation within the organization, serving up immediate investment to employees who come up with innovative ideas that show promise. “We have over 17,000 brilliant people at Amdocs, and despite the turndown, we’re investing in them, and in the future, harnessing the company’s collective genius and developing the winning ideas our customers need and want.”

Recession or no, Givoly says, Amdocs will continue to invest and innovate. “Companies have a choice – if they innovate now, they can emerge much stronger when things improve, but those that don’t are likely to see their business erode. Cutting research and development now looks good on paper, but is a possible sign of the coming demise of an organization”, Givoly summarizes it simply: “Innovation is not mandatory. Survival is optional. We shouldn’t assume survival is a given – it’s a choice.” Obviously, Amdocs has clearly understood this and is acting upon it – with ‘due diligence.’