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Your will is weak ... weak ...
By ROBERT TRIGAUX
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 26, 2001
Robert Trigaux,
Business Columnist
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Jack Welch is looking forward with particular pride to the upcoming 2101 Super Bowl. As chief executive officer of GE-DoCoMo-Nanosoft-Amazon (known as GE-DNA), the world's largest trans-galactic conglomerate with 350-million employees, Welch is betting big that the most-watched football contest ever will be the perfect event to unveil his company's boldest product line and new slogan.
Not only will most of the planet's 40-billion population be exposed to GE-DNA's latest publicity blitz, also watching will be the many interplanetary corporate outposts -- including the massive zero-gravity production plants circling Earth and its moon, plus the vast industrial and bio-engineering factories based around the universe.
Yes, this Super Bowl audience is sure to be an all-time record.
If only the first Jack Welch could have seen the fruits of his labors, the 2101 Welch mused. Way back, 100 years earlier, the original Welch already had turned a sleepy and lumbering company called General Electric into a finely honed money machine and also the world's largest company.
[Times art: David Williams]
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Proudly, GE never relinquished that No. 1 spot. Welch and his successors went on a 100-year buying spree that included 66,000 companies: several strategic small and mid-sized countries; Japan's wireless technology giant, DoCoMo; Microsoft (later renamed Nanosoft for its micro-miniaturized "nano" technology); and that Internet sales/arms dealer phenomenon: Amazon.com.
When GE-DNA's performance wavered in 2050, company directors secretly cloned Welch. They made sure the new Welch was trained properly to run the company with the same charisma, the same ruthless and surgical precision, and the same untouchable golf handicap of the original Jack Welch.
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The 2101 Super Bowl will be the new Welch's finest hour. After all, a GE-DNA military subsidiary won the NFL contract to build the slow-orbiting, gravity-controlled football dome. GE-DNA-designed space shuttles will transport the elite 300,000 fans who shelled out 20,000 farthuples apiece to attend the game. And GE-DNA owns the biggest of the 10,000 luxury suites that ring the TelstarVisaRolexMercedesMillerMcDonalds Dome rotating above the Earth.
Among thousands of pre-game corporate bashes, GE-DNA will host the most extravagant event of all. The invitation-only affair for a privileged 20,000 guests, held alongside the Dome in GE-DNA's personal executive space station, is catered by the world's best chefs. This year's party theme, Survival of the Fittest, has an added novelty. The banquet menu features creations only from the many Earth species long presumed extinct, courtesy of the genetic breeding farms based on Welch's personal hunt club.
Best of all, this year one of GE-DNA's own pro football teams defends its Super Bowl title. The opponent is a tough team owned by corporate arch-rival, MindGrab Corp. The entertainment behemoth, the result of mergers by Disney, Viacom, AOL-Time Warner, MIT (yes, it went public), and Vince McMahon's wildly successful empire of wrestling/football/sex/mutual funds/taco stands/political consulting is a close No. 2 in size to Welch's GE-DNA.
For the hyper-competitive Welch, this Super Bowl is payback against MindGrab, whose executives openly ridicule Welch and GE-DNA as just a fading example of "Old" New Economy.
"We'll crush 'em," Welch smirks and bets heavily on his Barsntaz.
Just to irritate MindGrab, Welch bought all of this year's Super Bowl advertising time. That includes the $50-million-a-second televised ads, plus the programable ad space on the goal posts, in the end zones and on every player's helmet and uniform. Company ads also will be beamed subliminally to attending fans via retina scans and low-frequency sound waves.
And of course, game announcers will preface every mention of a player's name, each play, penalty, score, statistic, scripted "offhand" joke, and any camera shot of drunken fans with the phrase "GE-DNA is Super, too!" throughout the Super Bowl.
The publicity expense is mind boggling even for GE-DNA. No matter. Welch is sure GE-DNA's new product line is a doozy and will prove an instant hit with consumers.
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Each of the Super Bowl luxury suites is unique and designed specially for the individual corporate owner.
* At the DaimlerChryslerWalMartCokeMarthaStewart suite, guests receive a parting gift of the company's newest vehicle: a 75-person, fuel cell-powered, laser-proofed HUV (hovercraft utility vehicle), including 350 cup holders and an interior of mauve chintz.
* Inside the suite hosted by giant LotusEater, formed by the mergers of Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and a dozen other drug companies, there are no windows to watch the game. Guests can choose from a tray of pills to insure they will "see" their team win. Fans always leave this suite happy.
* At the nostalgically named "Taj McColl" suite of Bank of the Planet -- the Official Bank of the Super Bowl -- invitees are greeted by an android of the bank's 20th century founder, Bank of America's Hugh McColl. McColl stands a strapping 6 feet 6 (a negligible exaggeration of McColl's original height, company historians shrug) but his toothy grin and Aw-Shucks delivery ("I'd rather be quail huntin'!") are vintage Hugh. Company executives still bow in reverence when entering or leaving the suite.
* The posh "Katherine Harris" suite belongs to the powerful Bush Corp. The multibillion-farthuple private conglomerate is proud of its history of family members serving as U.S. presidents, governors and CIA directors. The company got its modest start swapping Florida real estate, Texas oil and baseball teams. It hit paydirt early in the 21st century by cornering the market for high-tech voting machines. In an apparent inside corporate joke, servants at the Bush suite all answer to the name "Chad." There is one exception: one favorite servant with a rather wooden expression is known simply as "Al."
* The "Green" suite resembles a rainforest that by size represents one of the larger remaining expanses of jungle left on planet Earth. The suite is owned by 7,500 non-profit environmental groups. Their well-compensated executives insist that -- as repugnant as it is to watch the "grossly commercial" Super Bowl -- it is critical they attend to monitor the "obvious disregard for Mother Nature" around them. (This suite always has the highest liquor bill.)
* Of course, GE-DNA's suite is always an entertainment "hit" since company guests get to try out the company's latest military weaponry. This year, guests win points if they can penetrate that silly old missile defense system back on Earth known as Star Wars. Other guests can push brightly colored buttons on powerful genetic-engineering computers to see who can build the nastiest bio-warfare weapon.
In a Super Bowl halftime commercial, GE-DNA finally unveils the new product line Welch is sure will be a blockbuster: Nanotechnology that, company ads promise, will stop humans from dying. With just a few injections, microscopic-sized machines halt the body's biological aging process and start building a "New You" from the inside-out.
The ad does not mention that, eventually, only the robotic portion of the human being remains.
Not to worry. GE-DNA lawyers "persuaded" an overwhelmed Global Food and Drug Administration to fast-track such a remarkable new benefit for the human race. Besides, GE-DNA reasons, the quick and enormous profits earned from such a hit product will certainly outweigh any litigation expenses so far down the road.
That's a lesson the company learned from the 100-year old tobacco wars -- an industry still prosperous in 2101.
GE-DNA ends the barrage of new ads with the company's familiar jingle and a new slogan.
GE-DNA, We Bring Good Things Back To Life.
And now, back to the game.
Today's Odyssey
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