But not anymore. Now we had something even brighter, even better. We had the new flexible OLED PictureScreen in prototype, like the ones in the windows of Gordy’s office. It was high-definition, low-glare, weather-safe, and it was way better than anything else out there.
Fenway Park was only the beginning. Fenway was the first bowling pin. Once I got an Entronics PictureScreen above center field in Boston, I could start getting them in other baseball parks, then football stadiums. Then Times Square and Piccadilly Circus and the Kurfürstendamm and Las Vegas. Movie trailers on outdoor billboards. Rock concerts. The Tour de France. Formula One. The Cannes Film Festival.
The Vatican. They had those huge projection TVs around St. Peter’s Square so people could watch the Pope celebrate mass, or the Pope’s funeral, or whatever. Shouldn’t the Vatican, with all their gold, have the best technology out there?
How come, I wondered, no one at the top of Entronics in Tokyo had thought of this? It was a true brainstorm. It was huge.
And why stop at outdoor signs? Why not indoor billboards too-airports, shopping malls, big retail stores, company lobbies…
Sometimes I amaze even myself.
So in a state of total delirium, I wrote up a business plan, an outline of how Entronics PictureScreens could take over the world. I did quick-and-dirty research into the drawbacks to the existing technologies. I found out who the biggest companies were that provided electronic digital signs around the world, since we’d have to deal with them-we didn’t have the infrastructure to put the stuff together ourselves. This was truly a killer application.
And by nine o’clock, I finished a draft of a memo that, I was convinced, would transform Entronics, save our division, and catapult me to the top of the company. Well, not the top. Not Tokyo-since I’m not Japanese. But close.
Now what? Now what should I do with it? Give it to Gordy so he could swipe it and claim credit? But I couldn’t just shoot it off via e-mail to the MegaTower in Tokyo. The company didn’t work that way.
I looked up as someone passed my office, a scrawny Japanese man with aviator glasses.
Yoshi Tanaka.
The spy, the ambassador, the conduit to the higher-ups in Tokyo.
Yoshi was my ticket. He was the guy I’d have to talk to. I waved at him, beckoned him into my office.
“Jason-san,” he said. “Hello.”
“Say, Yoshi, I’ve got this killer idea I want to run by you, see what you think.
He furrowed his brow. I told him about the memo I’d written. How much revenue I thought this concept could generate for the company. We’d already developed the technology-the sunk costs were already budgeted. There’d be no additional R &D. “See, we don’t need to bolt small panels together anymore to make a huge one,” I said. “Our PictureScreen’s going to make the existing LED display technology look like JumboTron out of 1985. The revenue potential is immense.” The more I talked, the better it sounded.
Then I saw Yoshi’s blank stare of utter incomprehension. The man hadn’t understood a word I was saying. I’d just wasted five minutes gassing on and on.
I might as well have been speaking…well, English.
After lunch I stopped down at Corporate Security and spent about thirty seconds putting my index finger in a biometric reader so the machine could learn my fingerprint. When I came back up, I went to Gordy’s office and told him I needed a few minutes of his time to tell him about an idea I had.
I’d realized I was going to have to get Gordy’s sign-off on my big electronic billboard idea, like it or not. Without his endorsement, the concept wasn’t going anywhere.
He leaned back in his chair, arms folded behind his back in his smuggest “impress me” mode.
I told him. I handed him a hard copy of my business plan.
“Oh, so now you’re going into product marketing,” he said. “We’re in sales, remember? Looking to move to Santa Clara? Or Tokyo?”
“We’re allowed to originate ideas.”
“Don’t waste your time.”
I felt deflated. “Why is it a waste of time?”
“Believe me, that idea’s so old it’s got whiskers and liver spots. That came up at the last product-planning meeting in Tokyo, and the Jap engineers said it wouldn’t fly.”
“Why not?”
“Not enough candelas or something to use outside.”
“I’ve been over the PictureScreen technical specs, and it’s as bright as an LED.”
“It’s a glare issue.”
“There’s no glare. That was the whole breakthrough.”
“Look, Jason. Forget it, okay? I’m not an engineer. But it’s not going to work.”
“You don’t think it’s worth e-mailing Tokyo?”
“Jason,” he said patiently. He drummed his fingers on top of the business plan. “I’m a change agent. I’m a Six Sigma black belt. I was schooled in the change acceleration process, okay? But I know when to give up the fight, and that’s something you’ve got to learn.”
I hesitated. I was crestfallen. “Okay,” I said. I got up and reached for my business plan, but Gordy picked it off his desk, scrunched it up in his fist, and deposited it in his trash can.
“Now here’s what I want your mind on. TechComm. From the second we all arrive in Miami, a couple of days from now, I want you schmoozing our resellers and channel partners. And remember, first night of TechComm is the big Entronics dinner for all the sales guys and our biggest customers, and I’m the emcee. So I want you in full battle mode. Okay? Stick to your knitting. We got a division to save.”
31
Kurt’s black Mustang was parked in my driveway.
I entered quietly. I felt suspicious, but also guilty about feeling that way. Kate and Kurt were sitting in the living room talking. They didn’t hear me come in.
“It’s too much,” she was saying. “It’s eating him up. It’s all he wants to talk about, Gordy and the Band of Brothers.”
Kurt mumbled something, and Kate said, “But Gordy’s just going to stand in his way, don’t you think? If he’s going to climb any higher in that company, it’s not going to be with Gordy’s help.”
“My ears are burning,” I said.
That jolted the two of them. “Jason!” Kate said.
“Sorry to interrupt your conversation.”
Kurt turned around in his chair. Grammy Spencer’s chintz-covered easy chair. Much more comfortable than her Victorian sofa.
“Notice anything?” Kate said.
“Besides the fact that my wife and my friend seem to be conducting an affair?”
“The walls, silly.”
I looked at the living room walls, and all I saw were the framed paintings Kate had collected over the years from artists the Meyer Foundation funded.
“You got a new painting?” They all looked pretty much the same to me.
“You don’t notice they’re all hanging straight, finally?”
“Oh, right. Yes, very straight.”
“Kurt,” she announced.
Kurt shook his head modestly. “I always like to use two hangers on each frame-that brass kind with the three brads.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“And I used a level. Hard to get ’em straight without a level.”
“I’ve always thought so,” I said.
“And Kurt fixed that dripping faucet in the bathroom that’s always driving us crazy,” Kate said.
“It never bothered me,” I said. Kurt did this and Kurt did that. I wanted to barf.
“Just needed a new washer and O-ring,” Kurt said. “A little plumber’s grease and an adjustable wrench.”
“Very kind of you, Kurt,” I said. “You just happen to carry plumber’s grease and adjustable wrenches and O-rings around with you in your briefcase?”
“Jason,” Kate said.
“I keep a bunch of tools in a storage unit back of my buddy’s auto body shop,” Kurt said. “Just stopped over there on the way over. No big deal.”