Dear Holly, your terrific signature line "Winners make things happen~~ Losers let things happen." prompted the following memory.
In 1990, while working for IBM in the U.K., my friend Howard S. and I went to Nice France visiting the IBM Telecom Lab there, for a planning session for a really big Telecommunications Trade Show and Conference in Geneva, called Telecom '91.
It was such a big deal even COUNTRIES had booths!!!
(For example, the IBM booth had three stories and an elevator...and they flew in 900 Executives from all over Europe for meetings with IBM execs...must have cost 10 million bucks...)
Brits were in charge of "messaging" and came up with the IBM Theme:
"IBM - Letting the world come together".
Now, Howard and I were about the only Yanks in the audience, made up of a few dozen French and loads of other International IBMers...
So, we immediately (after we finished our uncontrolled long and loud laughing) stood up and proclaimed "NO F---KING WAY" or words to that effect...first because it was so passive, and second, well, once the French IBM Lab Director was informed what "come together" could mean in American English (not British English obviously), he nixed the theme immediately.
Whereupon, I suggested:
"IBM - Bringing the world together"
which became the theme...
There are a hundred other stories surrounding this event, but I'll relate just one more...
Desert Storm (the "first" Iraqi war) was about to start, so we had to sign a release just to get on the plane from London to Nice before the conference, holding IBM free from liability should something bad happen! The war started during the conference, and we were within SCUD range, which was mildly alarming.
Howard and I returned to London from Nice on an Airbus that had more Flight Attendants than passengers. They had all 10 passengers sit together, over the wing, and then opened a bottle of champagne for each of us on a plane that could hold close to 300...
