(funky music)

onscreen title: 3 US Labs, 5000 Applicants, 70 Interns

Young man seated at table: "Good morning, and welcome to IBM Extreme Blue. What are the top five reasons that make us Extreme? At number five, we have Team Environment and Involvement."

Cut to shot of two interns sitting in a messy cubicle area.

Ajay: "Hey Darryl, I had this great idea. Let's use the Apache framework with an AJAX interface to build a client-server model to join the frontend and the backend with middleware and build a new e-learning solution! What do you think?"

Darryl: "You know, I think that's a good idea. I think we could leverage the internal synergies produced in outsourcing that would increase the value capture of the brand opportunity producing a return on investment of approximately 500 million, 206 thousand seventy-two, which would produce a net value to IBM of (as Dr. Evil:) ONE BILLION DOLLARS! Let's go round up the team and write up the architecture."

Cut to shot of three interns clustered around a whiteboard.

Ajay: "I think we should a strategic RD interface and apply a machine learning algorithm to it so that we can integrate it with robots and really have a game-based approach."

Jeremy: "But I think we really need to implement SOA, so we can have JSR-168 connection to the portlets, using a WSDL interface. But something's still not right . . ."

Scott: "I know what it is!" (he leans in and starts scribbling on the whiteboard)

Jeremy: "That's perfect!"

Ajay: "Let's go code it up!"

All 3 interns: "Yeah!" 

They leap in the air & high-five. On the whiteboard we see an elaborate diagram of a tree fort.

Cut back to young man seated at table. "At number four, Extreme Fun!"

We see a montage, set to music, of fun lab activities. 

An intern sits in a desk chair holding a nerf gun, while another intern pushes him down the aisle between cubes. When they reach the entrance, he yells "drive-by" and unloads the nerf gun on the team in the cubes.

We see a shot of interns in suits, giving a presentation using role-playing:

Kevin: "Auuuugh! I'm just going crazy at work!"

Lifeng: "The pressure is on! Kevin feels like a banana in a room full of monkeys!"

We see shots of interns playing foosball, and a disturbingly large wall made entirely of soda cans. There are shots of whack-a-mole, miniature golf, laser tag, go-karts, rock-climbing, rafting, and Dance Dance Revolution.

Cut back to young man seated at table. "At number three is Project Ownership."

We see two interns sitting in a cubicle area.

Stephen: "We're on the first day of a regular internship, and we have great ideas about how to do our project."

Suddenly The Manager leaps into the cube area from above, and slams down a six-inch-thick stack of papers on the desk!

The Manager: "Hey kids, there's your project for the summer. I want you to finish steps 1 through 1000 by the end of this week."

Nashlie: "I think there's a better way--"

The Manager: "No!"

Stephen: "But we had this great--"

The Manager: "Zip it!"

Stephen: " . . . idea . . ."

The Manager makes the "zip it" motion with his hand again.

Cut back to the original shot of the Stephen & Nashlie sitting in the cube area.

Nashlie: "But now we're in Extreme Blue, where we have total ownership of our project."

The Manager walks in and lays a single sheet of paper on the desk

The Manager: "Here's y'all's project for the summer."

Stephen: "But there's no instructions -- how are we supposed to do the project?"

The Manager: "You own this project -- do it however you like."

Everyone smiles at the camera.

Cut back to young man seated at table: "At number two, Working with Innovative Technology"

Cut to a shot of a whiteboard. Some hands come in & start writing phrases on the whiteboard:

"E-Learning + Games = Education for the New Generation"

"DB2 + Web 2.0 = New Paradigm in Information Storage"

"Virtualization + Artificial Intelligence = Self-Healing Software"

"Global Workforce + Virtual Worlds = The New Office"

"Cutting Edge Technology + Business Solutions = Extreme Impact"

Cut back to the young man seated at the table: "And finally, at number one, it's Career Advancement"

Scenes of interns giving presentations and talking to executives.

Voice-over: "Each week at Extreme Blue, we have executives come tour the lab and hear about our projects. We also get a chance to network and discuss new and innovative technology."

Scenes of interns wearing suits, giving poster-session talks, and meeting Sam Palmisano.

Voice-over: "At the same time, we learn presentation skills and prepare for both local and North American Expos. At our North American Expo, each team presents to high-level executives, and may even meet IBM Chairman and C.E.O. Sam Palmisano."

Title on screen: "Extreme Blue Alumnus Juan Suarez, IBM Market Data Strategist"

Juan Suarez: "From Extreme Blue I learned that I can be taken seriously, I can take risks, and I can pretty much have access to any level of management that I want. So that gave me an upper hand [in comparison] to people who did not do an internship, especially with Extreme Blue, because I had that network, I had that confidence. So when I came in Day One, I was already talking to people, and making things happen, and my manager was like 'how do you know this guy?' or 'how do you know how to get here & there?'  . . . because you already have a foot in the door that people who come straight from school don't have."

Cut to Extreme Blue logo and URL: ibm.com/extremeblue

Voice-over in rapid-fire late-night TV announcer style: "Extreme Blue is really that extreme! Side effects may include: the ability to add value to IBM, the contribution of something new, extreme addiction to foosball, meeting tons of new friends, filing patents, [unintelligible] job, the desire to move mountains, a connection lasts a lifetime! Please apply carefully . . ."