Title
Good King Jerry and his dragonslayersCatalog Number
102770289Type
DocumentDescription
This story, published in a special edition of the "AMD Insights" employee magazine January/February 1987, told in poetic words and bold color illustrations of how good King Jerry established his kingdom of AMD and how he and his loyal dragonslayers defended their realm against marauding dragons.The following note was received from John Greenagle on 11.28.08:
"Wow! This link to the story of Good King Jerry and the Dragonslayers brought back many memories! I wrote the story and Scott Allen oversaw the production of the book. It all started when Elliott Sopkin and I were summoned to a meeting with Jerry at his office in Beverly Hills . We had no idea about the subject of the meeting – but we had just been through the “STAUNCH” campaign. This was Jerry’s acronym for cost-cutting measures that had been imposed: Stress Those Actions Urgently Needed to Check Hemorrhaging. Jerry said that the various efforts undertaken to deal with the industry downturn weren’t much fun: pay cuts, reduced hours, hiring freezes, travel restrictions, etc. He wanted a unique campaign that would be fun and would create incentives for employees to ‘slay the dragons that stood in the way of profitability.’ I believe he just watched the movie “Dragonslayer,” and almost certainly he had recently seen a Kellogg’s Rice Crispies commercial because he wanted a story built around three characters kind of like Snap, Crackle, and Pop. His characters, however, were named Rigor, Vigor, and Nimble. The story and the accompanying illustrations are filled with numerous subtle references to inside AMD stuff. Susan Tanenbaum wielded a fairly heavy blue pencil and killed several of my favorite lines such as a comment that the numerous dragons in Sunny Valley may have explained why maidens were becoming harder to find. Elliott battled to keep a lot of the good stuff in the story, including a line about being ‘up to your ASICs in dragons.’ The total campaign was very extensive and the storybook was only the beginning. AMDers who worked in Sunnyvale will remember a huge mural on the wall of the 915 Building with a dead dragon. I believe the mural is still there, carefully preserved under a new paint scheme. It was impossible to photograph, even with an extreme wide-angle lens. Anyway, thanks for providing the link. It was fun thinking about the good old days – even when the times weren’t so great! -John Greenagel"
Date
1987-01Author
Greenagel, JohnPublisher
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.Identifying Numbers
| Other number | doc-4910e90eea01c | Deprecated ITCHP Number |
