By Sean Sullivan Lagniappe columnist

I’m a guy who is impressed with someone who comes up with an original business plan and implements it well. There are just a couple of models in the world of media though that make me sit back and say “damn that is genius.”

The first is “American Idol” not just because it once a year puts Alabama in the national spotlight, but also because Simon Fuller’s creation is a widely watched show that doesn’t depend on big name celebrities to get people to watch. America tunes in to see regular people – even their neighbors – drop all inhibitions and perform.

There is another show out there that uses this same formula. This show, while not on network television, almost has the name recognition of “American Idol.” This show stars amateurs just looking to perform for America.

This show also introduces you to the talents of regular Americans from towns and neighborhoods all across the fruited plain. Usually the people, well girls actually, have come from across the country to a few select locales to, well,...GO WILD! That’s right, the genius of “Girls Gone Wild” is right there in the company of shows like “American Idol.”

This show that started as the vision of one guy with a business degree and a video camera who had enough sense to realize that 9 out of 10 Americans like to watch girls go wild. This basic need and Joe Francis’ plan to give folks what they were hankerin’ for should make him a role model in business schools across the country. It’s not like our country’s collective consciousness was aware it wanted girls to go wild, but Francis sensed it, down in mankind’s subconscious that we need to see girls go wild. He identified the itch and has been scratching it ever since.

Now that I’ve identified what he does, let’s figure out how he does it.

I see a command center not too different than the kind S.P.E.C.T.R.E used in “Never Say Never,” with a big global map encompassing one wall. Francis in some sort of floating seat drifts back and forth in front of the map trying to anticipate the next GGW hotspot. He studies the map like a geologist would a map of active fault lines trying to predict an earthquake or volcano eruption, but instead of seismology he is studying Wildology !

Joe Francis stares at the blinking lights on the giant map, identifying hotspots like Las Vegas, New Orleans, Cancun, South Beach, South Padre Island and Panama City and calculates and predicts where the next wild girl outbreak will be. He has to know before the girls do – before the wildness happens, so he can get crews there in time to document the action.

I picture him spinning about quickly when it comes to him and barking orders to load the copters for Club LaVela immediately. His camera crews must stay on a higher readiness level than Navy Seals to be able to react and get to the hot spot as soon as possible. Joe Francis’ uncanny ability to identify the next place girls will go wild makes him the most powerful man in the soft core porn business, and his ability to identify sleeper cells of girls who will go wild in the future and keep them under surveillance until which time they do go wild will eventually let him control the world!

Just his almost otherworldly ability to identify girls with the potential to go wild and then to foster and develop that ability all within an hour show makes him a true legend in the world of business.

Not since the Carnegies showed the power of vertical integration has one man done so much to change the landscape of an industry. Somewhere as you read this there is a girl waiting to go wild and rest assured one man and his empire will be there to video it.

Sa—Loot Mr. Francis, salute.

Sean Sullivan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact him at ssullivan@lagniappemobile.com.

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