Walton's mountain

Talk about TV I never thought I'd find fascinating. A show on CNBC about ... drumroll, please ... Wal-Mart. It's called The Age of Wal-Mart and it covers the innovation, the success and the negative headlines of this massive corporation.

First I watched, mouth agape, as smock-clad managers filed off of buses, filled an auditorium and did the Wal-Mart cheer. It was like a revival. People so revved up at 7 a.m. -- kind of astounding.

The technology Wal-Mart uses to gauge consumer habits and stock and all sorts of other things is also impressive. For example, if a hurricane is due to hit a particular area, data shows people buy a lot of strawberry Pop Tarts so they track the weather and stock up in relevant areas.

Perhaps most interesting to me was seeing the location in Bentonville, Arkansas where people can pitch their products in hopes Wal-Mart will want to stock them. There were over 50 rooms where people were pitching things, what one guy called "the Super Bowl" for someone trying to sell a product. So much hope in this segment, as people laid their creativity and innovation and finances on the line.

That's a lot of power.