Free State Native

Brainstorm

2006-04-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

I recently sat down to brainstorm ways to raise awareness for the Free State Project. Here's a cluster of ideas I came up with:

Find a farmer who would create a maize maze using the Free State Project logo as a design. This would be a fun destination for a PorcFest outing if it was in New Hampshire. It would be visible by google earth. How many people would prepurchase tickets to make this possible? It could be run privately with a portion of admission going to pay for the new "Live Free Or Die" signs proposed for the border. This would benefit all NH taxpayers, who would be more likely to patronize.

Get one of those penny-smushing machines that would turn Lincoln into a Free State Project trinket. Sell these at the maze maize, or a more high traffic location. Properly located, it could be a self-funding publicity machine. I'm not sure of the legality of this, so this might be controversial, for better or worse.

Create Free State Project postcards and make them available for NH businesses to sell. They would be seen by lots of tourists as they browse the racks. Those who have made the move could mail them back to friends. Visitors could make a point of patronizing those businesses that sold the postcards. A list of available locations could be provided on the Free State Project website for those businesses that wanted to be listed. One possible image for the postcard? Perhaps an aerial view of the FSP maize maze. It doubles as advertizing.

Thoughts?

Linkbait for Liberty

2006-04-09T10:19:00.000-07:00

If I had a Liberty Dollar for every hairbrained viral maketing idea I've ever had...

My Meta-Pledge for the Free State Project

2006-04-08T20:05:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I discovered the Pledgebank when I went to check out the First 1000 pledge for the Free State Project. I already live in New Hampshire and I want to spread the word and speed along the signup for the first 1000.

And so I've been brewing this idea…

I would like to convince a bunch of people to agree to start new blogs to help out the Free State Project. I just started this blog a few days ago, so I know how easy it is. We could learn together to use this technology to spread the Free State Project meme. The number of new blogs should be large enough that this would be a blogworthy event. I'm thinking that number would need to be 1000.

To participate, you pledge to start a new blog if 999 others do too. Starting a blog will only take about 10 minutes, and in the first post everyone would mention the Free State Project, and the First 1000 pledge. After that, its up to you.

If you decide never to blog again, that's fine. (You can always come back to it if you ever change your mind) You can blog occasionally, when inspiration strikes. Or you can blog a lot. It's all good.

Now, here's my question, for more experienced bloggers like here and here and here…
(Hat tip to Seth Cohn for that trick... I'm learning)

Do you think that 1000 new bloggers talking about the Free State Project could generate some buzz, and more importantly, have a long term effect on getting the word out? I do, but I'm looking for some back-up.

I'll put up the pledge on Pledgebank.org and continue to push this idea if I get 3 other bloggers who will help me. That's my meta-pledge.

Maybe there should there be a Meta-Pledgebank... Hmmm

Top ten reasons for porcupines to blog

2006-04-07T07:02:00.000-07:00

What are the top ten reasons that porcupines should start blogs? I'm sure there are lots of benefits that I haven't even considered. 10 brownie points for answering this question in the comment section.

100 brownie points to the porcupine who starts a blog and answers my question there. Try blogspot.com, it's easy.

Free wine for freedom!

2006-04-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

I started thinking about blog marketing when I heard about Stormhoek. That's a South African wine company that is using a savvy blog-marketing campaign led by Hugh MacLeod. Anyway, I'm not a wine connesure in the least. Heck, I can't even spell the word, but I have heard of Stormhoek (and can even spell it). Stormhoek is sponsoring 100 geek dinners in 100 days starting May 1, and they will be providing free wine. I've gone ahead and created an event called the Free State Bed & Blogfest which is #56 on their wiki.

This may be a longshot, but I will try and find a B&B in NH that will host this event sometime between May 1 and August 9th. We will get together, share ideas, blog about them, and jump on the Stormhoek wagon for some free buzz, er, publicity. Participation will have to be limited depending on the venue. Stay tuned.

Free State Blogging Campaign

2006-04-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hello world. I'm a native of New Hampshire, the state chosen by the Free State Project. I live in Plymouth which is a great little University town (home of Plymouth State University) . I'm starting this blog, my first, to help get some visibility for this project. I admit it, this is a lame first post. Can you do better? Start a blog, porcupines, and put me to shame!