So today, for me, another first. I got to hang out and interview the person with the most viewed video on YouTube… EVER! Yep, that’s Judson Laipply (@judsonlaipply on Twitter), the guy who performed the Evolution of Dance video that has been seen, at the time of this blog post, over 120 MILLION times. Wow. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here.

Lucky for me, Judson was speaking today at the Online Marketing Summit here in Cleveland, OH. (Which, by the way, is an awesome event. Look for one coming near you soon).

So I found myself sitting in the front row for his lunchtime talk today to learn about his success and well, to watch him dance. So first, here’s him doing the dance today. And yes, he does the dance at the end of every speaking gig.

After the event I was able to spend 15-minutes or so talking with Judson about the business of viral, and Web fame and the corporate world’s lack of creativity when it comes to doing something remarkable. Here’s part 1 of that interview.

Here’s part 2.

I hope you enjoy hearing from Judson as much as I did. Here’s a guy who “just did it”. He had an idea and thought it might be cool and just went for it. Now that’s someone who I can relate with.

I found his presentation and his success story fascinating and inspirational. Visit Judson’s site at MightAsWellDance.com.

Back in 1994 I had a job interview with an advertising agency in Akron, Ohio. During the interview I noticed the President’s office wall covered in yellow post-it notes. And I mean a ton of them, all over the place, like wallpaper. “That’s how I get work done and remember stuff,” he said. I thought it was pretty cool, and it gave me an idea.

After I left the interview, I went to the store and bought some packs of post-it notes, and a big paper sheet about 3×3 feet in size. I had my wife, girlfriend at the time, who has unbelieveable handwriting write down a quality I posessed on each yellow sticky (hard worker, good designer, smart, etc..). We filled up the entire paper sheet with those stickies, creating a “wall” of my best attributes.

It was my resume in sticky notes.

The next morning I dropped it off at his office before he got in. A few hours later I got the call and was hired instantly.

Now, I didn’t take the job as I had another offer to join something called a “new media agency”, which I took instead, but that’s another story.

The point is… Thinking creatively and taking chances is a winning combination.

Do you think creatively? Do you take chances? I believe that many of you have good or even great ideas, but you are afraid to act them out. Why?

Jon Spolestra, my newest marketing hero, author of an AMAZING book called Marketing Outrageously, advises that you everyone should sit down and get a little piece of paper and write down the craziest idea you have for marketing your business on it. Then stick it in your pocket and just keep it there. You don’t have to show it to anyone if you don’t want to, just keep it there as a reminder to you that you can think in such a manner.

My advice? Stop worrying about failure. It’s going to happen, a lot. I’ve failed countless times, and been laughed at too. I’ve been told my ideas are lame and will never work, and some have, and some haven’t. But you know what?

I will never, ever stop trying.

P.S. Go ahead, buy that book. If you don’t think it’s amazing, send it to me and I will pay you for it, guaranteed. I’ll just give it to someone else. No joke.

ZE’s gone, but not forgotten. Well at least “The Show” is over, and yeah, ZE’s still around in spirit, that’s apparant by reading one of his post “the show” interviews over at Slate.com.

This piece is for anyone who wishes to learn how to be a successful online, in any capacity. Why? Because if you read it, you’ll learn just how accidental this type of stuff can be at first.

Ze Frank tasted Internet stardom early. In 2001, he made a party invitation of funny dance moves for a few friends. The invite went viral, and he had the experience of refreshing his e-mail to find 60 to 70 new messages from around the world. He was a network star, and the attention was addictive. The dance thing, however, was a fluke. The real challenge would be to create that kind of attention purposefully, from scratch. He quit his job and built up his personal Web site. He had a few successes, but nothing on the level of The Show.

This breaks the perception that a lot of people seem to have that ZE’s early dance skit was what propelled him into the world spotlight, it’s not. The “Show” is what did that. In other words, he didn’t stop when his first “hit” was scored, he kept pushing.

The Point?

The point is. You have to keep trying. You have to keep pushing. You have to believe in your ideas and keep working hard and doing what you love.

ONLY then will you have a chance at the success/happiness/money/love/whatever you desire.

At the very least, if you do all that, you’re doing what your passionate about, so even if you don’t become rich and famous, you’ve won already.

One More Point?

ZE didn’t get where he is today because he was trying to get rich. Think about that.

Mack at the Viral Garden had a great post about how he found some amazing marketing videos by some famous marketers over at Google Video.

I started searching through Google Video and found plenty of gems by speakers such as Seth Godin, Joe Jaffe, Jackie Huba, and Robert Scoble. For the other 99.9% of you that have broadband (ie, real internet), enjoy. Do yourself a favor, take a few hours out of your day or weekend, and give these guys a chance to make you smarter.

In particular, I want you to spend the 48 minutes watching Seth Godin speak to Google. Great stuff.

Lesson learned today? There are gems to be found for free on the Internets.

Here’s another great one from Jackie Huba, about Creating Customer Evangelists.

View, and upload your own, videos that can help you make money online at http://makingmoneyonline.magnify.net/.

The Big Brown Box project just went live. Check it out, in less than an hour of it going live, the big brown box has over $13,200 worth of stuff in it. Including a $1700 Dell XPS gaming laptop.

Want to put something in the big brown box? It’s easy, find out more here.

Here are the first four items in the big brown box.

Item #4: $10,000 Web Traffic Package From Jon At Wickedfire Forums!
Item #3: $500 Podcast Design Consultation from David Lawrence
Item #2: $1000 Professional Logo Design Package
Item #1: Dell XPS Laptop Valued at $1700

So What Is The Big Brown Box?

The best way to know what the big brown box project is, is to read this page.

Questions???

What kind of stuff can I send in for the big brown box?

What kind of stuff DON’T you want in the big brown box?

Am I donating these things I send in for the big brown box? Will I ever get them back?

How do I know what you’ll accept into the big brown box?

When will the big brown box fill up & what will happen to it?

Are you guys gonna just steal my stuff?

So if you put my item in the big brown box do I get a link on your site?

Got 10 bucks, an hour of time and a creative idea? Because that’s all it really takes to get all the media publicity and exposure you or your business could ask for, all for almost free.

Don’t believe it? I can prove it. This is a story about how I did it, why I did it and the results I got from it. You can do it too. What, you don’t like free publicity for little work? I know you do, read on.

The Setup

I live in Cleveland, Ohio, and I’m a die-hard Cleveland Browns football fan. If you don’t follow football, the team has not been good for close to 10 years with losing season after losing season… the fans stay true, yet at the same time, they get very disgruntled come the end of the season. The Browns had one final home game left in December 2006, on Christmas eve, a horrible day to leave your family to go watch a losing football team in the snow and cold.

The Opportunity

This is key in your strategy to get publicity and attention. You have to focus on what is a “story” to a news person. You have to have the awareness to understand how a news person or show producer thinks. They’re thinking, “What stories are available that are topical and timely and most importantly, interesting?”

Those are the stories they want to cover. So your opportunity is to create a story. You need to figure out an angle about something that gives that reporter a story, and then present it to them in a manner which makes it attractive. It’s not that hard, read on.

What I Did To Exploit That Opportunity

So I asked myself, “what does a reporter want right now?” The Browns are always a huge story here in Cleveland, so I decided that I’d concentrate on them and their final game in 6-days. All I needed was an angle.

The idea came quickly. I’d call for a boycott of the Browns game on Christmas eve. But wait, that’s not good enough. That’s been done before, and a reporter isn’t going to bite on a story that simple unless there’s a hook, or a unique angle to it.

Aha! I thought of a unique, cheap and effective angle. Something that could be done in an afternoon or less.

Here’s Exactly What I Did

1. I registered a domain name called www.fanprotest.com. It cost me $10 at Godaddy.

2. I built a one-page website on the domain and wrote a few paragraphs about how I was calling for a protest of the game on Christmas eve.

3. I recorded a short, unedited, simple computer webcam video at my computer in one take where I wore my Browns jersey and called for the boycott. Here’s the video.

4. I uploaded the video to Google and YouTube (free) and added the video to show on my webpage.

5. I looked up all the local television news stations in town and found their contact emails for stories, and sent off a simple email with a short summary of what I did and a link to my page to view the video.

That’s It. It Took Me About An Hour And A Half Total

I sent the emails off at about 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, and I went back to my regular working day. At 6pm I got in the car to drive home, and at home I was chatting with my wife and playing with my kids when the phone rings, my wife picks up, she looks confused.

She says, “Scott from Channel 3 news is calling and wants to talk to you about some fan protest story?” I hadn’t even told my wife what I did yet, hence the confusion in her eyes.

The Results

The reporter asked to come to my house to film a story about me and my website and idea. I said “when”, and he said, “now”. So less than an hour later, and less than 4-hours after I sent the email, I had a television news crew and reporter in my kitchen filming me for a story. That story then ran that very same night, about 4 hours later, on the 11 o’clock newscast.

You can view the actual story here on the Channel 3 website in video form.

Summary

Why did I do this? To see if I could. Could this be done by anyone? Yes. What did I get out of it? Well, I get to tell you about it here, and I get to prove a point that it’s not that hard to do.

Don’t let your highly paid public relations firm tell you this kind of stuff isn’t possible. The media is begging for you to feed them stories that are interesting and unique and frankly, helps them not have to work so hard. I’m not saying that the media is lazy, not at all. What I’m saying is that the easier and more interesting you make it for them, the more likely it is that your story will be picked up.

Anyone can do this, the key is concentrating on what the media wants and giving it to them. What I do/did is use online media tools and marketing techniques to create unique angles to get attention.

Sales Pitch Alert!!!! – Jim Kukral is currently providing similar type consulting services to customers who are looking for more publicity, sales or leads, or who simply need to find new ways to be successful online. Find out how Jim can help your business.

Happy Friday! The Wassup Project goes live, and the Big Brown Box goes live this weekend, stay tuned.

You know you want to participate. Answers to your questions below.

Question: How does this make money?
Answer: It doesn’t, it’s just for fun.

Question: What’s with you lately Jim, you’re even further off the deep end than usual?
Answer: I’m living my dream, where I sit around and do stupid stuff all day.

Question: Wassup?
Answer: Please go upload your Wassup!

Recently I launched a little thing called Kukral’s Top Bananas. Anyone can buy the top banana spot for $10.00, and upload a graphic and get a link.

I can hear you now saying, “Jim, are you nuts? What is this top banana stuff?”. Look, it’s all about having some fun and testing new ideas and finding new and creative ways to monetize blogs and get publicity and all that cool stuff.

But mostly, it’s just about having some fun. If it was about money, I’d charge way more than $10 measly bucks to become the Kukral top banana of the moment.

Our first top banana is listed below, or can be seen here. Thanks for participating.

Small Business Ideas Forum – Small business people come to share their knowledge, find help and encourage one another. A friendly place to discuss small business marketing, finance, employees, books, taxes, tech, you name it.

Do you concentrate on “fun”? Have a look at ZEfrank’s home page. See all the fun? He built his brand on it, in fact, his very first step to stardom was a fun little thing that showed him dancing like a moron.

People love fun. That’s one of the primary reasons people come to the Internet.

When was the last time you thought about doing something fun? Maybe it’s time?

Have you experimented with fun? Go ahead, share some examples of what you might have done here in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.

I’m available, check out the pic of me on the right of this page and find out more.

Or, just click here, http://www.caddyforhire.com

For years now I’ve struggled with recommending tools, services or guides that I liked because I always worked for a company in a brand management type of role. That meant that I was unable to endorse Internet related products.

Sure, I could pass recommendations to friends and colleagues, but that was about it. Until now. I’ve recently launched my latest website called AskTheBlogger.com.

AskTheBlogger.com is built for me to answer questions from anyone about anything Internet related. It doesn’t have to be blogging either. I’m most qualified to answer questions about anything related to making money online. ATB is also built to showcase my personal recommendations.

Let me give a HUGE shout out to the master Dave Taylor who has been running AskDaveTaylor.com for years and years and has been a huge inspiration to me. I know Dave will appreciate that imitiation is the best type of flattery, and as anyone can see, I’m not delving into his world of tech at all. ATB is totally different.

I should also mention Tim Carter at AskTheBuilder.com who has also made a huge impact on the way I work. Tim is THE master, and will one day go down as one of the pioneers in online monetization.

What’s Different or Special About AskTheBlogger.com?

When I set out to build AskTheBlogger.com, I wanted to make it different and better. So I have been working on taking what I’ve learned over the years from blogging and online marketing and combining them together.

Specifically…

1. I’m hoping to solve problems for people. The best blogs or sites solve problems.

2. I’m writing it very conversational and direct from my voice as to keep it “bloggy”

3. I’m only recommending things that I’ve actually used, or that actually work. No snake oil here.

4. I’m adding a very personal touch to every blog entry. That means a custom recommendation graphic and I will be adding a custom video to each blog entry as well coming next week. You can view a sample of how one of these videos will look here in this question.

I hope you enjoy the site and maybe even find it inspiring. As always, contact me anytime (contact info on right).

Oh yeah, and do you have a question for the blogger? Ask away!