Reading Linchpin by Seth Godin

Got my copy of Linchpin by 'His Seth-ness' this week and sat down today to give it a read. As usual it's scattered with the obvious and the genius. My favourite quote so far is 

"Art is original. Marcel Duchamp was an artist when he pioneered Dadaism and installed a urinal in a museum. The second person to install a urinal wasn't an artist, he was a plumber."

Well worth a read if you like the Godin schtick.

Would a Internet Marketing Book Club Work?

The idea of an internet marketing book club has been with me for a while, I've had a look around online and though a few sort of seem to exist none really seem to have taken off.

I'm a huge fan of business books of all shapes and sizes, so much so my biggest outgoing last month (other than essential rent, car tax etc) was my bill to Amazon for a stack of books of one type or other.

If you follow my blog at work you'll know a big focus of my attention this week has been around my interviews with two top authors Seth Godin and Tim Ferriss, I've been pleasently surprised about how succesful they've been and it's really set me off on my train of thought again about an Internet Marketing Book Club.

I'm thinking along the lines of

A kind author who's got a book of interest volunteers and gives a dozen or so copies of the book to get started, we send these out to some lucky participants and encourage everyone else to pick it up at their book store (or device) of their choice.

A few weeks later we arrange a nice pub or cafe somewhere, so everyone can meet up discus the book and chat with the author round table style.

If people can't make it they can watch live via ustream and ask questions via a twitter back channel

Plus we record the whole shebang for people in different time zones and to capture it for posterity.

Good idea?

Five things which made me smile during my lunch break

1. Realising I'm very nearly at the end of my Jan off drinking
Last year I took Jan off drinking booze and it was a nightmare, I've done it again this month and found it relatively a breeze. I'm cheating and ending a day early but there's a party and most months only have 30 days.

2. Crazy Journalists in the Sun
I very rarely read a newspaper (sorry Rupert) and if I do it's normally a Metro someone's left on the bus. Today I had a look at the Sun and it had two belters. First up they were talking about Rooney's 'decider' in the Carling Cup, they also had a picture of Bellamy getting pelted with a beer bottle, so they claimed he'd had a 'decider' as well. Boom Boom I'm here all week enjoy your steak.

The  second was slightly less amusing but still very impressive. Not so far from here a women killed both her children and made a failed suicide attempt. Rather than just say she killed her own flesh and blood, The Sun reported she had 'slaine' them. Who says there's no place for wordsmiths in this twittertastic digital world.

3. A Busker with an accordion
I've never seen a busker which hasn't made me smile slightly more in some way. If I were Gordon Brown (which would make a amusing fancy dress outfit) I'd pay for their to be a busker on every street corner, national morale would sky rocket and everyone would forget everything he's done they don't like...

4. The Whistling Workman
My office is above a restaurant having a re-fit and one of the builders keeps whistling 'as time goes by' but clearly only knows the bit that goes 'As time goes by' he then stops and waits a few minutes and starts again.

5. The reaction to the iPad
No doubt you've heard about it, but the split (and completely as yet unfounded) opinions of its great or its rubbish, and tampon jokes have brightened my day no end.

First proper road ride of the year

Managed to force myself to go for a proper road ride this morning, it was a chilly morning but much more fun than a http://www.suferfest.com on the turbo trainer in the shed. 

Forced myself up Mill Hill for the first time despite it being my nearest decent climb. I can see why they use it for the Brighton Mitre hill climb champs but two cattle grids were enough to put my out of sync. I'm sure a few more rides up and down it they wouldn't bother me.

Feeling cocky after Mill Hill headed over to Bostal in Steyning and had some proper suffer. Twas fun though