Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The 3^3 Project

Charlie Hoehn just posted about his 3^3 Project:

“Over the year, we all discovered new things that we now love and recommend to everyone. Restaurants, food, movies, songs, bands, books, websites, articles, Youtube videos, etc. We recommend them because we’re confident that they’ll enrich another person’s life in some way or another. This is genuine word-of-mouth marketing.”

“I’m calling this “The 3^3 Project (three to the third) because you need to recommend 3 things, describe each of them in 3 sentences, and then ask 3 more people to join this discussion.”

“What I want you to do is this:

  • Post (preferably in the comment section below or on your own blog) your top 3 favorite things that you’ve really gotten into this year and want other people to check out. Your suggestions can be anything. They don’t even have to be things that came out this year; you just have to have fallen in love with them during 2008.
  • For each of your recommendations, you have to sell us on it in 3 sentences or less. No paragraphs — just a few sentences. Bonus points if you make it actionable by including a link, which will make it easier for everyone to actually see what you’re talking about.
  • After that, you should ask 3 more people to add to the list.”
He lists Delicious Bookmarking and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia as two of his favorite things, which I agree with. I made a Delicious that I update pretty often. My three would go something like this:
  1. Post-It Highlighters: These have completely changed how I read and mark up my books. Ryan Holiday was the first person that showed me how helpful they can be, and they have made a huge impact on my reading process. The ability to instantly find important parts of a book, or phrases that were especially memorable is easily worth the cost of the highlighters many times over.
  2. Google Reader: I was pretty late getting on the RSS bandwagon, but it was also something that has really changed me for the better. Collecting blurbs from some of the smartest people in the world is amazing, and Google Reader saves a ton of time aggregating it.
  3. Girl Talk: The first time I heard one of his CD's (Night Ripper) I sat in amazement for 2 hours while I listened to it twice. I can't describe how amazing it is to hear some of the most popular music today mixed all together with a bunch of classics, and to have the result be better than the original. The most famous example of his songs is mixing Biggie with Elton John (starts at 1:25). The CD's are meant to be played straight through, and they are free, although you can make a donation, ala Radiohead's In Rainbows.

2 comments:

C.H. said...

Hey Mike,

Thanks for joining in! I posted your recommendations in the comment section on my original post.

Have you heard any Norwegian Recycling? The songs they use aren't as good as Girl Talk but the mashups they do are really impressive.

Mike said...

Wow, I definitely never heard of him before, but I just downloaded his first two CD's. I love this stuff, it never gets old. Thanks for the tip.