This is what passes for fun these days -- let's see how these interwebs really work...  I reported a few weeks ago that LinkedIn actually works, in that I was able to connect to a person I did not know that was three or four 'degrees' away from me, for the purposes of striking up a conversation about life after getting an MBA. (A post that seems to have disappeared into the ether... odd.)

For our EMBA "Action Learning Project" this semester, we are looking at the marketing strategy and some potential tactics for one of my colleagues firms.  We wanted to unleash a viral marketing effort, but at the same time we knew the message had to hit a fairly specific group of hard to reach executives that would ultimately be the decision-makers. 

A viral campaign is fine if you want to reach out to everybody and their brother -- a classic example is JibJab, which circluated to just about everybody on the net, and then mutated and crossed the web/tv chasm to be featured on CNN and the Today Show.  Now THAT's viral.

But we struggled with how to reach the specific targets with a viral campaign.  The allusion I made was "how could you give Bill Gates a cold?"  You could spread the cold virus to as many people as possible that you think Bill would come in contact with, but most of us don't have access to Steve Ballmer either, and if either one of them demonstrates decent hygene Bill will never get your cold. 

Now does Bill ever suffer from a cold or the flu?  I'm sure he does, just like everyone else.  I'm sure he saw the JibJab bits too, at least when the first one hit it big.  But your virus has got to be that big in order to reach those kind of people, and I don't know of anyone that has been able to engineer an ideavirus that effectively.

OK, so enough about BillG, let's try a variation...  I want Dennis VanDusen to read this post.  I met Dennis on a project a few jobs ago, and I've been thinking about looking him up and finding out what he's up to, filling him in on my MBA progress (something he advised me about some seven years ago), that kind of thing.  I went to his web site and got his email address, and I could email him, but I'd rather see how long it would take for this message to get to him.

Some ground rules -- if you know me and you happen to know him or can figure out his web site address, don't just forward this to him.  I'd like a new reader, somebody that I have never actually met but who knows Dennis (or knows someone who knows him, or at least has heard of him), to make the re-introduction.

So Dennis, when you read this, please let me know in the comments.  If this works, next time I'll reach out to BillG.

Tags: ideavirus, vandusen