What’s this all about you ask? Well, before you jump to conclusions, I must ruin the surprise by telling you that I don’t intend to go a month without the help of some ‘ginch.’

Instead, I use that headline to get your attention, to tell you about my latest side project. I’ve created a blog to chronicle my Dad’s current West Coast adventure from Powell River, BC, Canada, all the way south to Mexico, on his pedal bike with a handful of his friends. This is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my dad didn’t even own a bike until a few years ago, and he’s asthmatic. As for the title, you’ll have to click through to the site to read more.

So, here we have this cute blog about six middle-aged guys going on the adventure of a lifetime. But that’s not the whole story. I held back from writing this until I had a chance to get a feel for what the success rate of thing would be, especially since we plan to write a book about their adventures after they return.

(The six heroes of this story. My dad is third from the right)

Well, I can honestly say it has been a tremendous success thus far. This is the true meaning of blogging, I have discovered. We’re getting comments from people as far aways as Australia and France, and from such people as my Great Aunts and my Grandma! Needless to say, these folks had never been on a blog before this.

In fact, people from all over the small town of Powell River, BC are dropping in to comment. Dozens each day (although the photo page is just as popular for commenting as any given post is, for some reason). Wives and kids are leaving messages for their fathers, as a way of staying in touch. New photos are being emailed to me everyday and getting promptly uploaded to the Flickr account I set up. The guys are phoning in their updates and sending emails knowing they are becoming pseudo-celebs in the process. And for me, the whole thing has been a whole helluva lot of fun.

So if I could ask one thing, it would be to drop by the site and leave a comment for these unlikely heroes. They’d love to hear from you, and at this stage of the journey (over half way!) every little bit of encouragement helps. Also, when the books comes out, you can bet I’ll be flogging copies on here, and part of the proceeds will go to benefit the BC Lung Association, their charity of choice. Check out the site, read the about page and some of the posts I’ve written, but most of all, check out the comments that have been pouring in since a few days ago when I set it all up.

This is word of mouth in action, and I’m just thrilled.

Sean Moffit of Buzz Canuck and TheInfluencers.ca has generated a list called The Power 50: Canada’s 50 Brilliantly Crazy & Enlightened Marketing/Media Bloggers. And we’re on the list! This is a huge honour (Canadian spelling today, thank you very much), just as it was to be selected for the Top 20 Canadian Word of Mouth Blogs.

I am very flattered that Sean has chosen to put my blog among this list of Canadian Media bloggers, but I am also just glad that such a list exists. There are a lot of great blogs on the list, and I suggest you click through them and find a few new gems to subscribe to and add to your list of feeds. I know I will.

So here you are; the list of the Power 50, in no particular order:

The Crazy & Enlightened Marketing/Media Canuck Bloggers

• Amber Mac with Amber MacArthur
• Inside PR with Terry Fallis and David Jones
• Student PR with Chris Clarke
• Webwalker with Douglas Walker
• PR Girlz from the femme fatales at Thornley Fallis
• Participation Highway with Dave Carter
• Inside the CBC with Tod Maffin
• Niblettes
• H&K with Lisa Walker
• Networks (H&K) with Ted Graham
• Social Signal with Alexandra Samuel
• The New Pr with Ryan Anderson
• Flack Life with Bob LeDrew
• Green Hat with Julie Giles
• Trafcom news with Donna Papcosta
• Marc Snyder (en Francais)
• PR Measure with Howard Oliver
• Martin Hofman
• Flackadelic with Leona Hobbs
• Brendan Hodgson (H&K)
• Boyd Neil (H&K)
• Ad Hack with James Sherrett
• Chroma with Constantino Demopoulos
• Mutually Inclusive PR with Eric Eggertson
• Profectio with Dave Forde
• Canadian Marketing Association Blog ( A Collective)
• Sweet Mantra with Bill Sweetman
• Steve Hardy at Creative Generalist
• Michel Leblanc (en Francais)
• Experience The Message w/ Max Lenderman
• Blogging me Blogging You with Ed lee
• Horse, Pig, Cow with Tara Hunt
• This Blog Sits at the…with Grant McCracken
• Malcolm Galdwell
• Mark Evans
• Matthew Ingram
• Stuart Macdonald
• Buzz Marketing with Blogs with Susannah Gardner
• Tell Ten Friends with Jordan Behan
• Customer Experience Crossroads with Susan Abbott
• Darren Barefoot.com with Darren Barefoot
• 3i with Tamera Kremer
• ProPR with Joe Thornley
• One Degree with Ken Schafer and Company
• Podonomics with Leesa Barnes
• Home is Where You Hang Your @ with Michael Fergusson
• The Client Side with Michael Seaton
• Twist Image with Mitch Joel
• Canuckflack w/ Colin Mckay
• My Name is Kate with Kate Trgovac
• PR Works

If you’re reading this because you too are on the list, or found us from it, then I am delighted to meet you. Please leave a comment to say hello; I’m always looking for new friends to subscribe to and share comments with in this massive, constantly evolving cooperative marketing conversation of ours. I’m never shy to admit: I get a lot of my best ideas from my fellow marketing bloggers, some of whom are on the above list.
Cheers all, and thanks again for reading!

-Jordan.

If you have to read the Wikipedia entry for RSS to understand what it is, then this post could change your life. And I’m not joking.

Even RSS pros out there (especially Blackberry carrying types, like my wife) will appreciate the fancy new Web2.0 tool that I am about to introduce you to.

It’s called The Simply Headlines Experiment, and I found it via Steve Rubel.

Here’s the best way to describe it (in my words)…

It takes the latest entries from your chosen feeds, ie. http://feeds.feedburner.com/TellTenFriends (hint hint) and it turns them into news items in a cleverly designed newspaper format that you can receive in your email. You have the choice of text only, or html, as you see above. Also, it has a bunch of feeds already set up to choose from (CNN, Reuters, etc.).

So all you have to do is take the feed address from wherever you see this symbol: and paste it into the program. And voila! You’ll get your chosen items delivered daily in your email. Sound easy? Go here to sign up, and if you have any trouble, just ask me for help and I’d be happy to talk you through it. Before you know it, you’ll have a customized Google homepage riddled with dozens of feeds, or like me your Bloglines account will see action from upwards of 100 different sources (I know, I’m a bit of a junkie).

The time to make a significant jump in your understanding of technology is now. This tool has been created for you, to help you bridge the gap into one of the most exciting things to happen to media since the first television flickered to life. Perhaps that sounds a bit hyperbolic, but bear with me. The true extent of RSS’ influence on the way we receive news and connect with both each other and of course our customers won’t be seen for years to come. In time though, the bulk of internet users will get wise to the use of feeds, and they will be incredibly prevalent as part of our culture. What I mean by this is, not just my brother or my sister but indeed my Mother will, in her lifetime use RSS feeds as her main source of news. This may sound like a bold prediction, but you don’t know my Mom.

Cheers all, I hope you like it. And I said a few paragraphs ago, I’d be happy to help you get this set up, if you have troubles with it.