And the Award for Most Creative Use of a Blog Goes To...

You guessed it – the red paper clip guy. About a year ago a man with few resources and a lot of imagination began his quest. He planned to trade one red paper clip for one house. Undeterred by the obvious impossibility, he traded first for a blue fish pen, then a door knob that looked like E.T. Just one week ago he make his final trade – only the 14th in this chain – for a house at 503 Main Street, Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada.

This young man, Kyle MacDonald, is a master marketer. He parlayed a unique idea into world wide attention, network TV interviews plus a new home. And he used a blog to record it all with an informal tone that had everyone rooting for him. Who doesn’t want to see the everyman score big? If he can do it, I can do it, right?

The quest had already been going on for several months when I first read about MacDonald on CNN in April, by which time he had traded up to a year’s free rent in Phoenix. (Sorry the link to that story has expired.) Four more trades and he had the house in Canada, plus a key to the city and a gig as Mayor for a day.

Now the copy-cats have begun. Good luck to them all…but they’ll never match the red paper clip guy for creativity and chutzpah.