Rewind: The Purple Goldfish Project celebrates its second birthday

Two years ago I started a small project with grand ambitions. I wanted to catch 1,001 examples of marketing lagniappe. I embarked not knowing how long or how arduous this ‘crowdsourcing’ task would be. Within the first six weeks of leaning on my network I had accumulated 150+ examples. “Easy peasy, George and Wheezie” I thought to myself, “I’ll be at one thousand in no time.” Two years later . . .

They say, “50% of the work towards achieving a goal is done in taking the first step.” We are currently at 930 on the road to 1,001. Not quite there yet, but the finish line is will within sight. Here is look at the slow and steady ascent:

Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from the past two years:

The Beginning – I wrote my first guest post on lagniappe over at Drew’s Marketing Minute in April 2009.

Drew McLellan has given the Project a bunch of examples and has been a constant source of inspiration along the journey.

Six months - I submitted the Purple Goldfish Project into a contest called the Burning Question.  The contest was looking for the next big idea to spark a revolution in marketing. Grand Prize was a trip to France for the Cannes Lion International Advertising Festival. Low and behold the Project was a winner.

1 Year – During my first year of the Project I decided to syndicate my blog at CustomerThink. CustomerThink is the world’s leading global online community covering Customer Relationship Management, Customer Experience Management and Social Business. Each month, the site reaches 200,000 subscribers and visitors from 200 countries via email, RSS, LinkedIn and Twitter. One of the highlights of my first year was becoming a Top 25 author on the site. My posts have been received nearly 300,000 views. Two weeks ago I became the #1 ranked author for the site.

18 months - When I started the Project, I decided that I needed to provide my own little lagniappe.  For each example I received I would donate a non perishable to the Thomas Merton Center . The Center is a soup kitchen in Bridgeport, CT that not only provides food, but other programs that help people move out of poverty to become self sufficient. So far I’ve dropped off 700 items. Looking forward to delivering the last bundle over the holidays.

Thank You’s - There a ton of people who’ve helped in different ways over the last 2 years. Jennifer Phelps (my lovely wife who has been a constant source of support), Jack Campisi (my co-pilot on the video podcast), Bob Gilbreath (author of ‘Next Evolution of Marketing‘, Lisa Petrilli of C-Level Strategies, Steve Curtin @enthused, Phil Gerbyshak,  Lou Imbriano (author of Winning the Customer), Bob Thompson of CustomerThink, Kevin vonDuuglass-ittu, Denise Barlow, James Sorenson, Barry Dalton, Eric Jacques, Joe Sorge of AJ Bombers, Linda Ireland of Aveus, Ted Coine, Susan Borst, Tim Sanchez, Jim Joseph (author of The Experience Effect), JB Hester of UNC, Sarah Gore at STANCE, Albert Maruggi at Provident Partners, Barry Moltz, Jed Langdon and the whole crew at Synergy Events.

Next 60 days – My hope is to reach 1,001 by the end of the year. We’re within 2 months of the publishing date of “What’s Your Purple Goldfish?” . On January 11, 2012 the book will launch. The book contains 3 sections and 24 chapters.

Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra thrown in for good measure) – Here’s a sneak preview of the book: