No, I don’t mean the fashion statement - I mean the company! (har har, I know, bad keif)
The thing is - they did a tour, “Plaid Nation 2008″ and trekked across state lines from Washington to Nevada, and for little over a week, they twittered, they blogged, they filmed (they had a live van feed!). An ecstasy of social media and tech geek-ness. This is the first modern road trip I’ve heard of doing this approach, a kind of modern day Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters albeit perhaps minus the psychdelics. It just reeked of an awesome, modern day traveling social media party. Geeks on wheels. Nerds on boad. The kind of thing that makes me constantly ask “why haven’t I moved to the west coast yet?”
Ken Kesey and The Merry Prankster
In their venture, they managed to interview Robert Scoble (you know who he is, right?), Cathy Brooks from Seesmic and Biz Stone (of his many involvements - Twitter, Xanga, Blogger, Odeo, and Obvious) - a little wet dream of the kind of people that brand makers and shakers would love to be involved with (or pick their brain for a moment - which Plaid did, and shared).
Is this the first event of its kind? Well, not exactly. We’ve had these kind of “live road shows” (*cough*merrypranksters*cough*) but also a lot of faux reality shows try to mimic this kind of unscripted approach to topics and interviews, but this is a pure, online approach that I really want to catch from the beginning next year (they have a countdown timer on the home page! Keep your eye on next year’s tour).
One thing I definitely dig - they have online freebies - wallpapers, buddy icons and even the 2008 theme song up for download! It’s this little cool features that most campaigns miss out on (I don’t know why, maybe because they’re simple, quick and easy?).
So do yourself a favor - grab a cup of coffee and scan through the video interviews for a slew of cool ideas and information - and keep your eye open for Plaid Nation ‘09 - maybe I’ll be lucky enough to head out to the coast and catch one of the tweetups!
