A post I’ve been holding over from Last week. I’ve been waiting for a comment I placed on Richard Bransons - Business Stripped Bare blog to go live (still in moderation), I understand he’s a busy man so to keep the wheels moving here I’ve copied the comment from the blog posts page below.

On Twitter this morning (17th June) and a tweet from @sydney_sider caught my eye about a community radio station called Fbi radio. Fbi is trying to raise $1million to fund its needs and has been doing a few different and interesting things to get the attention of its listeners and some influential people who they think might help them.

And it’s obviously been working as you can see from the excerpt from Business Stripped Bare.

” I’d like to congratulate FBi radio for running a truly inventive and original ‘Ask Richard Campaign’. I only realised the full weight of their brilliant campaign when a charming, determined and soaking wet young woman, Georgia, swam two and a half miles from a neighbouring island here in the Caribbean to tell me more about FBi’s plight. Naturally I invited her to stay for dinner and for the night here on Necker with my family – we were right in the middle of dinner anyway! “

The efforts by FBi and Georgia have obviously made a great impression (hey who doesn’t wantyoung woman  swimming a mile or so arriving soaking wet to suprise you for dinner) with a commitment by the Virgin boss to help the community radio station with its fund raising - notice I’m saying here help them with funding, not give them funding, outstanding! Read the full post by Richard Branson here .

What I really liked about the response is that a $Million cheque wasn’t simply handed over (although I’m sure it could easily have been) it’s a classic case of give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish and I hope that FBi is madly learning all the fishing tips they can get from Mr Branson and the Virgin Managment team that FBi has been given access to.

My full response on the blog is below (hopefully it will be out of moderation at some stage) but I think this is a perfect illustration of how great minds challenge and motivate people to step out of a comfort zone and go for something rather than just provide it.

Carl Jackson - June 17th, 2009  

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hi Richard,
I think it’s absolutely the right thing you didn’t simply cough up a million dollars but rather offered prizes to help the current fundraising and other assistance to consult on fundraising and sponsorship opportunities for future needs.

A perfect example of give a fish and eat for a day but teach someone to fish and they’ll eat forever (as long as there is fish!) and I hope everyone at FBi sees this really is the best thing that could have happened.

If FBi’s product is good enough, with this increase in exposure, to get new supporters for current finances and they take full advantage of the assistance from Virgin Management the FBi future should be well secure.

I’m a Sydneysider who heard about this via Twitter - result I’m now listening to FBi - and if I keep liking what my ears are hearing (pretty good so far) I’ll definitely beome a supporter too.

Congrats FBi on a brilliant campaign a congrats to you on an excellent way to support it.

Now I’m off to buy an Island so charming, determined and soaking wet young women, can swim two and a half miles to see me.

Cheers Carl

http://twitter.com/tourabout

As a result of the things that happened last week I’ve been listening to FBi radio on and off and it’s a great radio station so I’ll probably end up signing up to support them. If you like a radio station thats rocking on many levels I highly recommend you check them out. If they can make a big enough impression on listeners to motivate Georgia to do the big swim and a big enough impression on one of the greatest promotional minds in business perhaps they’ll make an impression of you too.

What do you think about FBi promo?

Have you seen a great promotion?

What would make you swim miles ?