Hey There 30DC’s,

Pete here… and I have the honor of letting you all know that the much anticipated 30 Day Challenge Merchandise is now available.

You can check out the store here: http://www.cafepress.com/30daychallenge

We’ve opened the store today in conjunction with Blog Action Day, which is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. This years aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion on poverty - and at time of writing there are 12,039 blogs participating with an estimated audience of 12, 921868…

The best bit about the 30DC store is that all the proceeds raised from the sale of these cool items (including an awesome 30DC Flip Mino) contributes to the 30DC Kiva Account - and helps fight poverty.

During this years auction we raised a whopping US$7,776.50 for KIVA, which is fantastic… and you can continue to help this great cause and look very sharp at the same time.

Here’s a quick look at some of the gear that’s available.

Now a big ‘THANK YOU’ goes out to Aussie 30 Day Challenger Luke Martin, who created this awesome design. If you would like a wallpaper version of the design, he’s made one available over at his blog - http://designbus.net/

Make sure you check the store out at: http://www.cafepress.com/30daychallenge

Speak Soon…

Pete

p.s. There has been some more progress with the 30 Day Challenge Book aswell… We are almost at the ‘ink on contract’ stage, which means we will be finalizing all the content very shortly. If you have a story that you feel the world would benefit from, please make sure you leave your story in the forums at http://www.thirtydaychallenge.com/forums/thirty-day-challenge-experiences/

Tags: ThirtyDay Challenge, Merchandise

In Our Chicken Little World this week. I find a reason to just sit back and think “You Know i could have been born during the war, Dickens England, Lived in Ireland when all those pre-chilled out Danes came rampaging through. But no - I am living in 2000 and freakin 8 baby and I’m pretty darn grateful for that…

And this gem is exhibit 1…

You may not know it, I am a huge John Mayer Fan. Sure his music is great (well superb actually, a truly great songwriter) but that’s not why I think he’s great.

He’s great because he is a thinker, a student and has a true appreciation and deep thinking of the ART of being an Artist.

I put up a video of Warren Buffett earlier in the week and I think Mayer may be the Warren Buffett of Music

Stay with me….

Both are Students of fundamentals, I’d like to think that if i have a slight skill (sure sucking coffee up through a TimTam without breaking the cookie takes chops…but I digress) in identifying the common themes in everything.

Any breakthrough idea I have ever had has been one of transition - What if you took Real Estate Strategies and applied them to Buying and Selling web sites. What if you took the valuation principles of Graham and Buffet and applied them to web sites…

Transition of a fundamental is a smart thing to do.

Let’s take Johns Lecture

It’s BRILLIANT - if you know anything of music - he can encapsulate some core principles in a way that I have not heard expressed - Seven years of music theory training did not come even come close to the insights I received listening to this.

But that’s not the best bit.

What if you applied the ART of transition and say swapped out songwriting and thought the art of copy, or marketing in a niche…

I GUARANTEE you will go WHOA!

And that’s how you know someone is on point with  fundamentals. There are a dozen blog posts in this lecture - The Art and Science of Curiosity, The give and take of working with your audience (and let me tell you dear reader - we all work an audience…), Respecting the 1, The True Artists are Always Students,  What you can control…and more importantly what you can’t, The Love of the Process, The crucial nature of design…

And I bet there’s more….So at one level this is a fantastic lecture on songwriting… at another level it may be one of the better One and  a Half Hours you could ever spend…

Here is the link

John Mayer Berklee Lecture

Now here is the soooooo 2008 bit

How did a Mayer Fan in Melbourne Australia get hold of a lecture that occured in Berkelee less than 24 hours earlier…

Well I use Google reader to alert me to John Mayer news. So I knew John had given a lecture and I thought  - damn, I would have given my left testi….toe to be there.

Then a student called BASSGUY with an iPhone sat in the front row with an iPhone and recorded the whole thing, processed it (hey the audio is not great but boy it’s well good enough) and uploaded it to the net. Another John Mayer blog linked to it - I downloaded it to my iPhone and listened to it driving around today - it was so good it even made me take a walk as an excuse to listen more.

That’s why living in 2008 is not so bad after all.

I think I’m going to write a song now.

Ed

Tags: JohnMayer, Berklee, Warren Buffett, Ed Dale, Songwriting

Hi Gang

Usually I just stick to Internet Marketing, Guitars and, of course Fashion…

But today - I need you to watch something REALLY important. You NEED to understand what is really going on in the economic world. Make no mistake - there are issues - BUT- The same technology that we use to market our wares can be used to create fear and panic like we have never seen in history. I have a lot to say on this - but that will have to wait.

You know I just read Annabelle the story of Chicken Little, at the moment, the world is full of Chicken Littles

There are a handful of Foxy Loxy’s…

And Warren Buffett is the most benevolent and successful Foxy Loxy there is

You need to do two things…

1. Watch this video (and tweet your friends to watch it)

and

2. Pull out your kids copy of Chicken Little and read that too

Then Pass this on and make sure you get your friends to do it to.

Ed

Tags: WarrenBuffet, Ed Dale, Internet Marketing, Economy