This week I pulled a tiny prank on my Twitter followers. I found the Wikipedia entry for “link baiting”, and shared it on Twitter with the status:
12 A-list celebrities that look like chipmunks.
It wasn’t particularly malicious, I just wanted to see what would happen. I wanted to see if those ridiculous blog post titles actually work. Not unsurprisingly, they do. I got quite a few clicks.
Some people might call this a type of market research. I call it exploration and mischief.
I think it’s important if you hope to make a difference that you explore a bit. Try new things out. Create a bit of mischief just to see what will happen. Poke a hornets nest and see what comes out. I might have lost a little bit of credibility with a few people, but I think most people got the joke.
I had a professor in college that required us to write chapter reviews each week. He required one page. If we had one line less, we’d get less points for the chapter review.
I got the feeling after my third class with him that he didn’t actually read these chapter reviews. So I decided I’d try something. I buried a sentence in the chapter review that said, “I don’t think you really read these.” I got it back with full points.
So next week I got a bit braver. I wrote a story. Full marks. I’m pretty sure I got some of my most creative writing done that semester with all my chapter reviews.
A learned a bit about education that semester. I learned a bit about that professor. But I also learned a bit about creative writing. It was a worthy experiment.
I challenge you…look for ways to explore. Look for ways to be a bit mischievous. You might learn something cool.