ALS #IceBucketChallenge – You Could Be Next

It was a cold morning.

Joseph Jaffe challenged me. That’s right, he did. My fellow blogger/podcaster, founder of Evolution, and author of several amazing bestselling business books (like Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation, Flip The Funnel and Z.E.R.O.), challenged me to fill a bucket with ice water, dunk it all over myself, and then challenge three more people to do the same. The rules are simple: If you don’t accept the challenge and do it within 24 hours, you have to donate $100 to the ALS Association (or ALS Canada). Well, I did the deed this morning (video proof below).. and, in the spirit of the cause, I also donated money to ALS. I chose the following three people for the same reason: the ice water is freezing, so I put the challenge to three people who always give me the warmest feelings of joys when we get together… even though it doesn’t happen as often as I would like.

Here are the three people that I am choosing for the ALS #IceBucketChallenge: 

1. Susan Cain.
2. Seth Godin.
3. David Usher.

You have 24 hours to complete this challenge or donate $100 to ALS.

There has also been a lot of online discourse about the merits of this campaign, and questioning the brand association between ALS and dunking a bucket of ice water over your head. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is simple: this has gone incredibly viral and it has raised over $7 million for a worthy cause. For every time that the Ice Bucket Challenge is mentioned without aligning it to ALS, there are still many thousands of people who are talking up the link or what cause the challenge is for. From a marketing perspective, I think that everyone has done a great job by creating something different, fun, viral and time-sensitive that is raising money for something as important as ALS.

And yes, the ice cold water did knock the glasses off of my face!