Madness I tell you

And just like that, my perfect bracket is busted, – busted on the first game mind you.

I had Butler winning that game.  I usually do pretty well in the brackets.  I come up with some conspiracy theory and fill out the brackets accordingly.  This usually works pretty well.  This year, not so much.  Out of the 16 games played so far, I have only missed 3, but unfortunately the champion I picked was one of the 3.  Ouch.

This year’s conspiracy theory was that Illinois and Syracuse would play each other and that just like the Democratic election, Illinois would come out on top and end up taking the championship.  Well, last night 4 points killed that theory.  I usually don’t pick teams ranked less than about 3rd to win, but I made an exception this year. 

The thing about most brackets is that the further along the games get, the more points you get for picking right.  So now, everyone and their grandma will have North Carolina going to the final game and gain 30 or more points on me that I just can’t make up. – there is always next year.  Think of all the work I will be able to get done at work now that I won’t be following my brackets.  I will be the most productive employee in the entire universe these next couple weeks. 

This high risk, high reward scenario brought to you today by AIG.  You see, I insured my brackets with complex derivatives, so I will be expecting some sort of government bailout funds trickling through any day now. 

Speaking of Madness, and as long as we are on the AIG story, has anyone else read the employment contracts / employee retention plan?  All of these bonuses were guaranteed in December 2007 when the contracts were made.  So the employees were guaranteed their same bonus level for 2008 & 2009 that they got in 2007.  Wow.  Apparently there must only be like 100 people that can understand math and have built up networks.  The bonuses are just now coming up in the media, because March 15th was the payout date set in the contracts. 

But here is the question – how can you make money off this story?  If you want to build a brand and start a website, you can certainly tailor your website around AIG news and have enough material to post daily for a year.  I bring this up because per those contracts this is going to come full circle again on March 15, 2010 when the guaranteed 2009 bonuses are paid.  Remember, these are guaranteed bonuses based on 2007 results, so the bonuses should be very close to the same amounts.  Yep, another round of million dollar bonuses. 

Here is the idea: 

• Start a website (I would start a brand, so when the story dies you can move on to something else),
• cover AIG news from the beginning,
• build a Timeline of Fun,
• describe in layman’s terms how the whole derivatives thing works (yes, this can be done, I have seen it),
• report on the bills that passed in Congress to tax almost the whole bonus,
• report on the President’s response (he was on a late night show last night and commented on it),
• etc.   (there is a lot to cover on this story, read everything you can and formulate a concept, hitting on each of the news items at some point).

This daily coverage and explaination will hopefully bring your site to the top of Google searches for any of the terms associated with AIG and the collapse.  This ranking will then build your brand up, and you can cover other items in the news as well.  Then you monetize the website just like any other site. 

You didn’t follow the explaination very well?  Not clear enough, you need me to walk you through it?  OK, I am going to walk you through a scenario just like this on my Click Into Action website.  So start following that site and here in no time I will not only set you up with an idea, and a future event, but also feed you all the information to research and post about.  That’s right, daily ideas on what you can post about.  How’s that for handing you a brand?  Come on over, it will be fun.

Johnny Optimist – remember, the other half is full of opportunity!

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