Bum Marketing Method Update

I posted recently about how I was attempting to get my brother interested in trying his hand at making some part time money online. The first hurdle in this effort was to persuade him to take the laptop I had purchased on eBay back home with him. That actually turned out to be the easy part.

The harder part was seeing if he would actually find a way to connect the thing to the Net.

Not having broadband access in his apartment or even cable TV or telephone for that matter, really raises the barrier to connectivity. My biggest fear was that the Dell Vostro 1500 was going to turn into a sleek-looking paperweight. And it’s a nice little laptop that I became rather attached to while I was preparing it for him. Heck, I was very tempted to ask for it back if he wasn’t going to get connected.

But that would entail printing off and mailing a letter since that’s the only form of communication I have had with him up until now.

Yes, I know, it’s difficult to comprehend someone this disconnected. My brother actually takes great pride in claiming that he’s “off the grid“.

So after about a month had passed since his return back home and no sign of the Vostro being connected to the Internet, I had pretty much given up all hope. Then a few days ago, a small miracle happened.

I received an email sent from my brother!

I then checked my Skype panel and lo and behold he was online! I sent him an IM and we had a very brief, but informative chat session. Apparently he doesn’t like to waste time with text messaging, which is cool. Turns out he was able to find an Internet Cafe with “free” wireless access not far from his apartment. Of course, they make up for this with $5 hot chocolates. While he was there he took advantage of  the opportunity to make some small updates to his band’s free WordPress blog.

Of course this is a long, long way from even getting started with anything remotely connected to “Bum Marketing“, but it’s actually a big step forward. Especially considering where he was only a month ago. If nothing else, he can selectively connect into “The Grid” when he feels like it and as a side benefit, his family back East can save on a few postage stamps now and again.