The great Guinea Pig search begins on Monday

I'll explain that festive Guinea pig in a moment, but this is your chance to exercise your right to democracy, folks.

You may never had the chance to vote for the demented Haggis who has ruined us all. You may never have had the chance to vote for the Belgian who will be telling us where to stick our Euros. You'll certainly never have the chance to decide which country we invade next. But you do have the chance to vote on whether I'm mad or not.

That inspiring preamble relates to what I wrote last week about my new Commonsense Marketing Programme. I asked people to say maybe if they were interested and also started emailing everyone on my database - so if you read this and are on that you'll have heard from me twice. Sorry to be a bore!

The reaction to all this has astounded me, to be honest. Hundreds and hundreds have replied - about 10% and as much as 24% open rate, if these things interest you - and we haven't finished counting. A few have just said "I'm in" before I've got the ordering process sorted out. But I should admit that this is not an idea that popped into my mind. I've been agonising over it for over two years.

The big problem was, as ever in marketing, positioning. I didn't want to offer yet another "Dream yourself rich in 11 minutes just like truckdriver Irving Buttswoggle did last week" load of drivel. But I didn't want to do one of those dire corporate things that induce catatonic trance within 20 minutes. I just wanted to do something like what I've been doing for umpteen years that would work for everyone from the lonely entrepreneur to all those poor buggers trapped in the great corporate desert who want to make things happen. In other words, make it practical, make it entertaining and make it relevant to everyone from top to bottom

And if you're reading this and wondering what the hell I'm talking about, go here and you can vote on the three elements of my idea

http://www.draytonbird.net/dbl/index.asp?em=drayton@draytonbird.com&fn=drayton

If you have trouble, write to my resident webloon, Al@draytonbird.com - we have had problems with folk on G-mail

Anyhow, next Monday I shall be asking for real live Guinea Pigs who want to try it for 28 days free to see what they think. I've already learned a ton from the comments of everyone who saw the videos - two people said things today that have made me change my mind. But I'm sure I'll learn even more.

So, thanks a million to all of you who took the trouble to vote.