Rocking out like Groupon founder Andrew Mason

Late last week, Old Taskmaster read a news article that’s sure to be music to someone’s ears. But exactly whose remains a mystery.

You see, the founder of the group buying website Groupon, Andrew Mason, was shocked by the number of kids who land their first job without ever reading a business advice book.

His frustration with kids failing to read business books is understandable. Old Taskmaster managed to read through Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management thrice before scoring an after-school paper run many years ago. It didn’t help to get those broadsheets out any quicker, but by gum I would have run an efficient, loafing- and malingering-free Wisconsin paper mill if I had the chance.

Well, Mason has now announced he’s getting into the music industry by recording a seven song album of motivational business music targeted at people called Hardly Workin’.

Will this record finally replace the Rappin’ Ronnie Reagan tape in the eight-track player of the Taskmaster Mobile?

Perhaps not. But in its own way, Mason’s album is genius.

There’s quite a strong possibility more people will read about this than will ever listen to it. It’s such an oddball story – the business advice rock opera – that it will almost certainly gain Mason a mountain of free publicity even if no-one ever listens to it

Of course, it’s also not too difficult to imagine a music video from a tech entrepreneur dropping a fresh rap verse about The Lean Startup by Eric Reis being so cheesy that it almost inevitably goes viral on YouTube.

So are you hoping to gain some extra publicity on YouTube or Facebook in order to boost your brand awareness? Don’t just whack your regular ad on the internet and hope people will watch it. Do something zany – even if it’s inherently awful.

Oh, and tell your younger executives that if they don’t read some business books soon, you’ll make them rock out to Andrew Mason playing a spider chord over Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

Get it done – today!