Forbes.com ran a story this week by a couple of marketing-strategists, Marc E. Babej and Tim Pollak, on the surging popularity of Ayn Rand's Objectivism, a philosophy centered on rational egoism. Yaron Brook has been doing an amazing job running the the Ayn Ran Institute, especially in his drive to put copies of Rand's novels in high schools. The article calls out a tripling of resources since 2000 (to $7mil), but I would draw the real surge to 2001. I'm sure many people felt the way I did that September, that the ARI was an organization that could best fight for my values in a time when it seems to be so desperately needed.

But this post isn't a advertisement for Objectivism, rather it's about advertising Objectivism. The article is particularly interesting because it offers advice on how to improve the promotion of the philosophy. They are (paraphrased):

• Pick your demographic: conservatives who are fed up with the religious right
• Ask for help from those who already agree with you: business people
• Use traditional mass media: get on TV and in movies (Atlas Shrugged starring Angelina Jolie comes out next year)
• Be positive: state how things ought to be instead of complaining about how things are wrong
• Pick fights: imitate the Republicans by using wedge issues to keep people talking
• Use the Internet: communities formed around blogs are increasingly driving political debate, and now virtual worlds like Second Life are having an impact

These are sound strategies that would be advisable to anyone with a product to sell. I'd go on about how damn smart the guys at Reason Inc must be, but we are competitors after all. I'm just happy to read about two things in which I'm intensely interested.