Last night the Hypercube audition process came to a close, and 50 Canadians received a free Cube from Nissan Canada. I wasn't able to make it to the Toronto event, but watched via Twitter as winners were announced across the country.

Congratulations to the 50 people who won, and I hope those who did not are still feeling good about their participation. If not, I'm curious to hear about it.

Certainly we are hearing from those who's auditions were successful, and they could not be happier.

My friend Kevin Grandia won, in spite of the fact he lives in the suburbs, and wore a suit to the party last night (going straight from his corporate job). Yet Kevin was successful because he demonstrated a number of key qualities, such as creative videos, a sharp website, and effective mobilization of his supporters.

Talking to Kevin this morning it was great to hear his plans for the car. This is where the next phase becomes interesting. Following along with the 50 to see what they're going to do with their new Cubes.

I'm the type of person who has a wide range of interests, and I make a concerted effort to defy stereotype and expectation. For example I've always been interested in transportation, and while I resisted the automotive world for the first three decades of my life, I've lately been fully immersed in car and motorcycle culture. In fact I've been watching so much of the Speed channel that I intend to write a blog post analyzing their programming. In Pizza Pizza locations in Toronto you'll not only be able to see the Tech Trends series I produced, but soon a new series called Motorcycle Minute.

Recently I've been invited to participate in an exciting initiative called the Hypercube which will launch the Nissan Cube in Canada. I'm friends with some of the folk at the agency behind this experiment, Capital C, and they've asked me to observe and analyze what I would characterize as the largest and most comprehensive open source marketing campaign in Canada, maybe even the world.

Rather than spend millions on traditional advertising, Nissan Canada is instead going to give away 50 vehicles to people who they hope will use those vehicles as part of their already creative and somewhat public lives. This type of crowd source marketing on a national and evolving scale is truly impressive, not to mention risky. Yet as a model for open source marketing it demonstrates a courage and vision that I think will be necessary in getting through and even thriving in these volatile times that we're in.

Here I'm defining open source marketing as a process in which a product is introduced and sold to a market without a central command or message, but rather by facilitating a grassroots campaign that is diverse in its voices, culture, and outreach. There's a radical transparency at work here that represents a new approach to selling cars.