Q&A: The guy who swapped a paperclip for a house

Over the last year, the utility of a red paper clip has taken on a whole new meaning for many Web denizens. That's because of Kyle MacDonald, a friendly, normal guy from Montreal who on 12 July 2005 posted the first blog entry in what would become a worldwide phenomenon: his quest to trade up, step by step by step, from a single, normal, red paper clip to a house.

It might sound absurd, but over the course of a year, and through 14 swaps, that's exactly what MacDonald did. His adventure culminated on Wednesday with his arrival in Kipling, Saskatchewan, where the town offered him a modest, two-story house for a role in a Corbin Bernsen movie, the penultimate item in MacDonald's progression of swaps.

Along the way, he traded up through pens, doorknobs, a generator, a truck, a year's rent in a Phoenix apartment, an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper and even, at one point, as he was closing in on the house, a strange trade for a Kiss-themed snow globe.

Now, as Kipling declares MacDonald honorary mayor for a day and welcomes him into its unassuming community, MacDonald has become a celebrity of sorts. His 15 minutes stretched on indefinitely as media from around the world took an interest in the story of the man who used a blog and a great deal of perseverance to do something most people would have thought impossible.

But odd as it may seem, MacDonald completed his quest and, astoundingly, cemented the deal for the house on the first anniversary of that first blog post. CNET.co.uk's sister site News.com caught up with him over the phone and asked him what life is like now that his is officially a success story.

News.com: Congratulations for completing the task. How do you feel?
MacDonald: To be honest, I'm kind of frantic because almost a million people have been to the Web site in the last few days and the phone is ringing off the hook. So it feels really good and I'm totally relieved. There is a point, a few months ago, when I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to pull this off and I was afraid I'd look like kind of an idiot, the guy who didn't trade a red paper clip for a house. It was kind of nice to have that behind me.

This was always about the journey. The house was just a marketing hook, really, to see if it was possible.

I have to admit that when you made the swap for the snow globe, it seemed like a step in the wrong direction.
I had the trade with Corbin Bernsen lined up, so it was an ace up my sleeve. I didn't tell anyone that, though. I just wanted to see the reaction.

What did you think your chances were of being able to trade up from a red paper clip to a house?
I was always afraid to admit it at the beginning -- like, I'm going to try and trade this because if you say something like that everyone goes, "You're nuts." So, it was sort of like when you get into a pool slowly, and suddenly a lot of people were going, "Jump on in, jump on in." Finally, I just jumped in and said I'm going for the house and that made it easier because then people knew I had a specific goal in mind.

Do you think if you hadn't had this worldwide audience you might have let it go?
If you look at the trades closely, there were times when I wasn't convinced.

I wasn't depressed, but I was kind of tired of this: I've been working at this so hard and it doesn't seem to be working. So if no one had known about it, I could have just walked away and it would have been nothing. But I would have looked like an idiot if I'd walked away, so the audience helped in that respect.

It felt as though the progression of the individual trades was greater than the parts.
This was always about the journey. The house was just a marketing hook, really, to see if it was possible. I made 14 trades and it's like collaborating with 14 different people, with everyone bringing something different to the table. It was never about a paper clip or a house or me. It was about the entire package. I kind of chose who I was going to work with and why. It was about people. It wasn't about making trades, it was about working together on and combining elements to make something good. I combined an Internet site with Alice Cooper, with me, with a red paper clip and with fans and it turned into this crazy video. When you start with a paper clip you have to be kind of crafty.

Now that you've made it, if you could go back to the beginning, what kind of advice might you give yourself?
If I was going to do this all over again I might approach it a bit differently because I've learned a bit. The advice would be to start small, think big and have fun. And I really think that if something works on a small scale, it theoretically could work on a larger scale. I traded a red paper clip for a pen. Why not trade a house for an apartment building? People do this stuff all the time. Craigslist, I'm sure, has stories that are better than this that have happened over time, it's just that they weren't communicated so broadly.