Sometimes, you can Surprise people--shock them into spasms, actually--just by being nice. I know that sounds sucky, but in a world of bitchiness, nastiness, pains-in-the-ass and worse, the simple civil act of being nice stands out like a billowing palm tree in a swamp of skanky weeds.
(Reminds me a lot of what the late M. Scott Peck used to preach in his "People of the Lie" book, that evil was the constant and that good was the aberration...but I digress.)
With books like "Love is the Killer App" and "The Likeability Factor," Tim Sanders, ex-of Broadcast.com and Yahoo (how's that for a Life 2.0 pedigree?) has made a career out of "nice." In fact, in Ries and Trout terms, he "owns the word," I would say.
I saw Tim speak at at recent Power Within conference in Toronto and was blown away. Check out what he has to say at his site or blog.