BRINGING BIKE SHARING TO THE U.S.--HUMANA’S GREEN INITIATIVE
After 11 years on my own I recently started working for Coyne PR where my first assignment is to publicize Humana’s Freewheelin bike sharing program that is coming to the Democratic National Convention in Denver on August 25-28 and the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities (Minn.) on September 1-4. Humana, one of the nation’s top health care companies, is teaming up with the non-profit Bikes Belong to bring 1,000 bikes to each convention. Bike sharing is extremely popular in Europe, especially in Paris where 20,000 bikes are made available to Parisians. With gas prices nearing the $5 per gallon mark here it’s getting popular in the U.S. too.
That said, Freewheelin will help the host cities in a variety of ways including making the bikes available to tourists, delegates and members of congress, celebrities, and media members. Bike stations will be set up around each convention city where participants can "check-in” and “check-out" a bike and use them for things such as riding from point A to point B, running an errand, or simply taking a leisurely ride. The bikes will be equipped with a CPU that will measure distance, duration, calories burned and measure your carbon offset.
We have held numerous press conferences in both host cities where we have worked with Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver, and Mayor Coleman of Saint Paul and Mayor Rybak of Minneapolis. At these press events we have been on every local TV affiliate and have garnered coverage in USA Today, Newsweek, The New York Times, Roll Call, CNBC, and numerous blogs and Internet news sites.
Recently, we held a press event on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. where four congressmen joined Humana and Bikes Belong to endorse the program. And a SMPR (social media press release) has been created and will be distributed shortly.
I have been working with the Freewheelin team of Kevin, Linda, Katie, Lauren, Jonathan, Chris “cool” Brienza, Mike, Shawn (BTGD), Stephen, and Kelly B, all of whom have made this program a success thus far.
Since 41 percent of all trips in automobiles are two miles or less, Freewheelin really does make sense. Perhaps I’ll start biking to Coyne on a regular basis. After all, we do have a shower at 14 Walsh Drive. (BTGD=Big Time Graphics Dude.)
The Top Ten College Pranks of All Time
The Top Ten College Pranks of All Time
The staff at the Museum of Hoaxes studied hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of the genre of the college prank to find the ten most worthy of immortal fame. The pranks were judged according to three criteria: creativity, fame, and shock value.
I found this list out there on the web and thought it was so clever/funny, I wanted to share it. My favorite is pretty sick but it's "#10: Bonsai Kittens" What's your favorite?
Mommy Bloggers Go Mainstream
As Coyne’s resident mommy blogger, I have a unique perspective about how to communicate with this hugely popular and ever-growing demographic. According to Katie Couric, who contributes to the New York City Moms Blog, 36 million women read or write a blog every week. Mommy bloggers are among the most politically active online groups as well, with more than 46% having contributed to a cause or a campaign. Combine that with the fact that moms spend more than two trillion dollars on their children annually, and it’s no wonder corporations are infiltrating the mommy blogosphere at warp speed.
I started my personal blog in 2004 as a means to share stories and pictures of my sons with family and friends who didn’t live nearby. My traffic has always been modest because I rarely write anything of particular interest to anyone outside my inner circle. It wasn’t until I became a contributor to the New Jersey Moms Blog, a sister site to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog, that I fully understood the magnitude of mommy blog networks. As someone who writes for a site that gets tens of thousands of visitors and attracts lots of attention from PR agencies, I get a sneak peek into how other companies communicate with mommy bloggers. The invitations and product review requests come in at a dizzying pace, and as more and more companies discover the power of mommy blogging, there’s no sign of slowing down.
I’ve also discovered a unique and tight-knit relationship between mainstream media and mommy bloggers. As the bond between mainstream and new media continues to strengthen, it’s essential for PR professionals to recognize and respond to the evolution. For example, the network I belong to includes some heavy hitters in broadcasting as well as reporters from high-profile print outlets. Additionally, mainstream media frequently reach out to mommy bloggers to find interview sources for parenting stories. In fact, shortly after writing a post about dads who refer to watching their kids as "babysitting" a reporter from MSNBC called and interviewed us about the topic. It was thrilling to be on the receiving end of a media phone call for once!
Need more proof that mommy bloggers are gaining clout with the mainstream media? Click below to view Katie Couric's video blog entry made exclusively for the Silicon Valley Moms Group.
My Job is Cooler Than Yours: Rockin' The Globe at Age 27
Too little too late?
The Los Angeles Times' Top of the Ticket blog has an interesting comment on Obama's response to the New Yorker cartoon supposedly satirizing his image, saying that while he had the right impluse to decline commenting on it because he thought it was trivial, that message didn't come across until he said it on a Larry King Live interview two days after the story hit. By then, spokespeople for both the McCain and Obama campaigns had released statements denouncing the magazine cover, which featured no caption but an article focusing on Obama's early political career in Chicago. The blog points out this late response as a major PR gaffe, because it drove press to the cartoon instead of dampening the story:
If the cover is so tasteless and offensive, why purposely call it to the attention of millions of Americans with a strong denunciation on an otherwise slow news Sunday afternoon? It turned a mere magazine cover that the Obama campaign would rather no one see into a must-see for millions. Say, the magazine prints a million copies. A million covers. But there are nearly 305 million Americans.
But as a result of the campaign-induced uproar, that image has now been reproduced and received countless millions more voter impressions than the magazine itself could ever dream of. It's been viewed hundreds of thousands of times already just on this blog. And, by the way, what was the Obama campaign doing calling the magazine, trying to get an apology, or intimidate someone?
[...]
Ignoring the magazine would have been ideal. But if that's not possible, what if [Bill] Burton [his communications director] had made himself available -- that's not hard to do with reporters circling like hawks -- waited for the inevitable New Yorker question and said something like, "C'mon, guys. It's a magazine cover, for Pete's sake. A cartoon. They think it's satire. It's a free country. It's sure not funny. We think there are far more important issues to put on the cover of a magazine, like the looming mortgage crisis that the Bush administration and its McCain cronies have ignored so long."
[...]
Without an explosive response, that magazine cover story would have been a minor one-day story in far fewer places than it was. In fact, even assuming the McCain camp's denunciation was genuine, both campaigns joining in added more gasoline to the fire, which to be honest doesn't exactly hurt McCain's cause. It sure got all the chatter off the Phil Gramm whiner stuff quickly, an Obama gift to the GOP.
Would that really have worked? Controversial political stories and provocative magazine covers have a way of grabbing attention and sticking around for a bit. It's interesting to note that while Obama didn't want to release his statement his advisors felt someone had to, and ended up releasing a statement that didn't exactly jibe with the message the candidate wanted to send. But even if Obama had ignored the cover, this is a story that bloggers would pick up and it would slowly burn its way to the mainstream media. How does one deal with a situation when responding would only bring negative attention? Many times the absence of a comment is seen as damming, even if the story is more complicated than that, and a long explanation would only make it worse. I don't think this is as big a gaffe as the blog makes it out to be, but his response time and style is something to watch, especially when added to what may look to be delayed responses to the Jeremiah Wright fiasco and those persistant internet rumors.
