The Luminaria Media Blog

I literally did PR at 70 miles an hour several weeks ago — driving over the Atchafalaya Swamp on I-10.

And from the parking lot of a Wendy’s somewhere in the middle of Louisiana.

And from a deck at one of my favorite Houston restaurants — which was unfortunately overlooking some rather loud construction, but the deck was big enough for my kids, who were stir-crazy and needed some good old fashioned running around and screaming time.

Part of this speaks to the amazing technology we can access in the name of keeping in touch with one another. I have a Blackberry, and without it, I couldn’t do PR in 2009. On my family’s trip back home from New Orleans — the Monday after Christmas — I was getting calls and e-mails and text messages about First Night Austin, the amazing New Year’s Eve event that allows more than 800 artists to wow 100,000 people in downtown Austin to celebrate the New Year and the arts.

In an earlier era, I would have been incommunicado for the length of that trip. Depending on what earlier era you’re talking about, calls or faxes or Usenet message boards would have been unattended as I drove home. The good news is the rules have changed. You’ve no doubt heard or even contemplated the pitfalls of being in Blackberry Nation — you’re never really “off” work, we’re addicted to information — but I’d much rather be where we are than back in the ’70s wearing out my dialing finger on a rotary phone.

As a PR practitioner, it’s great to have technology that makes information arrive instantaneously. It helped immensely leading up to First Night, and on the day of the event, it was a lifesaver more than once. (I’ve used walkie-talkies for event management before we all had cell phones, and believe me, I much prefer cell phones with text messaging ability.)

It’s not the easiest thing to coordinate interviews and generate coverage from a moving car, but I embrace any new innovation that allows me to connect media with good stories. Seeing this report about in-flight wireless makes me believe that sometime soon, I’ll be pitching journalists from a plane, and that will, even with the advances we’ve made up until now, completely blow my mind.

One of my friends and trusted PR confidantes, Cyndi Hughes, is currently director for the Writer’s League of Texas. Last month, I did a Book PR class there, talking to authors with book projects in various stages of completion, looking toward how they’d get word of their books out there. We’re talking about another class geared specifically toward what authors can do for themselves.

It’s a great topic. I encourage my clients to jump into social media to connect with new people and to strengthen ties with people who already know them. One of the tools I point them toward is Technorati — it’s a powerful resource for finding blogs around certain topics. Just yesterday, I was looking for Texas Travel blogs for a project I’m doing for the City of New Braunfels, and tracked down two excellent travel blogs now interested in letting their readers about Christmas in New Braunfels (which includes Schlitterbahn’s complete Winter Wonderlandification courtesy of more than one million lights, an ice skating rink, and a snow machine).

Blogs aren’t the mysterious entities they once were, but it’s still helpful to have a resource like Technorati available to figure out who’s covering what. And it’s a very easy, intuitive, and powerful tool to show clients who want to improve their social media (and overall PR) IQ.

This is a day that makes me proud to have Progress Coffee as a client — it’s Progress’s 4th Birthday today, and to celebrate, they’re giving everything away.

Specifically, they’re giving free food and drink to all customers — they just ask that patrons consider giving a donation to Capital Area Food Bank and/or Bread For the World. It’s all part of owner Joshua Bingaman’s philosophy about building community and giving to others. It’s why I sought him out as a client, and it’s why I like having meetings there. (Progress being in our building doesn’t hurt either.)

Here’s this morning’s Fox 7 coverage, if you’re interested in seeing more of one of my favorite haunts in town (covered by one of my favorite news teams in town).

Confession time: This is my favorite day of the year. I love the passion of a political campaign, I love the creation and evolution of storylines that campaigns bring, and I love watching numbers roll in during primetime.

One of my clients, Pennsylvania Voice, is a nonpartisan coalition dedicated to voter registration and voter protection efforts. Here’s something to marvel about in the age of blog: real-time accounts of what’s happening with the Pennsylvania vote. It’s a reminder that democracy can be messy, and can require hard-working volunteers to keep it all above board, but a Presidential election is a quadrennial event only rivaled by the World Cup Final for sheer excitement and hope shared by so many.

If you haven’t become a part of it yet, why are you reading this? Get out and vote!