MoPR's Gotta Brand New Blog

Incredibly, this two week old blog has become very popular. We've started getting lots of emails from people, which piqued our curiosity. So we started measuring our traffic and found we had 5 or more unique visitors per hour! That’s after only two weeks with no promotion.

We think our "success" must be attributed to Blogger, which gave us an exceptional platform to start keeping a record of our thoughts on mobility and public relations (and, of course, Mobility Public Relations). Despite the fact that we love Blogger (we raise our glasses and toast you Blogger!) and recommend it to every new blogger without reservation, it was time to take our little blog to the next level.

We’ve moved our location to themoprblog.com. Please update your link. Our RSS feed URL has been updated to http://themoprblog.com/feed/. If you’re using our FeedBurner feed, we updated that for you (and thus you should not be reading this post).

Let us know what you think of the new look and feel. We’re still working to get things completely updated and we’re tweaking all the bells and whistles of the new site. But we also have a day job, so please be patient.

We’ll be seeing you on TheMoPRBlog.com!

TAXI !!!

Beyond the ability to stay connected and productive from wherever you happen to be on a given day; business travelers and road warriors also yearn for a means of travel that will get them from A-to-B in the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of hassle.

While we don’t yet have the ability to call our own personal transporter chief and say “Beam me up Scotty,” so called Air-Taxis (or Air-Limos) have been generating a whole lot of interest of late, and might be just what the mobile businessman (or woman) is looking for.


According to interviews I’ve heard, there are more than 19,000 airports in the United States, but only some 400 offer scheduled commercial flights. That leaves several thousand smaller airports out of reach to the average business traveler. Often times these smaller airports are a lot closer to where we want to be for business and sales calls. The idea of an Air-Taxi is a smaller, lighter, more affordable alternative to a private jet; but with the same on-demand kind of availability.


For more information on some of the players in this hot space, check out the websites of Air-Taxi operators DayJet, Linear Air, and POGO.


Technology guru Esther Dyson recently covered the air taxi trend in the June issue of her Release 1.0 Newsletter. In this issue, titled, “Visible Demand: The New Air-Taxi Market,” Ether writes:

“The air-taxi market is not about luxury travel or vacation getaways. It's about productivity: more time on the ground to make that extra sales call before getting home for dinner, instead of getting caught in the productivity-sapping hub-and-spokes commercial flight system that takes all day (not to mention a hotel stay), leaving room for only one sales call.”

Esther also produced an interesting video on the subject, including an interview with Vern Raburn, CEO of Eclipse Aviation (a company manufacturing the jets that are making this trend a reality).

Business 2.0’s Saheli S.R. Datta also put together a thorough review of the Air-Taxi trend in an article this month titled, “Hailing The Air Taxi.”

I’d love to hear from some frequent business travelers about the kind of impact you expect this could have on you personally (So post your comments here). How many of you have already thought about building Air-Taxis into your corporate travel strategy? Are you seeing Air-Taxis as a viable alternative to driving from small city to city and losing time on the road? How much value do you find in the ability to potentially set your own air travel schedule? This is a trend that Mobility Public Relations will be watching as it will undoubtedly have a big impact on the way business travelers think about mobility.

Mainstream Mobility: "Dreams of a Truly Mobile Web"

Net Needs to Escape Its Computer Cage, But Best of Luck Freeing It in the U.S.

It's a longstanding maxim of this column that the future generally doesn't arrive with a lot of flash and noise -- instead, it sneaks up on you. One day you notice you're reading your news online, banking via PC and downloading stuff from eMusic, and try to remember the last time you flipped through the physical newspaper, wrote a paper check or bought a CD.

By Jason Fry
July 3, 2006

CLICK FOR COMPLETE ARTICLE

On the road for nicknames...

One good turn deserves another (pun intended), and since Will Ferrell, in character as Gene Frankel, has already appeared on this blog - making him a regular - I thought it important to note that he has been signed by Sprint Nextel to star in a line-up of new commercials.

The series of commercials, which will be appearing starting this Saturday, will feature Ferrell as Nascar driver Ricky Bobby - - a fictitious character from the new movie Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. According to BrandWeek, Ricky Bobby will be promoting the exclusive movie content available on Sprint phones. I wonder if Ricky will be recommending fans tune into Sprint's new FanScan service, where you can access live in-race communications from your Sprint phone, and listen to the pit crews, spotters, and even the owners communicating with the drivers during a race. A FanScan Race pass will run you $4.99. I imagine the PR team could do something really cool with FanScan for the launch of Talledega Nights (that was a freebie Sprint, call MobilityPR for further brainstorming).

The Talledega Nights Sony Web site is packed with cool features; including a spot where you can find out what your race car driver nickname is. Afterall, without a sweet nickname, you're nothing in this business.

Sidline's handle is : "The Supercharger"
Gidding's is: "The G0-Rilla" And mine is: "The Master Cylinder"
Find out what yours is here! (And then post a comment to this post to let us know how your Nickname suits you)

MoPR Mobility Minute: US Patent 2,292,387

The patent for "Secret Communications System" was granted August 11, 1942 to H.K. Markey, et al. The patent is often referred to as the “Markey-Antheil” patent for the two principal inventors.

The primary purpose of the invention was for the remote control of torpedoes from aircraft. The problem it solved was the jamming of radio frequencies that could disrupt communication between an aircraft and the dirigible craft (torpedo) it was guiding.

The technology applied to overcome radio jamming is called signal hopping. Both the remote craft and the guiding craft had radios that were synchronized using a paper roll, not dissimilar from the paper rolls used in player pianos such as the Pianola. Eight different frequencies were coded onto the paper roll, and as it turned it caused the radio signal to switch frequencies simultaneously at both ends of the transmission.

This particular patent was never built into a product, and the patent eventually expired in 1959. However, the technological concepts of the patent continued to inspire engineers. In 1957, engineers in Sylvania’s laboratories replaced the paper roll with electronics and created a more advanced means of transmitting signals over multiple radio frequencies. This time, the technology was used for secret communications, utilized on US Navy ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis as just one example.

Today, more than 1200 patents refer to this original patent, all based on “signal hopping” or, as it is better known today, “spread spectrum.” The technology originally meant for military application to send a single data stream over multiple radio frequencies is now used to break data up into small packets that can travel on multiple frequencies or even multiple networks. US Patent 2,292,387 contains the basic technology for such everyday modern mobility technologies as digital cellular phone systems like CDMA (code division multiple access) and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) wireless Internet.

Who was H.K. Markey? Markey was her married name (one of her six married names). The inventor of spread spectrum technology was actress Hedy Lamarr (1913 – 2000). Co-inventor George Antheil (1900 - 1959) was a concert pianist and composer; hence the paper roll resembling one in a Pianola and eight different frequencies like the eight notes in an octave.

The Champagne Is Not Korbel

And then there were four. To complete the trip, our fourth partner, Stacy, arrived by train at 4:00 pm on Thursday. Our pitch meeting ended later that anticipated, but exactly at the right time to get to the train station and pick up Stacy. Of course, the directions to the train station were on John G's bed in the Quality Inn. Somehow, we managed to navigate without any wrong turns to Union Station where we circled and circled and circled looking for Stacy, who swore she was sitting on a bench right in front.

We finally dropped Melissa off so she can search for Stacy. She returned to the car with the same conclusion that John G and I had: Union Station is not a train station. That would explain the lack of train tracks. Stacy was in fact at King Street Station directly across the street. That would be the station where all the trains were sitting. The one with the very big clock tower.

With the four of us at long last finally assembled, it was time to begin the important work of this business trip/offsite: CELEBRATING!

"I have had a lot of great vintages of Dom Perignon, but I do not remember any as impressive as the 1996. Even richer than the brilliant 1990, the 1996 is still tightly wound, but reveals tremendous aromatic intensity, offering hints of bread dough, Wheat Thins, tropical fruits, and roasted hazelnuts. Medium to full-bodied, with crisp acidity buttressing the wines wealth of fruit and intensity, it comes across as extraordinarly zesty, well-delineated, and incredibly long on the palate. Moet-Chandon deserves considerable accolades for this prodigious example of Dom Perignon. Anticipated maturity: now-2020+"
-Wine Advocate

I had been saving a bottle of 1996 Dom Perignon I received from a good friend (and VP at Waggoner Edstrom) as a 40th birthday present for a very special occassion. What could be more special than celebrating the start of a great new PR agency? And so our night of celebration began with a toast (followed by more toasts) to our imminent success.

With a champagne buzz lifting our spirits very high, we headed off to the Dahlia Lounge for dinner. Melissa chose the Dahlia Lounge because it was the site of the first PR activity we conducted in Seattle. Of course, she attended the round-table that she put together. I fell ill and had to miss it. But the Dahlia Lounge has sentimental value, and was the perfect place to continue our celebration, especially since two former colleagues and good friends who now call Seattle their home would join us for dessert and drinks. Ellio and Patrick worked with Melissa and were part of the great iPass team at Hoffman in the glory days. The vibe of success was now all around us!

Dinner was fantastic. The conversation was lively. And it was really good to catch up with Ellie and Patrick (the use of "Ellio" previously is not a typo, but her name really is Ellie). It was also great to be in the company of all my partners, telling war stories, laughing and generally having a great time.

We had to end the night earlier than we would have preferred as we had to be looking sharp for our headshots Friday morning. But that, my friends, will be the subject of another post (at least one).

The Newest Members of "The Fabulous Ring Tones"

The WINBC BBQ, which John mentioned earlier, was off-the-hook; largely due to the soothing sounds from the Nokia house band, The Fabulous Ring Tones.

Caroline Lewko, President and Founder of WINBC, was a gracious hostess, and to make the MoPR crew feel right at home in Canada she invited us to take the stage with the house band.

Not being particularly musically-inclined myself, I opted for the cowbell (Who could use a little more cowbell right about now?) And while I'm no Gene Frenkle I gave that cowbell the 'ol college try.


Despite my cowbelling, I was by no means the center of attention up there... That honor has to go to Sidline, who took hold of the bongos for two riveting songs and never looked back.

Here is the master in action.

We came, we saw, we rocked the house.

Actually, it's a good thing we are such excellent PR pros - because we have no future in the real rock-and-roll business.

Say Cheese!

Here is the picture from our dinner in Vancouver as John predicted.

You see Sidline, easily excited by the excellent wine list, our enthusiastic waiter (who actually talked us out of ordering the house specialty - Oysters), and the tantalizing company of Giddings and myself, just couldn't keep his hands above the table... Say Cheese!

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

The Howard Johnson's on Granville in Vancouver is really quite a nice hotel in a very sketchy neighborhood. The neighborhood really isn't that bad, if you don't mind the concentration of adult bookstores, peep show parlours, headshops and vagrants.

We arrived Monday night with just enough time to watch the 'Canes defeat the Oilers in the final game of the Stanley Cup (bummer if you're Canadian). After carting a TON of stuff up to our rooms, it was off to a nice dinner on Robson Street, the shopping capitol of Western Canada. We ate seafood and and toasted to our future success with a nice BC Chardonnay (Burrowing Owl, hoo knew?) at Joe Forte's. I'm not putting the picture of that toast up... but I'm sure John G or Melissa will.

The next day and night it was all prepping for Thursday's prospect pitch meeting in Seattle. Spending hours together in the "Home Office Suite" at Hojos was awesome. I could tell that as a team we were really clicking. It also confirmed what I already knew, that this venture of ours is going to be wildly successful because the three of us are REALLY good at what we do. We make an awesome team.

We took a break from planning to go to the WINBC barbeque at the really cool campus of Nokia in Burnaby (more on that later, I'm sure from John G or Melissa, or both), then it was back to it in the Home Office Suite, now littered with empty Starbucks cups, food wrappers and random notes. We worked until our brains couldn't work any further, but were back at it bright and early the next morning.

On the Road to Vancouver

With the launch of MoPR official, the team heads on our first-ever team biz trip: offsite planning/industry event/client meeting/pitching tour of Vancouver BC and Seattle WA. John S filled up the Family Truckster and headed to PDX to pick up John G who landed at 12:30. From there it was a straight shot to SeaTac to pick Melissa. Traffic through Tacoma SUCKED and we were an hour late getting to the Seattle airport. But in a sign of things to come, Melissa's plane was also late making our arrival at the airport just minutes after Melissa got through baggage claim. She killed time hanging with a professional soccer team in the terminal.

Melissa got her brand new cell phone and took this self portrait. And thus is born the MoPR blog!