my 2 cents

Odds 'n ends

A couple of things of odds 'n ends today, as I just returned from the Distracted Driving Summit in Washington. 

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood invited nearly 300 people involved in traffic safety to a 2-day meeting to focus on distracted driving -- a growing epidemic that's killing  thousands of Americans every year.We've all spoken on our cell phones while driving, and many of us have texted while driving. (Not me -- I don't like to text.)  This dangerous practice is especially prevalent among young people, who have the need to be constantly connected. 

This morning I met with a couple of young people, as we were prepping for a session on outreach to youth about distracted driving.  One young man, Greg, was texting while he drove and ran into another car -- killing two men.  He now has to live with that burden and he broke down as he told us the story, even though it was four years ago.  I met another young woman who now spends her life paralyzed in a wheelchair, after crashing while on her cellphone as she drove.

New studies show hands-free cell phone use while driving is almost as dangerous as hands-on units.  A key message that has to get out -- and that's a challenge we involved in public safety marketing have to address -- is that driving a car requires our full attention.  Most of us do it practically on auto-pilot because it's easy to drive.  But taking our eyes -- or our concentration -- off the road even for 3 or 4 seconds can be a fatal error if something happens (a car stops or swerves into your lane, or an animal runs into the road, or any of thousands of unexpected scenarios) while your eyes or your mind are elsewhere.   

I've developed, for my non-profit client The National Road Safety Foundation, a program to reach teen drivers and involve them in the communications challenge.  Along with National Organizations for Youth Safety, a youth-based coalition of advocacy groups, we announced today at the Distracted Driving Summit a competition for young people to create concepts for PSAs that address distracted driving and other risky driving behavior like speeding, driving under the influence, drowsy driving and failing to buckle up.  The winner gets $1,000 and a  trip to New York to see his or her idea turned into a professionally-produced PSA that will eventually be broadcast nationally and will go everywhere virally on the web. 

Pretty cool that the Secretary of Transportation likes the idea and featured it at the Summit.  And it's going to be written about on the White House blog.  The Secretary's office put us in touch with Seventeen Magazine, who will be partnering, and we welcome other media partners to step up as well.

I'll have more about this as the project progresses.  Meanwhile, corny as it might sound, don't text or talk on your cell while driving... and tell family and others you care about not to do it either.

UPDATE 10/16/09:   My client The National Road Safety Foundation, is running a competition for teens to come up with ideas for a PSA on safe driving.  It got the attention of the Secretary of Transportation, who is now working with us the project.  This story is appearing this weekend on some 200 TV stations nationally on "Teen Kids News."

....

I just saw this on the O'Dwyer's PR blog and had to share it... 

Before I began blogging almost three years ago, the letters WTF meant nothing to me.   Had you asked, I might have guessed it's the call letters of a radio station somewhere.   Then one day, when someone used it in a blog comment, I asked a friend who's a texter and she told me.  Oh... ok.  Since then, I've used the expression myself.

Pity the poor unsuspecting folks at the Wisconsin Tourism Federation.  When the group was formed 30 years, who would have thought those letters would eventually come to mean something that has nothing to do with Wisconsin or cheese or lakes or whatever else that fine state has.

It's sort of like the public relations company that handles lists and release distribution -- PR Aids.  It's now called Cision, once Aids took on another unfortunate meaning. 

So the people in Wisconsin have finally made some changes.  It's now the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin -- TFW. 

Let's hope texters don't come up with some other shortcut that uses those letters.  New logos and stationery gets expensive.

.

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Blogger Social: Real New Yorker's Visitors Guide

Coming to New York for Blogger Social, April 4 - 6?

If you're new to the city, you can check the tour guidebooks and you'll find Times Square, Rock Center and The Empire State Building.  (You don't have to go out of your way to see the Statue of Liberty, because that's on the official Blogger Social schedule for Saturday afternoon -- a cruise down the Hudson and around Miss Liberty.)

But those things, great as they may be, are the "tourist New York."  Here's a New Yorker's quick guide to the real New York, if you have some time.

New York has an awesome music scene.  You don't have to go to Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall or The Beacon Theater to hear great music.  There are small music venues around town -- many in the what would seem to be the most unlikely places.

The Lower East Side, for example, has tons of good music -- much of it free or for the price of a drink or two.  Ludlow Street, just below Houston, has a wealth of small music clubs packed one next to the other.  The Living Room is one of my favorites, at 154 Ludlow.  Any night, you can find great singer-songwriters there.  (Before she hit it big, Norah Jones was a regular there.)

Next door to the right is The Cake Shop (for music, not cake), and Pianos is next door to the left.  Arlene's Grocery Store -- in what used to be a grocery store -- is another popular music venue, right around the corner on Stanton St.  And up the street on Houston (between Ludlow and Essex Sts.), is The Mercury Lounge, which often has bigger names and is a bit noisier in its choice of bands.

Where to eat?  Forget The Four Seasons, Nobu and all those pricey joints where it's often more about being seen than the food itself.  Want a great New York deli sandwich with meat stacked five inches high, and at a good price.  Not The Carnegie Deli or The Stage Deli in touristy Times Square.  Go to Sarge's, on Third Ave between 36th and 37th Streets in Murray Hill.  It's open all night.  Sunday mornings, the place is often full of young singles who live in the area.  The place is in the midst of renovations now, so the walls are bare, but the food is still excellent.

Want to pig out on sushi?  For $20, it's all-you-can-eat at Kinoko, on West 72nd St. just east of Broadway.  It's a small place and not fancy.  But the sushi is very good, and plentiful.  They also have other Japanese dishes on the menu,in case sushi isn't your thing. 

Great music and food... and good company at Blogger Social.  What more could you want in New York?

Have a good visit.

Off to the beach

This is my last post for a week. 

Early Saturday morning we pack the car and head to Newark Liberty Airport, to escape the snow.  We fly to Cancun for a week on the beach.  The beach is beautiful, I'm told.  And I'm sure the margaritas will be great.

But the highlight for us will spending a week with our kids -- our daughter Jennifer, her husband Jon and our "terrible two's" grandson Jack.  (Our son Michael was planning to join us from Los Angeles, but he got a project for Converse.  He's a filmmaker and he's learning that you gotta take what comes along when it comes.)

So don't look for any new posts here for a week, unless I'm so inspired and feel like coming in from the sun to sit at the computer.  (Probably not.)

But please, be sure to come back in a week.  I'll be here, offering my 2 cents.

Hasta luego.