I’m an avid backpacker, a crazed recycler and a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service.

Living in Portland has been a great opportunity for me to express my greener side—as those of you who read this blog know, I’m from Mississippi, which is about as far from green as you can get—and I’ve been very excited to read (even in technology news) how environmentally-friendly practices are catching on.

For example, I recently read a blog post on ZDNet that talked about the possibility of a new string of solar-powered Apple devices.

The New York Times article tells readers that Apple has developed the technology in order to free portable entertainment devices and newly released iPhones from the cumbersome wires and connection cables that provide their power sources.

While the article doesn’t mention whether or not Apple has an environmental reason to create and patent solar cells on portable devices, this effort from a tech giant proves just how integrated the green movement is becoming in society.

More and more options are becoming available for professionals to reduce their impact through solar technology and other energy efficient developments. In fact, at CTIA this past year, my colleagues and I were very interested in portable solar panels provided by PowerFilm Solar, which not only eliminate the need for toting your laptop and computer charger, but allow consumers to take their device with them, no matter what–increasing mobility and productivity from any location.

Now might be the perfect time to talk about green computing and IT practices, and how technology companies can benefit from these efforts, while simultaneously doing something good for the environment.

What is green computing?

Not only do computers use exorbitant amounts of energy, but the energy used to run our “electronic briefcases” comes from burning fossil fuels. Couple that with the fact that most of the time, computers are being left idle or on all night and day so that we can stay constantly connected, and we’re setting ourselves up for a whole lot of waste, which equals big time disaster long term.

According to a recent University of Colorado report, the typical desktop PC system requires about 255 watts of electrical power. If you leave your computer on all day and night, your costs will be at about $125 annually. That might not seem like much, but in the grand scheme of things, every little bit counts—especially when you consider the number of computers in operation today. To give you some perspective, when operating your PC only during normal business hours, energy costs decreases by over 75 percent, coming in at about $30 annually.

Here are some suggestions for more energy efficient computing:

1. Turn off screen savers—Screen savers cause your monitor to consume the same amount of energy as it does in active use. Changing your screen saver to black will allow you to save some wattage, but the best thing to do is to put your computer in standby, rather than displaying moving images during idle time.
2. Use sleep mode—Simply enabling the sleep feature will reduce your computer’s energy consumption by nearly 70 percent. According to the university report, this feature could ultimately save enough electricity annually to power Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, cut electricity bills by $2 billion and reduce CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 5 million cars. Wow.
3. Turn it off!—It’s okay. You will not die if you can’t check your email every five minutes. If you are busy working, consider data services for your cell phone, check your email via your mobile or use programs like Copernic Mobile Desktop Search to share files and information. If you’re not working, shut your system down. This does not decrease the life of your machine and will drastically cut energy consumption and heating costs.
4. Group your activities to limit computer use—If you are not tied to your computer for work all day, try to do certain tasks that require computer time during a few designated parts of the day, leaving the computer off at other times.
5. Avoid using a power strip to turn on your device.
6. Only turn on your printer when you are ready to print.
7. Explore ways to turn off your server at night if possible.
8. Reduce paper waste—This is a no brainer. Only print when absolutely necessary. With the age of 100 percent computer utilization in business (think emailing constantly, hosting all documents on an intranet and so on), it is often inefficient to print documents to share internally. Take a cue from MoPR and host your documents in an online intranet or Wiki, saving paper and time (no more searching through files for documents!). Recycle waste paper, use recycled paper for printing, save email messages in your inbox, use smaller font sizes, save scraps and print on both sides.
9. Recycle your print cartridges and other recyclable items.
10. Reduce purchasing—Do you really need that upgrade? Will it allow you to do magical new things that your current PC or laptop will not? Try using your old system for a little longer. Buy smaller monitors, ink jet printers (which use almost 90 percent less energy), consider leasing equipment (which is typically refurbished or recycled and comes with less packaging) and share printers and other office items when possible.
11. Recycle your equipment—Information Week reports that 20 million to 50 million TONS of computer gear and cell phones are dumped into landfills each year—making technology-related waste the fastest growing segment of garbage. Only about 12 percent of these goods are actually recycled, putting chemicals such as mercury and PVC into the environment.
12. When it’s time to buy new equipment, opt for greener computers—Only buy PCs and laptops with Energy Star options ratings.
13. Telecommute whenever possible—This step makes obvious sense. If you’re not driving back and forth to the office, you are reducing CO2 emissions and energy costs to operate office equipment and electricity. Learn a lesson from MoPR, which provides all employees with the necessary equipment to work from home.

How does green computing help me?

In addition to the environmental benefit, companies can save loads of money by implementing green IT practices. Power companies often offer rebates when companies implement green standards along with the reduction of energy costs that will come with more environmentally conscious computing. In addition, recycling equipment (while this does require a small fee) can provide a return of up to 60 percent of the resale value.

Don’t believe me yet?

Princeton University’s physics lab cut 75 percent of its annual energy costs (that’s down to $27,000 from a staggering $105,000 a few years back). Not only did this reduce operating costs, but their efforts improved processing power by 4 times and used 28 fewer TONS of CO2.

Additional Resources

• Check this site for the latest green computing news.
• See this recent report from Forrester Research for more information on IT professionals jumping on the green bandwagon.

Weekend Reading is posted every Friday and represents some of the cooler and interesting mobility, wireless and collaboration news Mobility PR has read throughout the week.

Can we finally forget about forgetting someone’s phone number? Mary Jo Foley outlines Microsoft’s plan to eliminate phone numbers with Echoes. Will users buy into it? Check out the comments section to read for yourself – like any comment section, there are some very well-though out responses and just plain nastiness – but all very entertaining.

Mo’ money, mo’ problems. Twitter nabbed $15 million in funding. Hooray! Maybe now they can afford to buy another server for their service. Key functions such as IM and the ability to read older posts have been down all week leaving users frustrated and ready to bolt to another service – Friendster and Pownce have both been mentioned as alternative hang outs.

Readers rule. We picked up a magazine called Everywhere at SXSW a couple months back. What made it more interesting than all the other stacks of magazines is that the content is purely reader-driven. Every article, blurb and photo was submitted by readers. Is this a trend? Maybe. This Old House Magazine’s July issue will be called Your Old House and will be completely written by readers. We’ll be blogging more on this on a future post – we think it’s a fascinating topic and wonder how this new business model will affect both the publishing and public relations industry.

Another week, another report extolling mobile advertising. A recent Harris Interactive claims “there are strong opportunities in mobile advertising during the current economic downturn.”

How’s that?

According to the 2008 Consumer Acceptance of Mobile Advertising study by Harris Interactive, Rochester, N.Y, consumers have no plans to cut back their purchases of cell phones. The survey shows that 16% of U.S. homes are using wireless phones exclusively, more than double the amount used four years ago.

And during the economic slowdown, advertisers can effectively reach consumers through innovative marketing techniques such as mobile advertising.

Social media for the uninitiated. Do you get social media? Confused about new social media? Need to explain it to a client? Your mom? Here’s a cute, funny and very informative video someone created to explain it in easy terms.

Weekend Reading is posted every Friday and represents some of the cooler and interesting mobility, wireless and collaboration news Mobility PR has read throughout the week.

Hydrogen fuel cells coming to a mobile phone near you? We love hot new technology, as long as it doesn’t burn.

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On Tuesday, Plaxo users received an email from Plaxo CEO Ben Golub, and the company’s two founders stating “We are excited to announce some of the biggest news in the history of Plaxo. Plaxo has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Comcast,” The email included a link to the official announcement, a link to a newly strengthened privacy policy and a link to an announcement Q&A on the deal addressing users potential concerns.

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A recent study by IDC and sponsored by Nortel suggested that more than one-third of workers would choose their mobile phone over their wallet, keys, laptop or digital music player if they had to leave the house for 24 hours and could take only one item.

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In the “no kidding” department, a new consumer survey from IBM’s Institute for Business Value says consumers want more choice when it comes to mobile phone service. According to the report, 80 percent of consumers said they’d prefer a service provider that gave them more choice in the applications and services available on their mobile device.

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Tired of Twitter constantly being down? Here’s a list of nine mobile social media sites to visit when – not if – Twitter is down again.

And speaking of Twitter, in response to Twitter users “Twit-Out” (a 24-hour boycott of the popular service in response to repeated service outages) Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb questioned if in light of recent world tragedies we should refocus our efforts and leverage social media superpowers to make a real difference in the world. She asks,

We know how to spread news fast, share images and videos, organize our friends, and empower others all by using the same social media tools that we use in our every day lives. Isn’t it time we put them to use towards a good cause?” The article that follows outlines some great examples of exactly how that can be done.

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With all his spare time, Ewan at SMS Text News has launched a weekly podcast. The 40-minute episodes feature news, interviews and “Applications of the Week” segments.

I’m a big fan of new video service, Animoto (http://animoto.com) – an online video application that lets users create their own professionally produced videos using photos and music, masterfully combined by Animoto to produce a unique piece of art. Leveraging Animoto’s own patent-pending technology and high-end motion design, each video is a fully customized orchestration of user-selected images and music. Produced in a widescreen format, Animoto videos have the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer. And because they are completely personalized, the impact is even more inspiring.

Upload photos – select music – out comes your own music video!

Animoto Productions was formed by a group of techies and film/tv producers - including veterans of the entertainment industry that have produced shows for MTV, Comedy Central and ABC.

At the heart of Animoto is its “Cinematic Artificial Intelligence” technology that “thinks like an actual director and editor.” It basically analyzes and combines user-selected images and music with the same sophisticated post-production skills & techniques that are used in television and film. And while I fancy myself a creative photographer – this service blows away my abilities when it comes to compiling the photos and organizing them to music. Not to mention – it’s totally automated (in other words – there is very little room for user error).

I tried out the service earlier this year by creating a video short using some photos of my oldest son’s 9th birthday party. His party had a Hollywood theme, complete with red carpet and the party guests dressed to the nines, so the photos were perfect for a slick video slideshow. I uploaded a dozen pictures, selected a rockin’ tune from the Animoto library, and BAM! — Animoto’s video engine analyzed the photos, set them to music, and spit out a professional looking video featuring my photos. My son thought I was a technology genius when I showed him the finished result. His exact quote was, “Dude. That rocks. I’m a movie star.” You can check out that video sample here: http://animoto.com/play/c6eb0f8f69ecf2974f2816cb938efee5

This week I revisited the service to create this video from some of the photos of the MoPR mini-offsite at the Spa at Caesars’ Palace in Las Vegas during CTIA 2008. Check it out here: http://animoto.com/play/E4CuI0xBOvJYW560oRIcWw

Part of what’s fun with Animoto is seeing how it produces fully-customized videos depending on what music you choose. They give you the choice of pulling songs from your personal music library or using one of the songs from their library – so the options are unlimited. Try a mellow song. Then remix your video using a more upbeat song. You’ll get two very different productions. In my personal tests of the service I did find that I preferred the use of horizontal photos to vertically-oriented photos. Given the widescreen format, the horizontal pictures just look better.

If creating the professional looking video with so little user effort isn’t impressive enough on its own, Animoto takes it a step further, allowing users to post the videos to a number of social networking sites, YouTube or even their own blogs or websites using the provided code and simple instructions.

Posting your new video to Facebook from the Animoto site is literally two clicks. And speaking of Facebook, Animoto has a neat Facebook application you can download from the link at the bottom of their homepage: www.Animoto.com, or from inside Facebook in the video application section. With the Animoto Facebook app you can automatically create videos from the photos you have saved in your Facebook albums. The Facebook application has all of the same functionality that you have from the Animoto site, so for those of you who are managing your photos and sharing them using Facebook, this is a great solution for you.

I noticed this week that Animoto is presenting at one of MoPR’s favorite conferences – Under the Radar. Animoto will be participating in Under the Radar’s Social Media and Entertainment themed event June 3rd in Mountain View, CA. I’m going to stick my neck out with a prediction that Animoto wins one of the coveted judges’ choice or audience choice awards at the event (perhaps even both). I know if I was in the voting audience, they would have a very strong chance of getting my vote. The other companies in their category best bring their A-Game!

I think there is a natural progression for the Animoto application to move to the mobile platform; especially with the prevalence of mobile phones with high-quality cameras. I would love to see the company work with Apple to add the app to the iPhone platform. Imagine taking pictures with the iPhone camera, then having the option in the ‘save as’ list to tag the photos for Animoto video creation. Then from the iPhone screen you could open Animoto, select which pictures you wanted included in your new video, pick a song from your iTunes library on your phone, name it, and hit “create my video.” Your videos could be stored on the iPhone, sent automatically to your blog and/or social networking profile pages, or emailed to friends to share.

With the popularity of user generated content sites soaring, Animoto should look to partner with some of the video sites and popular events to showcase user created videos made up of user photos from a particular event. For example, conferences could offer a page showing all of the videos created by users with conference photos. High schools and colleges could add pages to their websites with videos created by students, and sports teams could show off their talents by showcasing collections of videos made up of action shots of athletes in motion promoting the team.

Animoto’s software works flawlessly, is ultra simple to use, and provides real value. The free service is perfect for the casual user and the professional service – which lets you create unlimited full-length videos that you can download and save to your own computer – is a bargain and worth every cent of the $30 annual fee.

BONUS: If you are ready to give the service a try for yourself, here is a special reader discount code that will save you $5 off of the annual service fee: klyrtgvh

We’ve been telling our clients for years that they need to be blogging, have a strong online presence and use online tools to spread the word about their product, strengthen their brand, and achieve the corporate transparency that is expected by customers and partners in today’s business climate.

A new report from Universal McCann proves the very message we’ve been shouting from the mountaintops: If you don’t have some sort of social media strategy, your brand and message will get lost.

Need some proof? A compelling paragraph from the report says:

Contributing to the internet has never been as accessible and less technical. Innovations in web development, computing technology and the proliferation of broadband have come together to drive monumental consumer take up. This is why the phenomenon of social media is important now – it has the potential to impact on all our media consumption therefore shifting the emphasis from professional content producers to the consumer.

So, I’m guessing half of the readers of this post are thinking to themselves, “Great, then we’re covered. We have a blog and we understand the value of online communities.”

The other half? Read on.

The report, “Power to the people: Social Media Tracker” has some compelling stats and lays it out on just how much people [e.g., YOUR customers and potential customers] are using social media to find information:

• 57% have joined a social network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
• 55% of users have uploaded photos
• 22% of users have uploaded videos

Also according to the report, the role for advertisers and brands has never had so much potential – branded applications, content and services all offer huge promise for grand results and return on investment in social media.

And what about blogs - the red-headed stepchildren of traditional mainstream media (MSM)? The report claims blogs are a “mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media.”

Wow.

That’s why most traditional print publications – many struggling to stay alive with sagging circulation numbers and a slumping economy – are finally offering complementary and exclusive online content.

And television is included in this mix, too.

Smarter networks with television shows such as Lost and American Idol have poured money into building and maintaining active online communities; offering sneak peaks and exclusive features for online viewers along with various opportunities to interact within the community with like mined fans.

The report also proves why the PR community takes bloggers more seriously. We plan entire programs to ensure we are communicating effectively with them. We read their work and engage in interactive exchanges with them. We pitch them exclusive content and offer them breaking news on a level playing field with the industry and business publications. And at the end of the day, it’s why we consider a client mention in a blog post often times just as valuable as a mention in a traditional mainstream media outlet.

Sure, getting a client on the cover of Time is still a fantastic win. But at the same time consistent, accurate coverage in a blog that has a pure, core readership made up of the same audience our client is trying to reach should also be considered a homerun.

If that’s not enough to convince you to jump into the social media fray, here’s one last stat:

Social media impacts your brand’s reputation – and so does NOT having conversations with your customers, partners and employees.

• 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog
• 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

So, you DO have a blog right? Your CEO or executive team is blogging about new products, issues and trends in your industry, and making themselves available to an audience that expects to have a two-way conversation.

They’re not?

Then we need to talk. Give us a call or drop us an email. We can help you.

Imagine you’re in an important meeting and your cell phone rings. You have your phone on silent but that dreaded light pops on your screen or your phone starts to do its vibrating dance that means you have a voicemail. But you can’t listen to it. What does it say? Did you leave the stove on at home? Are the kids waiting at school for you to pick them up? Is it really your anniversary already (and you need to pick up flowers)? Is there another meeting you’re supposed to be in? The suspense could kill you, or at least take years off of your life.

You might want to try SpinVox. If you went to CTIA, you probably noticed their amazing booth - the one with the halo of Barbie-like dolls with boxes surrounding their heads and their feet dangling in rows. I was one of the lucky ones to score my very own SpinVox doll from the booth.

SpinVox is a tool that captures spoken messages and converts them into text that can be read immediately. So when you’re sitting in that meeting, you have the ability to read what your mystery voicemail message says. It would certainly assure that the message is picked up… quickly, and without an audible disruption to your meeting. Simply put: with SpinVox, you can manage your voicemails more efficiently.

SpinVox also offers other helpful features, including tools for sending messages. For example, when you want to send a message, SpinVox lets you choose a specific destination – inbox, blog, wall or space - speak or type the message, and the service will automatically distribute it, via text, immediately. Talk (pun intended) about an excellent tool for social networking.

With SpinVox you can even leave yourself personal reminders ala the old Norm McDonald into-the-mini-cassette recorder “note to self” skits on SNL.

I know I’m not the only one who can be difficult to understand when talking too fast, but apparently that’s not a problem for the technology magic behind the scenes at SpinVox. The company’s Voice Message Conversion System, known as ‘D2’ (a.k.a. the Brain), captures your spoken words and spits them out as text content. I tested it talking in my usual rapid tone, and it performed perfectly.

I’m confident I’ll be using the SpinVox service myself - especially the auto post feature. During the NBA playoffs you can bet I’ll have lots to say as the Spurs take on the Suns, and with SpinVox my thoughts can be mainlined right to my blog. Go Suns!

Full disclosure, James Wanless is president and COO of MoPR client Talkster, and he’s a friend. But bias aside, he still posted a very interesting piece today about the “revolution” coming in communications.

James points out that the current view of communications is based on silos. For example, most people maintain separate accounts for phone, email and instant messenging (and may have separate accounts for each of these for home and work). This siloed approach means that people maintain a distinct contact list for each service. Even though we can synch and import contacts, the systems are distinct.

This approach is about to be shattered by the needs and desires of a new generation of people who are literally being weened on social networks. James is not talking about Facebook and MySpace users (although they matter a great deal too). James is referring to people like my daughters, who years before they could write their name or had any phone etiquette were meeting their friends and making new ones on Club Penguin. Club Penguin is a social network for kids, and despite it’s video game-like appearance has many of the same attributes of the more grown-up social networks like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

James asserts that as these children become adults, their expectation of communications will change, forcing the communications platforms to likewise change. In the end what we will have is not a siloed series of communications services, but a singular platform that integrates everything we use and creates portability. Instead of using Outlook we’ll use Facebook. And Facebook will be on our mobile phone too. We’ll use Facebook (or MySpace or LinkedIn or Ning, etc.) as our conduit to communication.

Once that happens, instead of looking up a person, deciding whether to call, email or text, and then establishing the communication, we’ll simply open our friends list, click on a face and voila — we’re connected in the most convenient fashion for both parties. In this environment you have greater control on who and how you are contacted. Business contacts are able to reach you at certain times on certain devices whereas friends and family may have a different set of times and methods. You would no longer need to give out phone numbers, email addresses, etc (although you would probably still maintain them). Thus you would have a better ability to maintain your privacy while at the same time still be very public with your profile. And if you need to change any of this information, you simply update your profile and that information is updated for everyone, much like how Plaxo is building their service.

After walking the floor at CTIA with James and discussing this very subject, I think he is completely accurate. It’s an exciting development, and it’s surprising to me that the social networking Goliaths have not been more vocal about such a change. I am certain that the folks building Microsoft’s next version of Exchange are thinking about it.

One added benefit James didn’t discuss — this could spell an end to telemarketing! And for that reason alone, more resource should be devoted to making this change happen.

Oh yeah, and a sidebar note: I would be remiss in my role as a member of Talkster’s PR team if I didn’t point out that Talkster can already enable this revolution today with their communications platform.

Read James’ post “Giving Voice to the Social Revolution” at the Talkster Blog.

As a former IT magazine editor and journalist [before I found my true passion in PR] I was always amazed at how vague and convoluted some press releases could be that were sent to me.

Today, there are still many cases of completely irrelevant pitches being foisted upon editors, writers and bloggers.

Here’s a good example from my own personal experience.

In my spare time I write a blog about local Portland, Ore., history. Nothing too extravagant, mostly a scan of a kitschy postcard and then some brief commentary about said scan. It’s fun. I enjoy it. And I get to learn about my adopted city.

Recently, a PR firm pitched me that had no clue what the content of my blog covered. They didn’t even know my name. It was horribly written. And the pitch contained no more than six different fonts and typefaces [Times! Verdana! Arial! Italicized! Bold and Underlined!].

To me, this meant one of two things:

1. The sender was psychotic.
2. The sender was lazy, did one heck of a lousy cut-and-paste job and had no clue about what the message was and who should be getting the message.

I’d say the second was the case, but that’s just a guess.

This leads me to the point of the post’s title.

Just because there are newer technologies such as blogging, Social Media Releases (SMRs), and social networking tools that let us communicate easier, if the original message is convoluted, inaccurate, or just not a fit for the intended audience, it won’t matter how it’s delivered.

Whether you’re a PR professional working for a client, someone writing an email or someone writing a proposal, you need to keep your message simple, informative and relevant.

It’s definitely my own personal mantra when working for my clients at MoPR. Be genuine to their message…and let it work for you.

Mobility PR clients Hovr and Talkster will be among 70 companies presenting the newest technologies and trends in mobility and wireless telecom at the upcoming Dow Jones’ Wireless Innovations conference in San Francisco April 22-23.

The two start-ups were not only chosen by VentureWire editors to present their companies to an audience of venture capitalists and mobile industry key players during the conference’s two-day schedule of panels and keynotes, they were each named as one of “ten companies to watch” at the conference!

“We rated several hundred start-ups on a host of internal criteria before inviting those we believe demonstrate true business momentum,” Dow Jones explains on their Web site. “Dow Jones VentureWire is putting together an impressive group of speakers, including individuals from some of the major carriers, CEOs from 70 of the most promising mobile start-ups and, of course, some of the leading investors in the sector.”

Vipul Sawhney, CEO of Hovr, will present how combining targeted advertising, social networking and games creates a unique service that creates a new revenue channel for media companies, increases the revenue opportunity for game producers by replacing pay-per-download with pay-per-use, and increases the effectiveness of ad campaigns with startling high click-through rates.

James Wanless, president and COO of Talkster, will present how Talkster’s voice, text and video communications platform gives voice to the social revolution by allowing social networks to create a comprehensive communications service that generates ad-revenue with every call, conference call, text message or video conversation.

With 24 panelists and 70 presenting companies scheduled to appear, the conference will cover mobile platforms, mobile advertising, mobile content creation and distribution and the forecast for wireless technologies to come.

To set up a meeting with Vipul or James at Wireless Innovations, please contact the MoPR team at hovr@mobilitypr.com or talkster@mobilitypr.com.

Good luck to all presenters at Wireless Innovations 2008, and keep checking the MoPR blog for more updates on all your mobile technology news!

I just had the privilege of attending my first CTIA Wireless tradeshow in Las Vegas (that’s me with Jonny Brown of Kentrox). As a newbie to this trade show, I was blown away by the sheer volume of people and countless new products. While I was there supporting one of the six MoPR clients that attended the show, the team at MoPR made sure I got to walk the floor with them, and I learned a lot. Acronyms are now better understood, technologies were brought to life and I have a deeper understanding of how all the different elements of mobility work together in the large ecosystem on display at CTIA. From a professional PR perspective, one of the most important things I learned might actually be a MoPR trade secret, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway: ShowStoppers.

ShowStoppers is a press-only event where reporters, editors, bloggers and industry analysts mingle with 50 or so companies which exhibit their newest technologies and services. At CTIA, the Showstoppers exhibitors represent the future of business, consumer, lifestyle and digital technologies in the mobile space. Exhibiting companies include the most innovative new startups that have selected CTIA as their launch pad which showcase their wares right alongside major industry players.

Steve and Dave Leon (that’s right-they’re brothers!) put on an impressive event. But in truth-it felt more like a party. Hosted this year at the Wynn Hotel, ShowStoppers, with its endless supply of fancy finger-food and generous open bar, was the place to be in Vegas that Monday night.

Vendors working the show were in for a busy night dominated by efforts to grab the attention of the reporters and analysts making their way around the room and then talking-up the products and services they were there representing.

I was aware of ShowStoppers before going to CTIA. MoPR has used the event with great success in the past. When our client Talkster debuted its Free World Dialing service at Fall CTIA last year, they earned a tremendous amount of coverage. But now I know one of the MoPR secrets. Press events like ShowStoppers (there are also the Pepcom press events which I hope to attend) give companies a great opportunity to take advantage of the hundreds of registered press and analysts that come to a big trade show like CTIA. Instead of conducting 30 minute briefings held one at a time on the show floor, the news can be given to reporters in a more rapid fire environment, literally seeing dozens of reporters every hour of the three hour event.

That’s not to say that doing ShowStoppers is easy. There is a ton of prep work that we conducted on behalf of our client well in advance of the event. ShowStoppers sent us periodic updates of their attending press list so that we could give heads-up pitches to relevant media and hone our materials appropriately. Preparing for ShowStoppers was actually quite intense… but some activities must remain trade secrets!

Beyond the dozens of print media and bloggers that we chatted with at the event, our client Kentrox - who was there to launch its Optima Cell Site Solutions - was also interviewed by Dave Graveline for his
"Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline" radio show and did an on camera interview with BNETV.

We also had the pleasure of being exhibitor neighbors with KWINGO. These folks are an online resource providing frequently needed workplace phrases in a second language. I think it’s safe to say that in our diverse world, especially the mobility space, we have all had moments where we definitely needed a Kwingo! Or as they say, Quick Lingo.

The event was practically perfect. If there was one moment of panic, it came after a consutruction worker bisected Sprint’s fiber optic cable cutting off Internet to the entire Wynn Hotel (among others) just hours before the event was to begin. I am told that a backhoe slicing fiber optic cable is a cliche, and I’m glad that my first CTIA experience included it. It could have been a complete disaster (so many of the companies exhibiting had demos that relied on Internet service), but the ShowStoppers team pulled off an incredible last (miracle?) fix. Minutes before the press walked through the door, our computers were up and running and the connectivity problem was completely resolved. Impressive to say the least. And just in time for me to makemy first UTTER!

Hats off to the ShowStoppers crew for a fantastic event. A huge thanks to all of the media for attending the event and speaking with the vendors. And many thanks to all the exhibitors- I’m really enjoying all my clicky pens, stress balls, and new notepads! The entire team at Mobility PR looks forward to the next ShowStoppers event - coming soon to a trade show near you!