Maitri Quest

Me on a 1941 vintage cruiser that I rode in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade the night before (photo courtesty of Charlie Gandy, our Mobility Coordinator who charmed me into two very fun outings).

I don't know about you, but I've forgotten about fun for a long long time.

Oh, I love my work, I love my clients, and my work can be very fun, but fun just for the purpose of fun, just hasn't been in my vocabulary much. And two things led me to realize how much I miss it. About a month ago I took myself off to our local art emporium to splurge on some art supplies - something I hadn't done in years. I wanted create some illustrations for my baby nephew Simon's bedroom (at the time he wasn't even born yet). I hadn't drawn in several years either. I had a marvelous time picking out paints and ink pens, and now I'm having an even more marvelous time putting together the illustrations (thank you to my sister for recommending that "bugs" would be a safe and creative item to draw for a boy's room).

The second thing I did lately that reminded me so much of past fun I want to bring into my life more was riding a bike. My friend Charlie cajoled me into going on a "vintage" bike ride with a group of vintage bike collectors called the "Cyclone Coasters". Going in I was a) afraid I might fall off and b) wouldn't be able to accomplish the whole ride (especially not as we were going to ride first in the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade the night before).

And guess what? I did not fall off the bike (a beautiful '41 cruiser kindly provided by Bernard). And I didn't quite finish the entire bike ride. I made it almost the whole way, but bowed out when we were close to home because I could feel I was coming down with the flu. But the point is, it didn't matter. No body cared, and the most important thing is that I had such a good time! I had totally forgotten how much fun it is to ride a bike. How fun it is to feel the sun and the breeze on your face as you speed along seeing your landscape from a totally different perspective. I'm really fortunate that Long Beach is really beautiful by bike.

Today my client PREP Kitchen Essentials of Seal Beach was featured in the online "Fast Food Maven" blog of the OC Register food & business writer Nancy Luna as a top choice for "Cooking Camps for Kids." Last Friday my client Choura Venue Services had one of their top drivers, Beto Velasco, profiled by Muhammed El-Hasan of the Daily Breeze in his business column "At Work." Beto is a master of great customer relations and great customer service, and has totally turned his life around from rambling in the wrong direction in his early years, so it's especially cool to see him celebrated in print. Neither placement was an over night kind of deal, I chipped away at both for a few months until I finally worked out an angle, and a focus for my clients, that fit what the writer's were looking for at that time.

The whole point of this particular blog is inviting you to open up to thinking long term about your public relations strategy rather than one nice placement making your mark. Oh sure, getting into Oprah's O Magazine with a retail product can sell out your season (or even your year) but in most cases you need to have a number of media placements under your belt before the phone calls and emails and website stats really start to jump. If you're smart about it you'll start slowly, focusing locally while you hone your right message and image (get your feet wet if you will, work the kinks out, the false steps) and then use those smaller stories to build up to larger and larger ones.

The best position of all is to be considered an "expert" in your industry so that the press from all over begins to search you out for your thoughts, which is the place that Long Beach's new mobility coordinator Charles Gandy is in, which is why from a public relations standpoint he's an absolute gem for a city that's finally now starting realize how important good news lifestyle press is. With the aid of the talented local bike advocate and photographer Russ Roca, Gandy and his team at Bike Long Beach have beat Los Angeles to the punch by the painting the first sharrows lanes in Belmont Shore, with a public relations coup of the kind LB hasn't seen in a good long while. The story is already making the rounds of the bike blogs and California newspapers. Gandy is already known nationally as a bike advocate and a "go to" person to make your city bike friendly, so it won't be long before the national press starts ringing him up on this new project to make Long Beach the most bike friendly urban city in America. I'll be watching with interest - stay tuned!