You know the day holds interesting promise when you get an IM from a friend who lives in your building and it says "Yo! Is that someone parachuting out the window?" Turns out it was a tethered balloon for a company called "AirPhotos," but still – I had to apologize to my cat for scaring the hell out of it as I bolted for my camera. Either that, or NYC is under attack from a new breed of flying Jellyfish.

Everyone always bitches about how hard PR is to get – "Reporters never listen." "I can’t get my story across." "They hang up on me." Perhaps you’re not getting it right? Perhaps you’re not going about it the right way, and most importantly, perhaps you’re not talking to the right reporter with the right story? Thursday of last week: Coffee with a spectacular LA Times reporter, a rare breed of journalist who "gets" it and is always willing to listen to you, as long as you don’t waste her time with something completely off her radar. Conversation went like this… Me: "So I’m also working with this group, "WhyTuesday.org, that’s paying cash prizes to get elected officials on tape answering [...]

A friend and spectacular business publicist, Deborah Roth, wrote this with me. (She wrote the majority of it, I contributed occasional pithy comments.) Based on the blogging/PR debacles of late, I thought the timing of this was quite good. Happy reading. Can you imagine a PR firm pitching you on the fact that they employed an email expert?  Someone who was savvy about the creation and sending of emails?   What about a PR firm that boasted of having its very own website as a selling point?   You’d be forgiven for thinking that the folks at that PR firm had been sniffing too much toner.   And yet that’s exactly the type of giddy chest-beating that many public relations firms are guilty [...]

Peter’s rule of pitching #3: Unless you’ve just woken up from a fifteen-year coma and can tell us who killed Kennedy, a press release announcing that you’re going to speak is NOT NEWS. We clear on that, Carol? SUBJECT: NEWS: Lewis Kaden, Vice Chair, CitiGroup Speaks DON’T MISS ON WED. NOV. 1 @ 10:30am in THE NEW YORK MARRIOTT FINANCIAL CENTER HOTEL — LEWIS KADEN, VICE CHAIR & CAO OF CITIGROUP WILL ADDRESS THE FIRST ANNUAL "CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY OFFICER" CONFERENCE ( WWW.THECRO.COM ) The CRO is the first member-based media platform for Corporate Responsibility Officers (CROs) and has signed over 100 companies and non-profits as members. The CRO’s areas of coverage include compliance, governance, ethics, financial reporting, CSR, public affairs, [...]

Normally, I wouldn’t post a press release verbatim here, but this isn’t terribly self-promoting. It does the job. They went a little overboard on the BOLD, but it’s not too drastic. Besides – I went to this party last year – and it was a blast. They throw quite the party. I recommend it. This year, however, it’s five days before the marathon, so while I’ll attend, sadly, I’ll not be partaking of the lovely alcohol… If you go, send me photos – I’ll post them. JoonBug Productions Presents… The Hottest Halloween Extravaganza in Manhattan : The Fifth Annual Masquerade Ball at Capitale Tuesday, October 31,2006 Who:  Leading Manhattan- based event production company, JoonBug Productions, will host its much anticipated [...]