February 2013 - AM:PM PR

AM:PM PR hosts an evening with author Bill Carter

February 14, 2013/1 Comment/in AM:PM PR /by Mike Phillips

Next week we have a special guest coming to our office, author Bill Carter. 20 years ago he helped to end the Bosnian war when he teamed up with Bono & U2 during their Zoo TV tour, bringing concert goers face to face with the normal, everyday people trying to survive the conflict, and inspiring the famous Pavarotti/U2 collaboration “Miss Sarajevo” in the process.

Carter has written a new book titled “Boom, Bust, Boom” that is a thorough exploration of the worldwide copper industry, and puts the spotlight on a proposed copper mine near Bristol Bay, Alaska that affects thousands of commercial fishing families in the Pacific Northwest. Sebastian Junger (“The Perfect Storm”, “War” and the film Restrepo) says “Boom, Bust Boom” is “the best sort of journalism: beautifully written, rich in detail and impossible to ignore.”

If you’d like to join us for the exclusive event next Thursday, please comment below with your contact information to RSVP. Space is limited.

In the event you can’t make it, we asked Bill to discuss his work and why he’s talking about this proposed mining development.

* * *

Bill, first off, what did you do to bring world attention to the Bosnian War, and how did you do it?

My first jolt of harnessing some world attention to the Bosnian War was when I arranged satellite link-ups between Sarajevo and U2 concerts. These link-ups were live and unedited and could have gone horribly wrong. A true risk when beaming live into a show of 75,000 fans out for a night of music. But, in the end, all the link-ups were successful. I would credit that to the people I found to speak live. They could have started yelling in anger at the European audiences that were watching them on 90 foot screens, but instead they were always polite, respectful and fully understanding that the kids at the show were their potential allies in getting politicians in Europe to do something.

Then I made Miss Sarajevo, a documentary that vividly shows the alternative life in the besieged capital of Sarajevo. The life of the artist, teenagers, school kids. It is a story of the spirit of survival in the face of utter death and humiliation.

I also helped organize the U2 concert held in Sarajevo in 1997, a promise kept by U2 from the day I first met them. A promise I suspect not many others would keep. They spent their own money and got 50,000 people to come to a rock show, with 4,000 NATO troops guarding the event. It was the craziest single event I have ever been a part of.

And finally I wrote “Fools Rush In“, which tells an epic story of love, grief and redemption. It offers up a great deal of hope in a sea of hopelessness. And why this is true for any situation in our personal lives. There is always a way to see out of something, even if it looks incredibly dark at the moment.

There were many international media agencies present in Sarajevo during the war, how is what you did different, and why did it seem to have a deeper impact?

Quite simply, I didn’t know what I was doing! This is important. Professional journalists and newscasters have a formula they are required to crank out everyday, in a war or working the sports beat at the local college. It really doesn’t matter. They hit their marks, like actors on a stage. The only thing to look forward to is the possibility of the unexpected. So, they fail to actually connect to the human side of us, the side that reflects. Worse yet, as news sources continue to expand, the news now tends to be not even that good at giving us the “news.” I think what I was doing was completely based in the human aspect of the war. My motto was not to inform you to the “facts” of the war, but to make you actually care about the person on the film, the screen, the satellite enough to stop and listen. If empathy can be conjured up in a person, we are very powerful creatures. This is when we are able to actually make differences in our world.

Have new technologies like Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter and YouTube made it easier or harder to make the same kind of social impact?

In some ways easier, and in some ways harder. Easier if you think of the Arab spring or Wikileaks. Impact can be dramatic and instant. At the same time there is no filter and we have quickly become overwhelmed with too much information about every thing on earth. This sensory overload can make it difficult to ascertain which cause to focus on, or who to believe. There is just so much information.

Do you have any advice for young social activists?

First and foremost, you must be a curious person – a naturally curious person. This will help a lot. Then, follow your gut and your heart to get to what you care about. Then add some strong dashes of common sense and a pinch of perspective. Now, go for it. I have found blind heartfelt activism usually leads to a bleeding heart, which leads to activism dead on arrival. On the flipside, too many facts and no heart leads to the same empty grave. The key is a mixture. Or in the language of writers, the key is a unique voice. Hit them from an angle they didn’t see coming.

Your new book “Boom, Bust, Boom” is about copper. Why did you decide to write this book?

Like all my books, it is the topic in which I suddenly realized I was actually living. I lived in a copper town, in a copper state, in one of the largest copper belts in the world. Then I was poisoned by my own soil and realized I don’t know a thing about the place where I live. This triggered a curiosity in me, which led to a book.

What are some of the bigger copper-related issues facing America today?

The biggest issue is getting the message across to people that we are massive consumers of copper, and thus directly responsible for the highly toxic open pit copper mines throughout the Southwest and beyond. We are dependent on copper to maintain our current civilization and yet copper mining is highly destructive and has real damaging effects on our lives and water.

What should ordinary Americans know about the proposed Pebble Mine project near Bristol Bay, Alaska?

They should know that this mine, if built, will sit 14 miles from Lake Iliamna, the single largest natural hatchery of sockeye salmon on earth. The headwaters that flow from Iliamna carry up to 50 percent of the total sockeye salmon run of Bristol Bay, which is the world’s largest salmon run. There are no large-scale copper mines that don’t somehow pollute or ruin the surrounding groundwater. The scale they operate at is too large.

How will it affect people living outside of Alaska?

If built this mine will adversely effect the water and thus seriously threaten or kill the fishery. To threaten this fishery in any way should alarm anyone, in Alaska the lower 48 or the world. No one is making the argument that the mine will destroy a beautiful landscape, which it would. They are specially saying this mine will destroy one of the last great sustainable fisheries. A fishery that provides thousands of jobs, feeds millions and has been at the heart of a native culture for 8,000 years. And for what? Copper. For me this battle is not just about this mine, or this fishery. This fight to stop this mine addresses a question we must ask ourselves going forward for the next 50 years: what is more important to us as humans, minerals to sustain our civilization, or water and food we need to actually live. This will become the heart of a battle fought around the world for the next 100 years. When do we say no to mining when it threatens a vital source of water or food. Pebble is this fight. And it is now.

What are people doing to fight this development?

There are many organizations joined at the hip in the battle against the mine. Many bed partners that normally don’t speak to one another. Fishermen joined with environmentalist, Republicans joined with Democrats. This is one of those issues that unites those wanting to salvage a great resource against those that see our natural resources as something can be forever extracted for our consumer driven society and maximize shareholder profits. Enough is enough and it is time to say no to big business and keep the fishery alive and well.

Bill Carter will be speaking at the 16^th Annual FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon Feb. 22, 23. Friday he will read at Clemente’s Restaurant during a fundraiser to support Trout Unlimited’s efforts to spread awareness about the proposed Pebble Mine. For a full schedule of events, visit: http://www.fisherpoets.org/fisherpoets-gathering-2013.html

To learn more:

Trout Unlimited/Save Bristol Bay

Alaska Conservation Fund

The Natural Resources Defense Council

The Wild Salmon Center

My hat is off to Powell’s City of Books

February 13, 2013/in AM:PM PR /by Mike Phillips

Hats are often cited by men’s fashion magazines as the most important accessory in the male wardrobe, and for good reason. You can tell a lot about a guy by the type of hat he wears.

Priorities

If you look to the world of animation for guidance, most cartoon characters seem to place more value on their hat than their pants, often putting a lot of thought into a sharp-looking headpiece while skimping on their legwear and shoes. It’s not uncommon to see a barefooted ‘toon with cheap tights, underwear, short pants, or most curiously, no pants at all. This tells us all we need to know about hats. They are important. A fine hat carries many symbolic references to personality, taste, musical preferences, favored cities, professions, hygiene and even social status.

Social Status

If you’re not careful, a hat may stimulate battles for dominance among rival alpha males with allegiances to different teams, cities, causes or groups. When I was 17 I went to my girlfriend’s house for the first time wearing my latest purchase – a “Greenpeace” hat made from 100% organic hemp – a real political statement for a 17-year-old hippie boy. Upon entering the garage, where her father was busy at work repairing components to a carburetor, I was immediately accosted by a snarling old man. He yanked the hat from my head and proceeded to stomp his muddy boots all over it until it was utterly destroyed. I received his non-verbal message loud and clear, which may have been harder to obtain had I not been wearing a hat.

Fashion

For a singular fashion item, there’s a lot of thought that goes into a hat. In 2012, after many years donning the retro Seattle Mariners cap with the yellow trident, I made the decision to stop wearing baseball caps that demonstrated an allegiance to an area I no longer lived in, and a baseball team that regularly lost twice as many games as they won. “Surely I can make a grander statement, I thought.” So when I walked into Powell’s City of Books and saw they had a trucker-style Powell’s branded baseball cap I knew I’d met my match. You can imagine the joy I experienced when I received the Powell’s trucker hat as a birthday gift later that year.

Jet-lagged, and running through the canals of Amsterdam.

Travel

Time passed and I grew to adore how this hat represented my chosen career path, my adopted city, and I liked that it represented a treasured Portland institutional icon and a respectable past-time activity: reading. When I went to Europe in 2012 I was sure to bring my hat to alleviate bedhead, but also to communicate to Europeans that I am not like other Americans. My hat said, “I am from Portland, Oregon and I am an educated American who likes to read books.” I have great photos wearing the hat in Amsterdam, Paris and even Bosnia. Yet it was upon my return trip to Paris that one day it was suddenly lost. Without explanation.

Personal Taste

My travel partner for weeks had lamented the fact that I was wearing a trucker-style hat as we toured fabulous landmarks in Amsterdam, and dined through the finest cafes of Paris. It was embarrassing to her and I’d often catch her leering hawkish eyes peering over the rim of her espresso cup as she viewed me in disgust. I tried to explain that my Powell’s cap wasn’t just any trucker hat, that it represented our beloved city, culture and the act of reading, but she was having none of it.

Hat History

I first learned of her disdain for such a fashion item on a day when I paid a visit to her home sporting a trucker hat with the hand-painted message “I Love Hot Wet Rio.” I didn’t know what it meant, she didn’t know what it meant, nobody knew what it meant – but it was a cool hat.

“What are you doing wearing that trashy hat?” she inquired.

Regrets

I should have caught the red flags when I made the mistake of wearing the “I Love Hot Wet Rio” hat to her house a second time, missing similarly worded verbal cues, for it was subsequently lost. She later admitted to accidentally throwing it away, but when I acquired a second “I Love Hot Wet Rio” hat and it was also lost under mysterious circumstances, I should have realized that something was not right in trucker-town.

With Vedran Smailović, the famed “Cellist of Sarajevo” at the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Paris, France

One day last spring my favored Powell’s hat went missing from our little hotel in the Rue Cler neighborhood of Paris, and I grew awfully suspicious of the afore mentioned person. I had just arrived two days earlier from Sarajevo, Bosnia where I had proudly worn the hat from end to end of the city, and I wore it back to Paris. I know that for a fact, because you cannot pack a hat. The sheer force of the other items in the suitcase would certainly crush it. I began my inquiry like Inspector Poirot.

“Did you hide my favorite Powell’s hat,” I asked?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a smirk and a sly knowing eye aimed towards my sister’s general direction. “I don’t think you came back from Bosnia with that hat,” she said. They both giggled and I nearly lost my s***. I immediately calmed myself down in a desperate attempt to appear reasonable.

“Come on, you have to tell me where that hat is,” I begged. “It’s my favorite hat.”

“You never brought it back from Bosnia,” she said, lacking any empathy whatsoever. More giggles.

I recognized it was a losing battle and I was utterly destroyed inside. So the next day, while they were off sampling pastries at Ladurée, I set to task tearing the hotel room apart, heckling any snobby hotel staff I encountered. I waited in the dark shadows like a predator for housekeeping, but they never came. I spent the rest of the trip with messy windblown hair, relentlessly battered, beaded and tossed about by the rains of the British Isles.

Somber Homecoming

Upon returning to our fair Rose City my first item of business was to find a replacement cap. I started at the Powell’s on Hawthorne but my hat was out of stock. I took the bus to the Powell’s downtown and they were also out of stock. An employee logged into the computerized merchandise system and discovered that one hat was available at the technical bookstore. I tore across the street and into the bookstore but the staff couldn’t find any record of a trucker hat in their system. “It must have been a glitch,” said the employee.

Social Media to the Rescue

I don’t remember how I got home that day, but I recall the defeated feeling in my heart when I plopped upon the couch. I remember that desperate moment when I clutched my iPhone and tweeted a last ditch agony-fueled effort to Powell’s Books Twitter account:

I then set about rebuilding my new life.

* * *

But wouldn’t you know it, 42 minutes later I received the following message:

To which I replied:

I can’t tell you what an amazing experience it is to have that kind of attention and care from a business. Powell’s was always an important place for the pre-21 year old version of myself who prowled the city looking for late night adventures. When I tried to make it in rock’n’roll during my early 20’s I went to Powell’s to buy books to learn about the music industry. When I got my first “real job” and had to learn what PR was, and quickly, I ran to Powell’s Books. When I decided to start my own business and needed some advice to get me started, I went to Powell’s Books. When I have an out of town visitor and I want to show them something really cool, I take them to Powell’s Books.

Powell’s is such a valued cultural institution in this town for all of the reasons above, but they are also staffed by super caring and thoughtful people too. I received the following message a couple weeks ago:

Powell’s staff sent me a hat, which arrived last week and I am wearing it at this very moment because of our office’s loose dress code. They have also provided quite the interesting case study in the power and value of social media.

Michael Phillips, Lion Tamer, wears many hats at AM:PM PR.

Clinton Street Roundup – Part One

February 6, 2013/in Be my neighbor /by Alexis Dane

We’re all nestled in to our new home at the Cyrk Building. While we’ll miss our lovely neighbors in the Buckman neighborhood, we’re excited to be starting our new life as part of vibrant SE Clinton Street.

In typical AM:PM PR fashion we’ve already busied ourselves trying the various cafes and restaurants in the area. Since we were without a home for over a month, we had ample opportunity to meet as a team at many of these fine establishments to discuss business and taste the food and drink the neighborhood has to offer.

We’ll continue to update the Be My Neighbor section of the website with posts detailing our favorite spots as we discover them. For now, here’s a roundup of our current crushes.

K & F roasts its own coffee (it’s delicious, by the way) and they offer a pretty impressive variety of baked goods to nibble while you sip your beverage of choice. It was the site of our first offsite meeting and it’s a classic Portland coffeehouse that I’m sure we’ll continue to regularly frequent.

Clinton St. staple, Dot’s Cafe, has been around for more than 20 years. It’s one of our favorite lunch spots on a cold winter day due to its signature coziness and velvet-painting-festooned walls. They serve up classic, high quality bar food and stiff drinks, what more could one want?

We’re lucky to be just down the block from St. Jack – both the restaurant and the patisserie. The patisserie has drawn us in several times over the last month with its perfectly crafted traditional french pastries like buttery croissants, canelés and macarons. We’ll have to be careful to resist the urge to swing by daily since swimsuit season is just around the corner.

Compote has been serving the Clinton St. neighborhood delectable breakfast and lunch items made from scratch with wholesome ingredients for over two years. Located just two doors down from our space it will be difficult to resist a daily stop for a homemade treat.

What neighborhood would be complete without the perfect after work hang out? Night Light Lounge boasts one of the best happy hours in town (trust me, I’m an expert) and even serves brunch on the weekends. I can foresee many PR 3.0 meetings continuing after hours at this classic SE spot.

Those are among our current favorites. Stay tuned to the Be My Neighbor blog for additions. Are there any places you love that we didn’t mention? If so, please share share with us in the comments section.

90% of the building’s power comes from the solar panels on the roof. The building also uses a geothermal heat pump (GHP). GHPs use the ground as a heat reservoir for high efficiency heating and cooling. The temperature of the earth is the exchange medium instead of the outside temperature.

It’s easy being green

February 4, 2013/in AM:PM PR, Be my neighbor /by ampmpr

We like green. We’re Irish. But, now we’re a whole new shade of green – building green.

90% of the building’s power comes from the solar panels on the roof. The building also uses a geothermal heat pump (GHP). GHPs use the ground as a heat reservoir for high efficiency heating and cooling. The temperature of the earth is the exchange medium instead of the outside temperature.

Passionate about sustainability, our landlords built the Cyrk to be the greenest of green buildings – LEED Platinum.

The Ipe wood siding and sunscreens aren’t just reclaimed, they have history. They originally existed as decking in a Northern Californian steam driven sawmill. Before there was a movement to protect the old growth forests and establishing Redwoods State & National Parks, gold miners and lumberjacks walked across the boards in the largest and oldest redwood log mill in the world. This same wood will be used inside AM:PM PR and 7/Apps offices as barn doors to our conference room.

The patio features native plants and reclaims storm-water runoff.

All of the materials and paint used are non-toxic and 21% of the construction materials came from recycled sources. During the construction phase 95% of the waste was diverted from landfills.

Erin is our own in-house Green Police and we will be trained to respect this building by being good stewards ourselves. Our next project – making our own paper out of our shreds. Not really. That’s too hard. I think we’ll just communicate electronically. Look for your invite to our office warming party on March 15th in your email soon and come check this all out for yourself.

Archive for month: February, 2013