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ampmpr team firehouse

AM:PM PR – still standing! Yeah, yeah yeah!

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fluxby Jake Ten Pas

While it’s only been 10 months since our launch party, it’s been a full year since the actual launch of this crazy public relations space ship we call AM:PM PR. Sure, there have been a few asteroids, black holes, unhappy aliens and bounty hunters with personal vendettas along the way, but for the most part, it’s been smooth lightspeeding.

7/apps logo
Whether or not you believe that, you can trust me when I say that the party we’ve got planned to celebrate our year anniversary/first birthday with our sister firm, 7 Apps, is going to be visible from space. OK, so maybe that’s still hyperbole, but it is going to be super fun and so packed with local goodness that, if we were to broadcast the soiree live to the web, people all around the world could put their differences aside and be united in wondering why they don’t live in Portland.

Given that Pat and Allison have real work to do, and Cam’s been scalp-deep in a redesign of our website, Alexis and I took it upon ourselves to round up some of our favorite neighborhood and greater-Portland-area people to show off how well connected we are, and, we hope, look all the better by our illustrious associations.

distillery row passportWe’ll have six different distilleries on hand, including Deco, Sub Rosa and Integrity Spirits from our neighbor Distillery Row. Ashland’s Organic Nation, Wilsonville’s Vinn Distillery and Portland’s own Bull Run Distillery will also be with us. Our association with the Oregon Distillers Guild has yielded some tasty results, as you can see.

If that’s not enough, Will Smith from High Ball Distillery will bring products from his other endeavor, Great Western Spirits – such as Four Roses Bourbon – to further increase our range of offerings. His partner in Distillery Row Tours, Mike Heavener, will be on hand to tell you all about what’s going down with The Row.

Then there’s the beer and wine. Our favorite makers of sour beer, Cascade Brewing is sending over a keg from itseat your heart out logo
Barrel House, and Oregon’s greatest microbrewery, Ninkasi is donating cases thanks to the involvement of two artists we’re fortunate to have in the neighborhood, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First, I have to mention Zanzibar Cellars who’s graciously donating a bunch of vino for the cultured sippers in attendance.

To soak all this up, or maybe to make you thirsty in the first place, we’ll have the fabulous finger food of Eat Your Heart Out Catering for your snacking pleasure, as well as the sweet treats of Alder Pastry & Dessert. If you need a pick-me-up, Nossa Familia Coffee will be percolating your perfect cup. Helado, we’ve even got frozen yogurt thanks to one of our newest neighborhood friends, Active Culture.

people's art logo portland
But back to the art. If you were at the launch party, you likely noticed the colorful paintings punctuating the white space of the walls. Those were courtesy of artist Chris Haberman and PoBoy Art. This year, Haberman and his partner in the Peoples Art of Portland, Jason Brown, and an armada of their artist buddies will set sail for the shores of your pleasure centers. This imagistic invasion will be propelled by the sounds of DJ Hasselhoff, aka Zach Hoffman of Phoogoo.

Also along for the ride will be Leslie Hand Painted Glass, PDX Seamsters and a bevy of other Portland businesses. Donating items to our raffle this year will be Nicholas Restaurant, Flux Salon, Portlandia International Language School, Three Friends Coffee, Distillery Row Tours, FH Steinbart Homebrewing Supply Store, Enso Winery, Zell’s Cafe and Floyd’s Coffee. And Ankeny Hardware will once again loan us garbage cans to keep the party as clean as possible. There will even be a lemonade stand operated by three of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen, and I’m not just saying that because they’re Allison and Juan’s.

Finally, we have to mention our new best friend, Jack Hopkins, who was generous enough to loan us the huge parking lot behind our building free of charge. It abuts Cornerstone Automotive Group and NW Medical, and we hope to see their employees making with the merriment at our Birthday Bash.

In the past week, we’ve been diligently trying to invite everybody we know, love, “like,” and do business with, but it’s a long list. If we’ve forgotten you, drop us a line, and we’ll get you an invite. This party is going to be one for the ages, and it’s our little way of thanking the city and neighborhood that have nourished us along the way. We welcome the chance to nourish you right back. Cheers.

AM:PM PR original crew

A year of fun in the ‘hood

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The top topic buzzing around our office lately is our upcoming first birthday bash . Like our launch party last year, we plan to highlight the wonderful wares of our neighborhood – distillers, caterers, brewers, bakers, artists, winemakers and more.

As much as I’m looking forward to the party, looking back over the past year makes me grateful just to be part of AM:PM PR.

I’m the old guy in our group – literally the father figure to my partner, Allison, and our Human Infrastructure Technician, Erin. (I had to use “literally” in my post because it irritates Jake when people use the word inappropriately. I, of course, used it appropriately.)

When we set out on this adventure last year, I had this quixotic hope that spending my days working with young professionals would be invigorating. Turns out, I was right.

Instead of working in the Class A office space I enjoyed for more than 20 years downtown, we looked to the evolving east side of Portland’s Willamette River, where industrial operations mix with hot new restaurants, artist studios and a vibrant creative community. We ended up in a historic firehouse (lovingly restored by Venerable Properties and Bremik Construction).

Our group wanted open space, not private offices. They wanted to sit together around a big table. For an old coot like me, it’s strange. But my colleagues are comfortable with it. Collaboration is natural and creating privacy simply requires putting in their ear buds, or taking a call in our toy room.

Clients have helped us better understand what business we’re in. We knew interest in social networks was escalating exponentially, but we were surprised so many clients in the business-to-business categories – law firms, construction companies, architects, engineers, trade associations, etc. – are eager to learn more about and use social media.

Of course, one reason to celebrate is that we’re still here. Starting a business in the midst of a dismal economy is anything but ideal. Surviving and succeeding is worth celebrating.

But my main reason for celebrating is the gift I get from working with young professionals who respect traditional principles of successful public relations and teach me new insights about how to use today’s constantly changing communications tools.

It’s been a great ride this year. And we plan to have even more fun in the year ahead. Hope you can join us for the party.

 

 

 

 

 

Top 5 Pawsitively Purrfect Cat Videos

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It’s a well-known fact around the office that I’m a bit of a cat lady. When I say “a bit,” I suppose I mean a total, unabashed cat lady. My

fellow AM:PM PR team members have to deal with the repercussions of this fact on a frequent basis. Sometimes it’s in the form of mundane tales of my own cat, Gus’, adorable antics. More often, I barrage them with YouTube cat videos. Many a time I’ve called Jake Ten Pas over to my desk space, with tears of laughter rolling down my face, to watch “the funniest thing ever”. Lucky for me, this sort of thing flies around here. Otherwise I’d be screwed.

During yesterday’s PR 3.0 meeting, the group got to talking about viral videos and specifically the apparently inherent viral nature of cat videos. As marketing-minded people, our collective brain then thought about ways a wildly popular thing, like cat videos, could be harnessed to influence consumers. I immediately thought of ways the Humane Society could use videos of cute and/or funny pets to encourage people to adopt more pets. What do you think? Do you see any other applications?

Though cat videos are one of the most popular things on the Internet, I’m sure that you, dear reader, haven’t seen all the best ones. I’m going to do you all a service and share my top five, in no particular order. Enjoy.

Who doesn’t love an adorable, fluffy cat wearing a banana split costume while eating a banana? I know I do!

A kitten sitting on a tortoise. Awesome.

Here’s a fluffy, gorgeous Persian sitting on a stack of fluffy pillows at the dinner table. Adorable? Yep.

This one is too cute for words. Just watch it.

The best cat video compilation.

Trillium Absinthe Superiere

Party planning – it’s a rough life, but somebody’s got to drink it

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I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that planning a party is nowhere near as fun as the actual partying part of the party planning process.

Depending on how hard you party, the aftermath can sometimes be even less fun than the planning. I’m not super into that whole “cleaning up after” part either. Basically, I just like things that are fun.

I say all this as a way of prefacing the following statement: Planning the office-warming party for AM:PM PR and 7/Apps has been the kind of blast you can normally only get from a two-liter bottle of diet cola and a roll of Mentos.

That’s primarily because, early on, it was decided that I would be the liaison between AM:PM and Distillery Row , the area of southeast Portland that stretches from Burnside to Harrison and from MLK Blvd. to 12th Ave. Local craft distilleries such as Integrity, Highball, New Deal, Deco, Stone Barn Brandyworks and House Spirits make sure that if you’re sober around these parts, you only have yourself to blame.

Not sure why, exactly, my coworkers thought I would be a good fit for this particular mission. I’ll think about it while I finish this Sazerac.

Where was I again?

I’d love to tell you that it was some major feat of salesmanship on my part that got the distilleries involved, but in truth, I found that these were enthusiastic folks who needed only the tiniest of nudges to get on board. It helped that we were as excited about showcasing the Buckman Neighborhood and the unique businesses that populate it as we were about showing off the cast of characters that make up AM:PM PR.

In the process, I’ve gotten to hang out with Tom from New Deal, Rich from Integrity and the rest of the individuals who bring these individualistic spirits to life. Their personalities are about what you’d expect from the people behind products such as Trillium Absinthe, Hot Monkey Pepper Vodka and House Spirits’ Apothecary line of experimental small-batch liquors.

They’ve got more stories to tell than I have memory to record them. With that realization, we decided to begin filming a series of videos that will showcase the people, places and processes behind some of Portland’s finest intoxicants. They will appear on this website in the days to come.

As a friend once said, with great liquor comes great responsibility. While working with Distillery Row, we’ve also gotten to know our other neighbors, the ones that provide the kind of snacks so necessary to fortifying your stomach in times of plentiful imbibing.

Also bringing their delicious offerings to our shindig will be Meat Cheese Bread, Zell’s Café, Nicholas Restaurant, Clive Coffee, Nossa Familia, Sheridan Fruit Company, Buckman Village Brewery and Eat Your Heart Out.

We’ve been fortunate enough to come into contact with artist Chris Haberman, who will fill the former bunk room of Fire House No. 7 with visual art to complement its culinary counterpoint. Children’s Healing Art Project will be on hand to sell art and cupcakes in order to raise money to take art programs to local children’s hospitals.

Finally, we locked down the services of Cadenza Academy’s Kevin Pardew, who also plays bass for local Celtic rockers Amadan, to provide live music for the event with a band consisting of Dakota Max and Ashley Bread from the Dirt Jake Replicas. Web developer Zach Hoffman from Phoogoo will DJ in Bremik Construction’s offices next door, and attendees – or party people, as I like to call you – will be able to grab a glass of wine from Zanzibar and stroll between the two spaces.

It’s now apparent to me that this blog has turned into me giving props to the many fine people involved in this event, which was never my intent. I wanted to talk about myself and the many hardships I went through to turn my dream of free and plentiful liquor into reality. Oh well. I’m sure you get a sense of the nightmare that is my existence despite my wandering ways.

For those whose invitations got lost in the mail, the party will be held from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 26. Please don’t cast a spell to make us sleep for a hundred years.