This is part of a series of facts designed to help me figure out who I really am. Got some insight? Leave a comment.

This is part of a series of facts designed to help me figure out who I really am. Got some insight? Leave a comment.

NOT having drinks has actually made working nights incredibly difficult the last couple of nights. Every time I try to achieve some menial task, like filing away the title to my car, faxing off a production insurance policy, or putting water to my lips, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and there I am, 98-years old, getting ready for bed at 5:30pm, or worse, getting ready to die.

Am I missing something here? Isn’t alcohol a depressant and shouldn’t that mean that instead of getting less work done, I should instantly become 10 times more productive? Oh right, I’m playing the bitchy sober guy, let me do some of my drills. Relax. Take a deep breath. Now, clear my mind. State my problem with a positive outlook and know the answer will come to me.

I stopped drinking and now I’m super tired, but I know that with a few positive thoughts and spoon full of sugar, the answer will come to me.

And scene! I play the part of the meditating patient to a T. ;)

But then, as if the energy forces were scoffing at my sense of humor and enjoyed shoving it right back in my face. YOU’VE GOT MAIL! No, not the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks sap fest; actual mail (well, by actual mail, I mean electronic mail, which is actually what I consider actual mail these days, but I digress).

Son of a bitch! Here’s the email I got from Abraham-Hicks Publications not 3-seconds after my quasi-moment of alignment with a higher energy source:

Just do your best to keep yourself in balance. One of the first things that causes Energy misalignment, is asking or demanding too much of yourself in terms of time and effort. In other words, you just cannot burn the candle at both ends, so that you are physically tired, and then expect yourself to have a cheerful attitude. So, the rule of thumb has to be: “I’m going to be very, very, very happy, and then do everything I have time to do after that.”

Excerpted from a workshop in West Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, March 6th, 2005

Our Love,
Jerry and Esther

Simply, jaw dropping. So, that being said, I’m off to sleep. Because I’m not one for Energy misalignment. And I like to be happy. ;)

Well, as you can imagine, these sewer rats didn’t have the highest paying jobs, so they could only buy our little guy’s blow in really small quantities and that was hardly enough to keep them coming back with a strong, lasting addiction. So, our little guy on the totem pole saw a market opportunity and took it. If he could find a way to make a stronger high for a cheaper price, he could start offering a product to the masses, instead of having to build long term relationships with the upper-eschelon of the cocaine snorting community.

He went to his laboratory, which consisted of nothing more than a few rusty pans, a three year old box of baking soda from the refridgerator and a Holly Hobbie Bake Oven. Using a local burnout as his focus group, he was very quickly able to concoct a watered down drug. Cut with baking soda he could nearly double his profits, while lowering the cost to the consumer significantly. It also provided a much more intense high initially, albeit much shorter in the long run. The kicker was that his new product was SO addictive that once you started smoking it, the high immediately dissipated, so you had to instantly smoke more of it to retain that same high. Now, our drug marketer friend had a line out the door and his product spread the world. The Crack Corporation was born.

But then, one day, this evil product was purchased and smoked repeatedly in Austin, TX by a couple of crackheads who happened to stumble into a downtown parking garage. Unbeknown to the patrons of this garage, the fiends were carrying a baseball bat and wide eyed for a little fun. So, they swung at the first car they saw and pillaged through the few belongings they found. With nothing of interest and no gas, they swung at the next car, CRASH the window went, spilling shards of glass across the driver’s side seat.

“AH HA!” The first crackhead said to his friend, “a lighter!” And the two tweaks were at it again. A hit off their makeshift light bulb pipe gave them renewed strength and wit. And that’s when they ran across a Silver Nissan Xterra with a full tank of gas. Excited, they dug out the steering console and started that car. “Let’s drive ‘cross town and ditch all this stuff,” said Crackhead 1 to Crackhead 2. And they drove by all the cameras in the parking garage and went across town to another parking garage. After they had driven by the cameras in that garage twice and ditched all of the miscellaneous gear in the vehicle, these baseheads were ready for a joy ride and some more good ol’ crack. But sadly, their dealer lived in San Antonio.

The crackheads walked out of Crack Corporation, S.A. with a tote bag full of goodies and a “How-to get away with stealing a car manual” which came with all orders of crack purchased from the window of a stolen vehicle. Cheap black spray paint? Check. Painter’s tape? Check. Ammonia Windex? Check. Razor blades for removing inspection and registration stickers? Check. Fake out-of-state license plates? Check. Hideous rap music that only crackheads could enjoy? Check. This is the part of our story where Crackhead 1, the artist of the two, decides to paint the under belly, alloy wheels and other racing style decals onto his new vehicle. And the joy ride begins!

As our crackhead friends head North on I35, back in Austin, the vehicle owners are trying to make sense of the mess in the parking garage. The police are called, car reported stolen, evidence collected and the APB (All Points Bulletin) for a stolen vehicle is live throughout the state. The vehicle owner has to laugh because, honestly, who gets a car stolen? That’s just in movies with Nicolas Cage, isn’t it?

Now northern bound, rocking an eclectic mix of underground rap, our junkie buddies swerve this way and that, bumping and grinding while hitting that crack pipe between down beats. At one point, there was talk of some booty popping on the handstand, but it was labeled as dangerous and inappropriate for the genre of rap they were currently listening.

And THAT’s when it happened! Those red, white and blue lights blasted up behind our, now frightened rock smokers with a siren that roared out in a deep, but screeching voice, “Your ass is going to jail crackheads!” Now crackheads are known for being fast, so much as most of the time you just find them running for no particular reason. They love fast and so with another hit off the light bulb, they sprung into action and floored the gas as hard as they could. You would have thought that both tweaks’ heads were going to explode because, even though only one of them was driving, they were both pushing as hard as they could into that floorboard. But, they had Texas police officers hot in pursuit and even more than Washington Redskins, Texas cops HATE crackheads.

But, in Hillsboro, TX the stolen vehicle took a deadly turn, nearly killing both passengers, but alas, it made it without toppling and was able to throw the police off their trail. Without time to think, the stolen vehicle was ditched in a dark Texas field and each smoked a cow patty sized rock so quickly that both went blind for what seemed like 6 days, but was really only a half a second. And they sprinted and they sprinted and they ran faster than crackheads have ever run (which is really freaking fast). And to this storytellers knowledge, they are still running and hopefully their lungs will collapse and they’ll be found on the side of the road, still living, but tired from being up for 13 days straight.

Because even though we got our car back and they lost all of their belongings (including their beloved crack pipe, which they stored in a fake Ray-Ban sunglasses case, because crackheads can’t afford real things), it would make this storyteller very happy to see them rot in prison, where they can drink toilet wine and reflect on what huge losers they have become.

In the meantime, I’ll be driving around town in the car that looks like it was painted by a 2-year old with no talent. If you have any information on the whereabouts of our main characters, feel free to comment on this blog or contact your local authorities and if you are the main characters in this story, the Hillsboro Police have all of your things, even your Jordache jeans and triple XL jersey. And as for the guy who thought creating crack cocaine was a good idea, I hope someone steals your car radio every day for the rest of your life. Because, let’s face it, that’s just annoying.
—
Yes, I did intend on telling people how to make and market crack, all while giving details on how to steal a car. So, please don’t ask, because it was intended.
—
Just trying out some new types of writing to those who read this far. Apparently, I’m a writer now, so that means I have to find a voice, supposedly. Feel free to tell me exactly how you felt about this style, story, content, etc., which I guess is kind of a children’s book storyteller rant for adults, chronicling an actual event that happened to me. Hurt my feelings if you want, I just need the feedback.

And no, I did not smoke crack before writing this, nor have I ever, but I am writing up a business plan for a local street client looking to get into the drug game. ;)

I do not typically drink this heavily (well, that’s a lie, I do), but in light of a book deal I just signed, I will stop drinking for 90 days and thus, felt a final hurrah of sorts was in order.

Over the next 90 days, I will be writing about the impact that removing all alcoholic substances from my life has on my social life, career and physical fitness. As a 24 year old in the entertainment/media business, my entire life revolves around alcohol in one way or another. Whether it is happy hour with a client, a networking event with a colleague, or a drunken hook up with some floosy in a skirt; my entire life has a very close bond with alcohol. When you take that away, does it change the entire dynamic of how you live your life? Do you still want to hang out with the same people and do the same kinds of things? Does everything you used to think you liked now annoy the crap out of you? Will the holidays still be fun if I’m not guzzling eggnog like it’s my freaking job? And finally, am I an alcoholic? Will I even be able to make it through 90 days of sobriety?

This is day one of a new, sober lifestyle. I hope it doesn’t suck.

Other than having to finish up the new Vallejo music video, another big reason for my minimal blogging over the past week was due to the toll that the 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival took on me. Three 12-hour days of walking in the 100-degree Texas heat, listening to music, boozing and networking, networking, networking. And don’t get me started on the ACL after-parties that followed each music filled day. Honestly, I’ve retired to my Dallas hideaway just to catch up on work, organize all the contacts I made at the festival and detox a bit.

That being said, I’m starting to get my head together and my thoughts are becoming somewhat clear, once again. Thus, I’m going to share some of the ways I and others promoted ourselves at the ACL Festival and hopefully shed some light on how you can become a rockstar in your own right, the next time you visit an outdoor music festival. Here are 8 ways to meet hundreds, even thousands of new people and get your brand out to the masses.

Put your logo on everything.
With 100,000+ people walking around, you never know who you’re going to meet or who might approach you. One of the easiest ways to promote your company/band/self is to put your logo on everything. Bring a cooler? Put your logo on it. Umbrella? Get a logo on it. Blanket? You guessed it…logo. You could even wear a T-shirt with your logo on it, but make sure it’s a cool t-shirt and not something you got for free at your last 5K Fun Run.

Plan ahead and bring something useful.
This past weekend at ACL, it was HOT, HOT, HOT! So, the popular free handouts were the paper fans being passed out by Heineken and a few other companies. As you walked around the park, nearly EVERYONE was carrying one of these paper fans sporting the Heineken logo. People even started referring to all paper fans as Heineken fans. These things couldn’t have been more useful under the hot Texas sun. Thanks, Heineken! These paper fans are cheap, useful and a way to get 100,000 people walking around and literally waving your logo in front of their friends faces.

Bring something fun.
This one is an oldie but a goodie. Beach balls! You see one or two of these everytime you go to a concert, ballgame and many other events, but it really is a great way to get your logo in front of people and while I know a few people that hate these things, I happen to enjoy and even wait in eager anticipation for a beach ball to come my way, so I can get in on the fun. But, be careful. It’s better to have a fewer number of really big beach balls, than to have a lot of little ones, in which, no one can clearly see your logo.

I mark this land mine!
Get a flag and a retractable flag pole that’s at least fifteen feet tall and plant it wherever you end up sitting or standing with your group in front of each stage. Not only is this a really easy way for friends to find you, but it creates a reference point for the hundreds of thousands of people around you. When the people next to you are trying to give their friends directions to where in the huge crowd they are, you can bet their going to say something along the lines of “Just look up, we’re 10 feet left of the ‘Your Company Here’ flag.” I felt like a broken record this past weekend because I said something similar to this about ten thousand times. That’s a lot of people talking about your company.

People want to know what you do.
Outdoor festivals are the melting pot for music fanatics and if you’re sitting in front of the same stage as some stranger, you can bet that you already have at least one thing in common. Because of this, starting a conversation becomes easy. With all the other branding you’re doing, you can be pretty confident that people are going to ask what your company does. And while you could easily tell them and you should. You can also be pretty confident that after 12-hours of booze and sun, they’re not going to easily remember you. So, get a flyer, brochure, poster, business card or SOMETHING and give it to anyone that inquires about you and your company. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and efforts. I was amazed at how many people I came in contact with this past weekend that had nothing with their contact information on them.

Dress to Impress. And for a few laughs.
Festival attire is very different from any other event. Anything goes and the weirder the better. If it fits your personality, dress up a little. Festivals are kind of like an out of season, more casual, Halloween. If nothing else a fun or silly hat is a great way for people, who might not otherwise, to come up and approach you. In the past I’ve pulled out my alter-ego, Michael Sugarberry, with great networking success. But, a Trojan Warrior Helmet, Beer Hat, Cat In The Hat Hat and other smaller costumes have worked with similar success. But, only do this if it fits your personality. It sucks to walk up to someone with a fun costume on and find out that they’re not at all interested in laughing about it with you. Darn you! Darn you!

Capture those moments.
Another simple way to meet people is to bring a good digital SLR camera and take photos of people. Then, tell them that they can go to your website to see them later that night. You don’t necessarily have to be a great photographer to do this. Just put the camera on auto and you’ll be able to take a reasonably good photo. Just brush up on the basics of photography and practice good framing. If you’re not confident in your photography skills, you could always just hire one for the weekend and have he/she do the work for you. This is a great way to drive hits to your website, as everyone loves to see pictures of themselves. Use an automated formula in a software program like Adobe Photoshop to brand the pictures with your logo and then upload them to a gallery on your website. Just make sure you get the pictures up ASAP! There’s nothing more frustrating than coming off a sun drunk, looking for pictures of yourself and not finding them. This can also be a good way to get opt-in e.mail addresses for your newsletter, as you could require an e.mail to download high-res versions of the photos. You might even allow people to print the photos online through an affiliate online printing company. If you’re a photographer, there’s no excuse for not doing this at EVERY event you attend.

Side Note: With a little more effort and expense, you can take the same formula above and apply it to video that is then posted to your website. This is even more attractive and draws even larger web statistics.

Make the people you meet VIP.
Everyone wants to think of themselves as being a Very Important Person (VIP). That’s why such a premium is taxed onto VIP tickets for events. It’s not necessarily that the benefits are THAT great, because usually they aren’t. But, it is fun to think of yourself as VIP and rub shoulders with other VIPs. So, make the people you meet VIP! It’s pretty cheap to print up the laminated lanyards that are often used for VIP passes. Take your company logo and create a VIP section on your site. You could pair this with any of the other things listed above, but give people some reason as to WHY this is a VIP section on your site. Perhaps a free music or video download? Now give this new contact your branded lanyard that in BIG letters says “VIP” in plain font. Then have your company logo, a brief description of what being in your VIP program means and a list of your services. Oddly enough, people love to wear something that says VIP on it, because it makes them feel just that, like a Very Important Person. It’s perceived value and they like the way people look at them, when they are a part of an elite club. Perceived value is king and VIP badges are a good way to assure that your branded lanyard isn’t thrown on the ground.

And Finally…
In the end, all of these techniques will allow you to meet more people, get your brand out in front of a ton of like-minded people and make your festival experience a lot more fun. And that what it’s all about! The more contacts you make, the more fun it is to walk around the park and run into your new friends time and time again. You can easily make yourself, your band or your company a mini-festival celebrity just by implementing the above techniques. So, try them out and see how they work for you. What do you do to promote yourself at festivals or events? How are you starting conversations online and in real life? What ways would you suggest people NOT use to promote themselves?

Click here to see the high resolution version of the video.

To find out ways you can donate your money, time or services to charity, or to see the charms, you can visit My Charms for Charity.

To watch the VIMBY spot in high resolution 16:9, click here. And be sure to rate and hit the Digg button if you like the spot. Thanks!

If you are an artist, musician, DJ, extreme sport athlete, cool venue or company in Austin, Dallas or Houston. Leave a comment or shoot me an email to find out how you can get a VIMBY promo spot for free.

The Barnum & Bailey circus has come to Austin and that excites me because I LOVE circuses! When you think about it the circus is the ultimate PR spectacle and Barnum is a big reason behind that. P.T. Barnum was one of the greatest showmen of all time because he knew how to put on a spectacle that people would talk about for ages.

Here are 5 things the circus teaches us about making your PR campaign a spectacle:

• Build Anticipation. If you’ve ever lived in a town where a circus is going to visit, you know that they don’t just show up. They flyer the entire city with fun posters that announce when they will arrive. Any good PR/Marketing campaign would be good to build anticipation for what is about to happen. It is important to wet people’s appetite and find early adopters who will spread your message. People don’t generally like to be flat out surprised, they like to slowly be surprised. Start out slow and clever with your message and you’ll find you have more success, as you slowly unroll the magnitude of your spectacle.
  

  Example: David Ogilvy ran a billboard ad in France once that showed a girl in a bikini, the tagline read something to the extent of “On Sept. 28, I lose the top.” This was building anticipation. On Sept. 28th, they replaced the billboard with the same girl only she was topless. This time the tagline read something like, “On Oct. 15, I lose the bottoms.” More anticipation created a lot of buzz and then finally, On Oct. 15th, the model stood on the billboard naked. Building anticipation is powerful.

• Make a grand entrance. The circus takes making a grand entrance to the highest degree. As it parades into town, it literally parades into town. In Barnum’s day, an elephant might even lead the parade down main street. It’s hard to ignore an elephant stomping by your office. Whatever your event, promotion or campaign, make sure you create an element that people can’t stop looking at. The nightly news is told in images, when you create an irresistible image, it won’t just be the press talking about you, it will be the entire city.
• For a limited time only. One of the reasons the circus does so well wherever it goes it because it only comes around once or twice a year in each city it visits. By creating a scarce window of time, they create an urgency to get people to act and buy tickets before it’s too late. If people can see you every night of the week, you’re not going to have a sold out show on any night. But, if your event, promotion or campaign is limited and creates a sense of urgency, then you’re more likely to get an influx of customers and press coverage.
• Feeding the elephants. Now that you’ve got people’s attention, you want to seal the deal and convert anyone still on the fence. What the circus does is publicly invite the entire community to come and feed the animals for free. No need to buy a ticket, just bring your kids down and see how much fun the show is going to be. It’s hard to see all those animals and clowns and then walk away without seeing the show. What’s even more powerful is that every member of the circus is so passionate about their part of the show. That passion makes buying a ticket almost irresistible. Once you’ve got attention, invite people in to see your operation, or test your product. If you are the remarkable company you say that you are, then you’ll have no problem converting visitors into customers, especially if each member of your organization can sell their part of the “show” effectively. Members of your team don’t have to be sales people, you’ve got sales people for that, but they do need to be passionate about what they do. Trust me, passion sells.
• The Greatest Show on Earth. Finally, you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk? The circus gets you all amped about its arrival, then it parades into town making a spectacle, it promises you the greatest show, but only for a limited time. If you want to dig deeper, it lets you feed the animals and meet all the members of their circus team, each of which speak with passion about their craft and then the circus delivers on everything they’ve built up in your head. The Barnum & Bailey circus really IS one of the greatest shows on earth! And when it’s all over, you leaving with a feeling of wonderment, just as you pass the gift shop. You always tend to spend more at the gift shop than you did on the entire family’s tickets and that’s the point. They put on a show that you want to tell people about and then they sell you the tools to tell their story.
  
  After you’ve given a client everything they wanted and more, it’s not a bad idea to have something you can up-sell for added value. With our music video packages, we offer a top notch music video. Once we have a happy music video client on our hands, we talk about shooting an EPK (electronic press kit) that they can use to further promote the band and once they love their new EPK, we offer them a series of social media, PR and marketing campaigns that will allow them to promote their new video content. Then we build anticipation around their album by releasing snippets of footage from behind-the-scenes, then parade into town pushing the music video all over the place…wait this is starting to sound familiar. ;)

How do you organize and execute your PR/Marketing campaign? What tools or techniques allow you to garner the largest response from your product launch, promotion or campaign? What is your company’s giant elephant marching down the street? How are you up-selling or adding more value to the product’s you are selling?