Without a carefully crafted, impeccably timed pitch, delivered to the most appropriate editors or reporters, worthwhile news about your first-to-market product, expanding services or industry accomplishments can go unnoticed. If key media don’t share it with optimal audiences, you haven’t leveraged the power of public relations to accomplish your organization’s goals.

It takes a compelling pitch to cut through the clutter. Many journalists receive dozens of pitches weekly or even daily. Gaining and maintaining their attention is an art, one we’ve mastered.

So just how do we get to that perfect pitch? Continue reading →

As any MMIer can tell you, this takes a lot of work and a lot of planning, but The Perfect Event absolutely does exist (and it’s also a lot of fun to work on).

Whether it entails driving across the state, chasing golfers around a golf course, hooking Santa up to a zip-line or live blogging, we have done it for a client event. We are experts at registration, we are snake charmers and we are reindeer coordinators. We light towns pink, we staff street teams and we pitch tents. If it needs to be done for an event, the MMI team can do it. Continue reading →

Within the Interactive Team, we preach the practice of “tech for the sake of impact” – reminding ourselves that novelty alone is not the best reason to incorporate technology into our clients’ marketing initiatives.

The same goes for our everyday lives. Continue reading →

I think I safely speak for the Interactive Team when I confess that we feel very lucky to get to play on the internet for a living. We also have the pleasure of working with some terrific clients. In the last 60 days, we have launched seven sites! Check out some of the fun we’re having…

University of Houston’s Housing – A site with future and current students in mind. It’s easy to navigate, has a feed for the event calendar, shows photos and/or videos of all the rooms, and links up the Twitter account for each Halls’ RA. There’s even a section dedicated to the questions and concerns of parents.

Interactive Theater – Whimsical, colorful, and fun. With callouts for Teachers and Parents, links to their social media efforts, and a “talking” Captain Hook, you can really get in on the act.

Planned Community Developers – In addition to the heavy SEO efforts and design update, this site now focuses on providing brokers a self-service spot with in-depth information on the properties such as floorplans, specs, photos and available space. With a hot property like Sugar Land Town Square, now it’s all just a click away.

Sugar Land Town Square – Speaking of, we just launched a mobile version of the site complete with a new parking finder. No need to waste time searching for a parking space, now you can navigate right to an open garage with the built in map.

Lone Star Shootout Tournament – An invitation-only fishing tournament hosted by another client, Caracol Coastal, this was a quick-turn site (1 week!) with the goal of creating a quick reference for participants and an easy-to-update site for the tournament organizers.

Lake Pointe Texas – This launch coincided with the splashy Lake Pointe Town Center Family Festival.  The site was reorganized into retail and residential sections, with greater focus placed on what shoppers want – retailer coupons, new store opening announcements, and an interactive shopping and dining map.

Long Meadow Farms – When you’re driving around searching for a new home, wouldn’t it be great to be able to lookup photos, pricing, inventory homes and builder information right from your smartphone? Now you can in Long Meadow Farms.

What an inspirational trip! The HOW Conference was amazing, but then again how can you not be inspired when you’re surrounded by the beautiful rocky mountains of Denver, with ninety-degree weather and zero humidity? The whole atmosphere was just so refreshing, from the dozens of street performers, to the friendliness of the local people, to the huge blue bear peering into the conference center. Any designer will tell you, much of their inspiration comes from the environment they are in or have been, and Denver certainly is a great place to draw motivation and rejuvenation.

With over forty speakers coming from all over the country, the How Design Conference provided a wealth of knowledge for us to absorb and just take in. I love design, so meeting and hearing the stories of some the top designers in the world was a privilege I’ll never forget. There were far too many amazing sessions to go through them all, but I feel I have to mention at least two, to give them the recognition they deserve:

Cameron Moll – Good vs. Great Design Not only is he classed as one of the top twenty designers in the world, he is an author, speaker, freelance designer, entrepreneur, father of four, and still in his thirties! He provided great insight into where he draws his inspirations from and simple ways to better manage, your time, and productivity.

Von Glitschka -  Creating Five-Alarm Concepts Provided some extremely valuable techniques like brain mapping, word association, and the use of both sides of your brain, to create better solutions to problems and to not lose focus of the clients goal.

I feel like I’ve inherited years of experience over the course of three days and I’m very thankful to MMI for giving the opportunity to attend the conference. Finally, I’ll leave you with the best advice I took from the week,

“Load the chamber (your head), know that you’ll never know what you don’t know, conceptual triggers are everywhere.” – Von Glitschka.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”

-Pablo Picasso

Designers are a product of our environment. We draw inspiration from colleagues, media, design publications, the internet and even the room in which we sit. To maintain a good design sense, we have to stimulate our own senses. Design is an ever evolving medium. For this reason the creative team at MMI is excited to attend the HOW Design Conference in Denver, Colorado next week.

Fostering a knowledge of the latest technologies and design trends is essential to remain a relevant designer and requires dedication to do so. As I participate in the upcoming conference I hope to be inspired by prominent designers from around the country. I hope to engage in conversation with fellow designers with different perspectives than my own. I hope to gain technical knowledge and creative rejuvenation. I hope to be motivated. I hope to feel the impact on my work when I return. I hope for no turbulence on our flight. I’m not a “good flyer.”

Inspiration requires receptiveness and initiative. On behalf of my colleagues, Claudia and Matt, we appreciate the opportunity to be changed as designers and we look forward to sharing our experiences when we return.

The other day I found myself reading a very, very long email chain to get to the point of an issue. It took me a while to sift through the fragments and string together the instructions, make assumptions on emotions and tone, to finally discover the root of the matter. I still love email and couldn’t live without it, but most often than not a conversation (especially the listening part)— in person or via the phone will always yield better communication outcomes. Reading the NY Times article We Have Met The Enemy and He is PowerPoint, General McMaster pointed out that it created an “illusion of understanding and an illusion of control.” Isn’t that true about so many of the ways we communicate with one another?

In PR, we remember when calling reporters became passé, then emailing was the new phone call and now direct messaging via Twitter seems to work for some. I think these methods can also foster meaningful dialogue, but with varying communication styles, some things get lost in translation. Verbal communication is something we’ve been doing since childhood, unlike email, so it’s kind of the one uniting medium of interaction. Short messages and bites of information can be efficient. For me, when it comes to practicing public relations and providing client service, I’ll be calling.