JLH Media Blog
Its Not too late for New Year’s Resolutions
By: Jennifer Hinsley
New Years Resolutions are usually things I simply make in my head and hope I remember. The holidays are over, and frankly, I’d like a little break from the pressure of creating the most memorable and perfect holiday season yet! Instead, I wanted to get back to work, organize my business and my life and become super efficient—that was my casual resolution. Until I came up with a mantra; like yoga—something I can say to myself in those long hours of correspondence between clients, media, and personal notes. It started with questions: What does the way I compose an email say about me? How do I respond? In the data crush of my inbox I encounter all kinds of styles of correspondence. Casual. Friendly. Formal. And sometimes, but not often, the not-so-nice. I know we are all busy and sending emails is part of daily life and work. But it is inherent in what we do in PR, and it is the most looked at representation of our style, attitude and the consultation we are paid for. So this year, before I send an email I ask myself: are my words thoughtful and compassionate? It’s hard. Sometimes I forget. But this year is the year of good manners. I think that means better business.
***
Wired World
By: Jennifer Padilla
We live in a wired world. At my house—complete with busy home office—devices (and sometimes more than one) live in almost every room. I love public relations, am a news junkie, read three newspapers a day, scan the blogosphere, try to stay current with new means of communicating, and the explosion of, and ever-changing, social media with its potential for connecting. However, it has seemed lately for me that there is too much information out there. Being wired means work can go on late into the evening and can be a distraction from the present moment. Because JLH Media represents numerous spa clients, I have been scanning the 2013 Wellness trends, and I’ve found and starting practicing something I hope I can make last through 2013 and more. And it is this: shutting down electronic devices for a few good hours everyday—sometimes all day on the weekends—being mindful and focusing on the present.
I want to make great efforts in my work, to try to keep up with my friends and the world, but in order to stay most connected with my immediate family and the present moment in which we have to enjoys ourselves, I am going a bit “back to nature” and doing a little digital detox in order to create more balance in my life. So far, it has been refreshing and rejuvenating. It will hopefully help me put my absolute best foot forward everyday, be more productive at my desk, plus healthier, happier, and able to be of the most benefit to others.
“Now is the only time,” writes Pema Chodron, the well-known teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage. “How we relate to it creates the future. In other words, if we’re going to be more cheerful in the future, it’s because of our aspiration and exertion to be cheerful in the present. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.”
Yesterday, Peter Shankman, founder of Help A Reporter Out, well-known social media guru, and networking master, wrote a blog post confessing to being a workaholic and what he was going to do to try to ‘cure’ himself. Good luck, Peter! It’s good to have goals, to look for a ‘cure’ to what ails us, and good to work towards our goals in this moment and in the one after that too.
***
New Year’s Resolutions in 23 easy steps!
By: Lisa Neal
The start of any New Year begs the question of New Year’s resolutions–What’s mine, What’s yours, and finally, Will I keep my resolution this year? Trying to come up with a resolution of my own, I absentmindedly Googled “New Years Resolutions” and came across a little gem of an article entitled, “How to Accomplish Your New Year’s Resolutions: 23 Steps.” That’s right, 23 steps. I read through the first 6 or so before I resolved to quit reading the article entirely and decided to do what millions of people do multiple times a day: I logged onto Facebook to check out the social media chatter. A welcome distraction? Yes; but also the spark I needed to really consider what my New Year’s resolution would be as as an employee of JLH Media.
Twitter and Facebook are only a start
It makes sense, as a PR company, to take full advantage of the social media channels that people spend time looking at every single day. Therefore, my New Year’s Resolution is to increase online exposure through social media marketing for both JLH Media and our clients. Though Twitter and Facebook are a great place to start, they are just that—a starting point. Focusing on which social media platforms are best for each individual client can really boost business and brand recognition. Along with posting substantive material more often, I will focus on which platforms will help our clients branch out into untapped social media markets to fully integrate their online presence. I also resolve to better utilize social media tools to make these efforts more productive and efficient. Lastly, I resolve to ignore ridiculous online how-to’s and frivolous Google searches and instead focus my attention on something everyone seems more than resolved not to quit: social media.
Permalink » 
View from the Santa Monica Fairmont
The business of PR in the tourism and hospitality sector is all about sense of place. I grew up with a strong sense of place as I learned the rhythms of life on the beach in Southern California, and later, as I stalked brook trout in the tiny, cold streams and rivers near Sun Valley, Idaho. I had an affinity for Hemingway that emerged from seeing the same warmth in the bull ring in Ronda, Spain, the dancing shadows of palm fronds on the grounds of his Havana estate and the long summer nights of northern Michigan.
For me, before there was PR there was writing. That is still a true love. The writing came from sense of place, it was a retelling of my story in that place and how it felt, smelled and what grew there. The natural settings were, for me, the most compelling.
I just spent a nice long weekend in LA, as I have done many times over the years since my family and friends live there. The backyard of a Venice beach bungalow was filled with climbing hyper orange blossoms and succulents with heliotropic heads. The beach air in Malibu was fresh, the water cold on my feet and legs. The hike Sunday morning in the Pacific Palisades was hot and the ground radiated the rattlesnake-tracked warmth of summer before it is really summer.
Flying home to NM on a Sunday evening I anticipated the start of my week and mentally closed in on my to do list. I cannot help but think about the good fortune I have to tell the stories of my clients, too.
The sense of place I have found at Ojo Caliente has been a powerful one over many years of visiting. I never tire of the way the ancient underground-heated water makes my skin soft, makes me feel hungry and alive.
Georgia O’Keeffe is on my mind too. Locals and visitors alike make claim to their affinity for “O’Keeffe Country” like I do. In my sneak peak at the new exhibition at the Museum opening May 11—“Georgia O’Keeffe and the Faraway: Nature and Image”—I saw the curator tenderly arranging the artist’s shoes and shirts, their finery as obvious as their bare threads after years of use. Georgia loved New Mexico, too. That much was clear from the fact that she lugged fine Europe-sourced paints into remote corners just to recreate them on her canvases with her self-trimmed brushes.
Descending into Albuquerque I am struck, again, by the expanse of the desert here. The bowls of brown are rose-colored in the sunset. I could be landing in Africa. Instead, I’ll make my way north tonight and sleep at 7,200 feet, the Malibu sand settling in my summer sandals by the front door.
Permalink » As you can see from our site, we’re busy promoting some of the most beautiful hotels, galleries and other businesses in the City Different, along with hospitality clients as far away as Alaska, Seattle and Dallas.
Its fun work, and all about conveying a sense of place that each of our clients offer. Some days are driven by press release writing and deadlines, events and lots of time on the phone and tapping away at the keyboard. Others are interesting journeys in and of themselves.
Professionally, living in New Mexico, I’ve driven giant craft service trucks to remote movie locations at a top speed of 35 mph, fly fished in place of meeting in the board room, given speeches on the importance of positive messaging after flash floods, had breakfast with Steven Segal (that was weird) and attended press conferences in dusty lots wearing patent leather high heels. Its fun to look back, even recently.
Brendan and Jennifer on their Swift Air shoot in Santa Fe
Last month I filmed a segment of “It’s Good to Have Friends” with Brendan Higgins. Brendan is an ex-news reporter in Dallas and on the east coast, and now, with Swiftair Media, is producing a series of 9 minute travel segments exclusively for Southwest Airlines. Since Albuquerque is a SW destination, Brendan’s team came into town to get some footage there as well as in Santa Fe and Ojo Caliente. In one day we filmed a breakfast at Los Poblanos, lunch, soaking and massage at Ojo, drinks dinner and dancing in Santa Fe and hot air ballooning to boot. The adrenaline rush of fitting everything in the schedule and getting our clients some coverage, not to mention being interviewed on camera, was a really fun—and exhausting—experience. Watch the promo video, here.
Last week I talked to Georgia O’Keeffe’s personal secretary, Pita Lopez. Pita, her parents and all her brothers have or currently do work for O’Keeffe Museum in the capacity of managing O’Keeffe’s houses in Abiquiu, NM. How wonderful to hear about the particulars of Miss O’Keeffe’s (as she is referred to) garden, home, and the rights and regulations of reproducing her paintings today. Pita is a living testament to the intention in O’Keeffe’s art, she is a guard, and from the sounds of it, her tours at the house on Ghost Ranch and in Abiquiu literally bring tears to one’s eyes. This spring and fall they are even offering “sketching days” at O’Keeffe’s homes, which you can read more about, here.
Millicent Rogers one of the many Remarkable Women of Taos
Recently, the Town of Taos kicked off a year-long promotion of its past and present “Remarkable Women” by hosting a press conference at the Harwood Museum. Mayor Darren Cordova handed the keys to the city to Marsha Mason, the actress probably most famous for her role in “The Goodbye Girl.” Locally, Mason is known for the development and success of her 100+ acre biodynamic farm in Abiquiu. There must be something in the water! Mason teared up as she took the keys to Taos, the mountain village with the longest continually inhabited structure in North America (Taos Pueblo, also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of three in our state alone).
Despite the endless emails and to do lists, I have to smile as I think of these little adventures that I call work. And the bottom line is, I want my work to make a tangible difference to my clients, no matter what road is taken to get there.
–Jen Hobson
Permalink » We’ve heard the cliché a thousand times, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” News flash: a large majority of seasoned travelers could not agree more! They want to be connected to the essence of a place through an authentic activity. Cultivated travelers are tired of visiting mass marketed tourist destinations and instead want to get their hands dirty doing some of whatever it is the locals do, or whatever it is that can be done in a specific place, be it cooking, learning to weave, or llama trekking. They desire a connection with other cultures and landscapes in a genuine way—a palpable experience.
Santa Fe Creative Tourism offers creative experience options.
Experiential travel has been the focus of the travel industry for the last few years. Here in New Mexico, cites and the state have put funds towards promoting Creative Tourism. Tim Peck, a columnist for HotelNewsNow.com writes about the desire for authentic travelexperiences in a recent article found here.
In Santa Fe, which is well-known for its large art market and as a mecca for creativity, many hotels, such as Inn and Spa at Loretto, have hotel packages that allow visitors to participate in creative workshops with offerings as diverse as glass making and encaustic painting. Since 1990, the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops has been offering the kind of travel experiences that include the acquisition of skills that reportedly lend to a sense well being. The director of the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, Reid Callahan mentions the workshop attendees on the workshops website, “I marvel at the joy they experience while exploring their creativity.”
Llama Treking at Ojo Caliente
Exploring and building new creative skills is only one of many types of choices for designing an experience in a new place. Learning new ways to explore the outdoors is another. Just up the road from here, in Taos, our friend Stuart Wilde of Taos Snowshoe Adventures has been guiding visitors on snowshoes, an eco-friendly way to explore the beauty and solitude of northern New Mexico.
Stuart also offers educational multi-day lama trekking in New Mexico’s wilderness—through his Wild Earth Llama Adventures outfit. He recently took his llamas on a road trip to Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa and led a llama trek for some Ojo guests through the adjacent wilderness. The Santa Fe Travelers were among the group who were able to “Take a Llama to Lunch’ wrote about it on their blog here:
Permalink » 
St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, JLH Media’s home base.
“The wind blows lilacs out of the east and it isn’t even lilac season,” reads the first line of Joy Harjo’s poem Santa Fe. A fitting way to begin the JLH Media blog and an apt introduction to some observations about the beautiful, poetic, incongruent city in which JLH Media is based. This ‘City Different’ serves as the context for our business and provides a unique setting for our daily lives—it’s where we put our noses to the grindstone everyday, and where JLH Media was founded one year ago.
Santa Fe is known the world over for its rich cultural heritage, adobe architecture, stunning mountains in every direction, profound quality of light, and a remarkable concentration of creativity and output of art.
So it makes perfect sense that JLH Media’s public relations work focuses on the travel and tourism, arts, and lifestyle sectors. We want to help our clients shape and tell the compelling stories about their businesses, gaining brand awareness and media coverage in North America and Europe. JLH does this for clients here our home state, such as Hotel Chimayo de Santa Fe, Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa, Town of Taos Remarkable Women, Buffalo Thunder Resort, Fairmont Heritage Place El Corazon de Santa Fe, and others. JLH also does this for clients based elsewhere, such as Rainbow King Lodge on Lake Iliamna, Alaska, and the Adventure Travel Trade Association, based in Seattle, Washington.
Greystoke Mahale in Tanzania, where Jen Hobson will be adventuring to in September 2012.
JLH’s team is led by Jen Hobson who appreciates Santa Fe as much for its ancient culture as for its dog park culture. She loves the fact that she can fly fish thirty minutes from her front door, be up on the mountain skiing in twenty, and get a glimpse of a Hollywood star in between. Jen’s business development is focused on areas such as Europe and Africa, where she will visit Tanzania on her honeymoon in September.
Megan Perkins’ brother meeting some of the Masai during their trip to Africa.
Megan Perkins is a Marketing Specialist at JLH media who has already checked a trip to Tanzania off her list! Megan and her family went to Africa in 2006 and took a balloon ride over the Serengeti, visited Zanzibar and met the Masai people. This life-changing trip influenced the adoption of Sam, Megan’s three-year-old son, who is from Ethiopia. As much as Megan likes working her way through the long list of fantastic restaurants in Santa Fe, she also hopes to soon plan a trip to New Zealand to drink a lot of Sauvignon Blanc, snorkel, and hike.
Jennifer and her husband Khristaan in front of the breathtaking Santa Fe Opera.
The newest member of the JLH team is Account Director Jennifer Padilla, who includes the Santa Fe Opera and Ten Thousand Waves as two of the many reasons she loves Santa Fe. In 1998, while living in Washington DC, Jennifer came home to New Mexico to visit friends and attended her first production of the Santa Fe Opera. It was Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and she was transported to Japan where she had spent the first five years of her life. She moved to Santa Fe in 2000 and met her husband at the Santa Fe Opera in 2004. Jennifer and her family plan to visit Vienna, Austria and Istanbul, Turkey in summer of 2012.
If you live here in Santa Fe, let’s connect. If you live elsewhere, come visit. The team at JLH Media has a few favorite places we’d love for you to experience.
Permalink » 
