Or maybe you’re not gay and have no interest spending the holidays in NYC.

Either way, Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air have come up with a PR stunt for those traveling to New York this holiday season.

Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air have announced a new program that will charge heterosexuals 10 percent extra for their air travel to specific locations during the Christmas season.

The company actually offers the 10 percent as a discount but only if the purchaser obtains the ticket through a “gay” page of the company’s website, a location not typically patronized by families seeking travel arrangement.

Better get your tickets fast. I’m guessing this offer is going to cause some unwanted publicity and be pulled.

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Evian Natural Spring Water has just announced its very first venture into the virtual world.

“Partnering with the popular virtual world Second Life, characters…that choose to drink Evian are awarded with a more lively, more inviting complexion. This virtual transformation, while not possible in real life, provides more than just simply a cosmetic change, but indicates skin renewal.”

A note to the individual who wrote and the Evian rep who signed off on the release, thanks for reminding us readers of the difference between reality and fantasy. We get confused.

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Interested in helping your company or client interact with the nation’s premier business and tech journalists and an influential audience of business development executives and investors? Apply today to launch a new technology at DEMO 08, taking place Jan. 28-30 in Palm Desert, Calif.

The DEMO conferences are launchpad events for tomorrow’s cutting-edge technologies, catapulting exceptional products to national and international fame. (Palm, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Danger, Skype and TiVo are a few past demonstrators.) Whether you want media attention, VC money, or Fortune 500 customers, DEMO can help you make the connections your new product needs to succeed.

To qualify for DEMO, a product must:
· make its public debut at the DEMO conference;
· make a significant contribution to the state of the art in its target market;
· change the dynamics of the marketplace into which it is introduced; and
· be backed by a management team capable of delivering the product to market.

To learn more about launching at DEMO, and to find the online application form, visit http://www.demo.com/launch.php. The deadline for applications is Nov. 9.

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Did we go too far or was it sheer brilliance?

By now you’re all familiar with Chris Anderson’s, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, email list of blackballed PR firms.

A quick glance over the list reveals email addresses from Edelman, 5W PR, Fleishman-Hillard, Ogilvy, Lippe Taylor, Morris+King, SS PR, Weber Shandwick, and dozens more.

Well being the aggressive PR firm that we are, BlinnPR’s business development team emailed some of the clients represented by these PR firms. We let their clients know in no uncertain terms that they’ve been blackballed by Wired and who knows how many other unnamed publications.

Oh and by the way, BlinnPR is not on the list and our clients enjoy unfettered access to Wired and a host of other publications because of our no-nonsense, get the job done without annoying reporters approach.

Needless to say, two PR firms didn’t appreciate our aggressiveness. One going so far as to try and entice our clients and employees to leave by promising greener pastures. BTW, it has been 10 days and still none of our clients or employees has left.

Maybe it’s me, but why would our clients and employees leave in the first place. For a PR firm who has been blackballed by Wired and can’t say for sure what other publications are trashing their emails? But that is a discussion for another day.

Anyway, some people thought it was a brilliant move on our part while others felt otherwise.

Personally, I’m not apologizing for what we did. A day doesn’t go by when our clients are not being courted by other agencies. If you think it doesn’t happen you have your head in the sand. As I see it the differences is in the approach.

Fact is, BlinnPR aggressively goes after new business and represents our clients with the same fervor.

I would like to hear your thoughts. What do you think? Did we go too far or was it sheer brilliance.

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Is your company reducing energy consumption in its IT equipment and using technology to conserve energy and lower carbon emissions? Or do you know of a company that is a green IT innovator?

Computerworld is conducting a search for companies that are implementing smart, efficient strategies to achieve “green IT.” THEY ARE NOT looking for companies with general “green” policies and practices or vendors with green technology solutions — THEY ARE specifically looking for end-user companies that are employing green practices in IT.

For example, a company on their list might have: improved the energy efficiency of its data center; reduced the number of its servers through server virtualization technology; replaced older servers with more energy-efficient ones; created a program to recycle its used PC equipment; implemented a policy to encourage its employees to reduce travel through videoconferencing and telecommuting.

CW will feature a ranked list of the top 10 greenest IT end-user companies in their Feb. 18, 2008, issue.

Please forward this link to the person in your company best able to answer questions about IT energy issues.

Surveys should be submitted by Friday, Nov. 9, at 5 p.m. EDT. If you have any questions regarding this survey, or problems with it, please visit CW’s Web site for more information and an FAQ about this program.

Contact either Ellen Fanning, topgreen (at) computerworld.com or 508-820-8204, or Mari Keefe, 508-628-4906.

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Can you make a topic in your area of expertise exciting, entertaining and “watchable”?

Optomen Productions is looking for science and history authors, professors and experts interested in hosting their own science, history or other factual program or series.

Send them a brief audition tape showcasing your talent. A public screening will take place at the 2007 World Congress of Science & Factual Producers, an annual event bringing together the top producers and broadcasters working in specialist factual television, including PBS, BBC and the Discovery Channel. A distinguished panel of three TV insiders will watch this “Presenter Idol” and judge the entries. The winner will be exposed to top programming professionals from all over the world who need hosts and talent for their top rated shows.

Send an e-mail to optomencastingscience (at) gmail.com and request a release form.

Beyond that, send your DVD to: Optomen Productions, 100 Avenue of the Americas, Floor 12, New York, NY 10013. Fax: (212) 431-4641. Include the release form with your DVD submission.

You can also submit release forms and clips online by e-mailing optomencastingscience (at) gmail.com (if the file is too large to e-mail, use MailBigFile.

If you have not been contacted by Nov. 28, you can assume your video did not meet their criteria. Videos will stay in the possession of Optomen Productions and will not be returned.

This competition in no way guarantees that your idea will be produced, and Optomen cannot guarantee the protection of such show ideas.

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Paul Chase, produces a segment for CNN.com called “Show and Tell,” where they feature cool and unique gadgets.

He’s looking for new cool stuff to feature. Contact Paul at paul.chase (at)turner.com.

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The Green Products Expo is a show devoted to media attendees, where the exhibitors pitch to them in a great face to face venue.

The show is designed to put companies with green products and their PR reps in front of the hundreds of the nation’s top consumer editors from publications like O At Home, Ladies Home Journal, Mens Health, Everyday With Rachael Ray, The Green Guide, Woman’s Day, Real Simple and many more.

The show is February 28th, 2008 at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, NYC.

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Strategic Insight, a mutual fund industry research firm, is preparing a report on closed-end funds. SI is looking for Brokers, Advisors, RIAs, and Financial Planners who use closed-end funds for their clients and can talk about how they use closed-end funds within client portfolios.

Strategic Insight provides research and consulting services to the U.S. mutual fund industry. This article is for publication in their research newsletter, Windows into the Mutual Fund Industry, which is read mostly by asset management firms.

Please contact Loren Fox at (212) 944 4460 or lfox (at) sionline.com

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While heading up to my three times a week 6:00 AM basketball game at the YMCA yesterday, I couldn’t help but laugh again at one of PRWeek’s cover stories.

The headline screams “Countrywide initiates effort to counter critics.” For those with their head in the sand and don’t know there is a mortgage crisis, Countrywide Financial is one of many beleaguered mortgage lenders. They recently announced with great fanfare the hiring of Burson Marsteller and a new campaign dubbed “Protect Our Home” to ferociously defend it self from it legion of critics.

Well it seems to me based on what I’m reading and hearing, Countrywide, and BM by extension, are going to have a hard time “protecting their home.”

Remember the legend of Hans Brinker? It’s the story of the little Dutch boy who sticks his finger in the dike to prevent it from leaking. BM is the little Dutch boy and Countrywide is the dike. If I’m BM, I’m thinking what do I have to do to help Countrywide survive. Hell with the critics.

There are to many issues swirling around Countrywide and that’s why their survivability is being called into question. These include class action suits, federal regulators being urged to investigate stock trading by Countrywide Financial Inc. chief executive Angelo Mozilo, the precipitous drop of Countrywide’s mortgage lending from a year earlier and Countrywide announcing its intention to eliminate 10,000-12,000 jobs.

BTW, the layoffs are a complete reversal of what the company had been saying just a month or two ago when CEO Angelo Mozilo could hardly contain his enthusiasm about poaching top mortgage brokers from busted outfits like American Home Mortgage and New Century.

BM is going to fail. Not because they’re not qualified to handle such a mess, they are. But because Countrywide’s ability to maintain operations depends on Wall Street funding that can dry up in an instant.

Not only that, I also predict that within the next year we’re also going to see Countrywide folded into Bank of America.

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