Park This

Writing and PR Projects I'm currently working on

I'm still working on my big fat Algerian cookbook. If you're wondering about that multi-book deal, well, it just won't happen without a cooking show. Endeavor and Scott Sternberg Productions are still in the picture. And I'm talking with a friend about angles for shooting a general reel.

In the meantime I'm writing three entries for Greenwood Food Cultures around the World- Korea, Algeria and Berbers/Tuaregs.

This year I was hoping to finally attend the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. But I'm uncertain about how much time I can devote to writing a draft before the March deadline. My schedule is very tight for the next several weeks and travel in September is usually difficult to schedule. Next year's symposium dates are in July, much more doable for a mom of two young children.

PROJECT GREEN ALGERIA is very much a long term project. Things of this scope just don't happen overnight. However, The Seed Bank component of PROJECT GREEN ALGERIA, at least on the U.S. end, is progressing nicely. I should be able wrap up the first round of template activities and PR work by the end of spring.

The global financial crisis has delayed all the big projects I've been working on, national development is tough these days, glamorous cooking shows seem a bit vulgar, funding for even established non-profits is increasingly scarce, and newspapers and magazines are downsizing or shutting down.

Needless to say all of this has snowballed to effect even my bread and butter jobs. After considering my options I've decided to go back into the commercial aspects of the food business. As luck would have it a friend of mine is in charge of a brand new, $3,000,000 commercial kitchen in Pasadena...

Chocolate Ganache Truffles for Valentine's Day

A few days ago I was interviewed for a Valentine's Day article for The New York Times. It's one of those articles that uses a series of quotes or vignettes from a reader friendly demographic pool of "everyday folks". At most I expected my name in the story, maybe a small quote or a little blurb about what I'm doing for Valentine's Day.

Friday morning I wake up to find a couple of messages on my phone from a photo editor at the paper, then an hour later there's a Facebook PM from the writer to email the story editor or call the photo desk. They want to send a photographer over immediately to take photos of me making truffles.

ACA Newsletter and Colloquium

I'm on the ACA newsletter team. I've yet to submit an article, initially I was supposed to write one about African development with a regional focus on Algeria, the significance of diaspora networks and human economy development. However, that paper has morphed into one about ACA: PROJECT GREEN ALGERIA which is due at this moment.

ACA website
October 2008, Newsletter
ACA: PROJECT GREEN ALGERIA will be presented on the third day of the colloquium.

When I feel like I'm dreaming-

A great deal of my work as a writer and public relations practitioner is about processes and networks. When I feel like I'm the only one who works this way I visit Eva Schiffer's net map blog, occassionally she and I exchange comments.

Eva created net map in 2006, she's a post-doctoral fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Cooking Show

Today's meeting at Endeavor went well, as well as these kinds of meetings can go.  Sometimes I feel like I have meetings just to confirm what happened during previous meetings and to plan subsequent meetings.

Of course mapping out the players and their roles in various projects has to be recapped and confirmed, again and again. Now we wait for a written deal offer that everyone can agree on.

I can always spot the interns at Endeavor. They are young, seem a bit nervous, look around the room a lot and dress like they are in a transitional collegiate to professional phase. Sometimes the shoes are just wrong.

Pro Bono Public Relations Work

UPDATED 2/2009 I am no longer accepting pro bono public relations clients.

I take on pro bono public relations clients on a case by case basis. My plate is very full right now and I am currently not taking on more work. I will consider offering free (and very brief) consultation services to a civic movement related to Northwest Africa because the region is my area of specialty and focus (numerous fields and disciplines). Larger issues on the African continent are obviously related and as my involvement in Northwest Africa grows I may update this post.

If you'd like to contact me about pro bono public relations consultations please take the time to read this blog and my other websites. Public relations practitioners have widely divergent areas of expertise. If you don't take the time to get to know what I do and the capacities in which I work, there's no need to contact me. There's a good chance that I maybe totally irrelevant to your public relations needs.

I support (short list):

Environmental stewardship
Civic society building
Humanitarian aid projects that are highly structured and provide case studies
Education
Diplomatic solutions

I like (short list):

Strong leaders and team players
Proactive personalities
Sense of larger purpose and vision
Focus
Determination
Commitment

I have little or no interest in:

Causes
Awareness campaigns
Noise-makers
Soap boxes

The first two on the last list are, perhaps, a bit surprising to some. The problem with causes and awareness campaigns is that they are too often used by noise makers as soap boxes.

I earn my living from the "glamorous" side of food and public relations. Which means that I have to keep working at my paying jobs in order to volunteer my services to civic society building. I live well beneath my earning capacity to support my volunteer efforts.

iThink, iPlan, iWrite, iMap, iWait

After almost two weeks and twenty-two email exchanges between seven people, there will be a meeting of the minds at Endeavor in less than two weeks.

I've never seen the cast of HBO's Entourage there. I've been told that the office scenes are filmed in a studio in Burbank (not really).

This Week's Work Schedule

I'm leaving out miscellaneous tasks such as appointment and meeting coordination.

This week I have to finish up a public and media relations outline for World Food Corps Seedbank. Normally, these things don't take much time. It's simple enough to work from templates (the PR cat is out of the bag). But I'm also working as a coordinator for WFCS and I am increasingly convinced that regional and national coordinators for WFCS should be skilled public relations practitioners. There's quite a bit of strategic planning involved with coordinating a large state like California. The primary reason that my workload here is much bigger than normal for a coordinator is that I'm the first one. I don't have a map to follow or references to give. I'm in effect paving the path here, creating templates and blue prints. And I want the tools I create to be useful and efficient, transferable and applicable across a range of contexts.

I find myself working with lots of different organizations and infrastructures at the micro and macro levels: NGO's, government organizations, and education infrastructures. Yes, bureaucracies are that complicated. And a coordinator needs solid public relations skills to implement WFCS in schools efficiently and quickly.

I'm on the agenda for the next California School Garden meeting. Besides the posters I made for teaching children about WFCS, I have to create a power point presentation to teach teachers about implementing WFCS. This is, of course, related to a media kit I'm creating for WFCS. The same task accomplishes multiple goals.

All of these materials have to be approved by Dr. Van Cotthem. I spend a lot of time reading his news and research aggregator blog on desertification, drought and poverty. I also keep up with general news, government policies, and so on.

Strategic planning, forming key partnerships, and connecting synergies is also part of my work as a public relations practitioner. After I've completed my materials for WFCS I'm working on two papers about African continental development and another on regional development in Northwest Africa.

Algeria has emerged as one of the leaders in African continental development. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was invited to the G8 summit because of the country's role in The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) The five initiating heads of state were given a mandate by the African Union "to develop an integrated socio-economic development framework for Africa".

I'm reading lots of strategic plans, research materials, policy papers, etc.. that are relevant to these issues and frameworks.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the nature of development worldwide. The big hope for African development is turning the brain drain into brain circulation. All entities involved are more or less in agreement that it's absolutely vital to tap into diaspora networks.

In this context, UNIFEM, UNDP, the Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries (OSCAL), the UN ICT Task Force and the UN Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP) in collaboration with the Government of Uganda, plan to launch the initiative in Africa on the occasion of the second meeting of the Global Advisory Committee.

The outcome of the meeting in Kampala will be presented during the upcoming meeting of the UN ICT Taskforce, in September 2003, and will inform the ongoing process of the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS).

Objectives

The main objective of the meeting is to launch the programme of action of the Digital Diaspora Initiative in Africa, expanding the constituency of support by bringing on board other stakeholders from governments, civil society, donors and the private sector; and forging synergy between the efforts of the GAC, DDNA and the Gender Caucus of the WSIS

What are diaspora networks? In layman terms they're basically people going back to help their country of origin. This is a very strong human drive, going back to help. A network gives structure to these endeavors. I'm thinking in very broad strokes here, the details will be fleshed out in my articles.

We know that the global zeitgeist to help Africa and to help Africa help itself is here. WFCS, G8, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Oprah Winfrey, various United Nations organizations, internal African organizations and diaspora networks.

When I think about strategic planning and forming key partnerships I think of all these entities and infrastructures as narrative arcs. When two of them come together there's a great story. A great story is compelling and credible because it's relevant to an audience, plausible and verifiable. When many of these elements connect synergies a great novel has been written, in essence we've captured the zeitgeist.

Cooking Show

My professional work also involves what might be called "the glamorous side of food". Besides writing about it, developing recipes, writing cooking class materials and so on, I also work in building global brands for cookbooks, food products and food personalities.

Last week I went to Raleigh Studios to meet with a producer about a budding celebrity chef who is represented by Endeavor Talent and Literary Agency (think HBO's entourage. By the way, I've been to that famous office for a meeting and I'll remind you not to believe everything you see on television).

At the meeting it was decided that the producer would write several pitches and shoot a reel for "budding celebrity chef". A follow-up meeting will be scheduled with the production company and Endeavor to make sure that everyone is on the same page and then we'll decide on strategies for moving forward.

I'll give more details as the project moves forward.

Oddly enough, I rarely talk about my work in "the glamorous side of food" in real life with most people I know. So, why am I posting on my blog for the whole world to see? Theoretically anyone with an internet access can read this blog and about "my life in food". But the fact of the matter is, most people who know me in real life don't bother to read this blog unless they are working with me on a project. And if they're working with me on a project I don't have to explain the relevance or irrelevance of this to them.

Surrealism of Everyday Life

The range of human experiences, human nature and human behavior that I deal with in one form or another is vast.

In the past month I've worked on pitches for the Oprah Winfrey show with an actress, budding celebrity chef, and Endeavor Talent and Literary Agency. I talked to an agent at Endeavor and a producer at Scott Sternberg productions about a cooking show. I exchanged emails with my friend Diana Buja who works in Burundi on a goat and agricultural rehabilitation project about a low-cost, efficient project that could aid in increasing food security in one of the poorest countries in the world. I'm working on articles about the history of couscous (spun off from the food lecture I wrote for UCLA Fowler Museum's Art of Being Tuareg Exhbition), African brain drain and brain circulation, and a comparative study of Mexican salsas and Algerian salsas (related to my interest The Mexican Kitchen's Islamic Connection ). This week I'm focusing on finishing a public and media relations outline, media kit and PowerPoint presentations for a humanitarian aid organization. There's more, but this post is getting a bit tedious. On the other hand I started this blog to keep in touch with my various networks and also to document my activities.

I can't stress enough that this is not a general interest blog at all. It only makes sense to people in my various networks.