Hip Hip Hurray! My Company Hai Media Group is Open for Business

Today I've officially hung up an OPEN for business sign in my virtual shop window.

I've started telling the whole wide world about the Hai Media Group, my London-based agency offering traditional public relations and multimedia communications services to a variety of clients. Find out all about HMG here:

View HMG's launch press release here.

Why hai?

Hai is Japanese for yes. Yes, to me, in any language, is an extremely positive affirmational statement and a simple word I apply to much of my life and the attitude I take to working with clients. Yes opens doors. No shuts doors. The power of the word yes first became pivotal in my life, when I studied improvisational comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City. My teacher Ari Voukydis explained that whenever you enter an improv situation on stage with a comedy partner, your response to whatever they do should always be yes!

Yes! keeps the show going. Yes! lets the amusing script emerge and yes is a word that overcomes stage fright, welcomes others into your show, and is the absolute key to opening your mind to creative possibilities. For me, I began using the word yes much more often, beyond the stage. The impact was transformational. It was the word YES that got me here to London, when I said yes to my husband Dr. John Fraser Laird Devaney's proposal of marriage. Oh, by the way, the .com URL for calling my company the Yes Media Group was taken. I like hai better anyways. :-)

So, woo hoo! Hip, hip, hurray! And a big fat American-style cheer for the launch today of the Hai Media Group

I'm sipping a bit of champagne right now and giving myself a hard earned huge pat on the back for this committment. I've been working really hard since late August 2007, to get everything I need in place for this moment. I'm now at a point in time where I feel confident enough with HMG to let everyone, even my Mom, know about this entrepreneurial venture. I've been operating as an independent PR consultant since 2002, but my business has grown to include collaborating with other professionals in a variety of exicting fields, and I felt strongly that it was time to hang a brand on what I've been doing. Setting up this business has meant that I've had to spend a lot of quality time with my computer, often on weekends and late into the night over the last six months. In addition to creating the HMG brand and business plan of action, I've been keeping up existing work and personal life responsibilities - and blogging here on Vox.com! I've heard it a million times from independent business people about how working for yourself is a 24-hour job, and I certainly now know exactly what they are talking about. It's like I'm pretty much working all the time! The good part is that pushing yourself to be entrepreneurial and self-sufficient can also be extremely self-motivating.

HMG is allowing me to do a lot of very positive things and has opened up really exciting potential opportunities. While I am the founder and director of this young company, I do not work alone! I've teamed up with some really great media partners, all who I've worked with in some capacity during my career both in the USA and here in the UK. So, here is my big thanks to the following very supportive people who have been encouraging in helping me with the steps I've needed to take with this business:

• Sarah Platt and Ben Styles with Kinura.com
• Barbara Anglisz and Nick Cordua, who run Adept Technologies. Barb, who is among my BFF crew, has been a long term pal who I met waaaay back in my Silicon Alley days, a client, and a very skilled business person I emulate and respect.
• Dr. Richard Barbrook, political science lecturer at the University of Westminster, and author of Imaginary Futures, who early in our friendship and professional association working with Cybersalon and its festival Cybersonica, spotted that I had a blazing creative and entrepreneurial spirit and helped me culture this to better fit the London community. He also figured out that I'm an artist and performer, in addition to my PR profession, and has enjoyed, and encouraged, my occassional impromtu showcases of odd spoken word poetry, improv ballad singing and comedy performance art.
  
• Kate Risker, who, in my opinion, and experience of working nearly 15 years in promotions, is London's absolute most amazing event organizer. She's a delight to be associated with here in London, and in a lot of ways reminds me of myself -- about, well, a long time ago. Her enthusiasm and passion for the event's industry is infectious. She keeps a blog on Vox at www.missrisk.vox.com
• Vijay Chattha who heads the high-tech public relations firm VSC Consulting in San Francisco, and who I've worked with as a virtual 'ambassador' for his company here in London for a few years now. What I most like about Vijay is that he is not at all just a PR guy, he has fantastic intelligence, a big multicultural heart, and entrepreneurial skills and experience that very few PRs possess. Vijay also DJs, and sings, with a fantastic Punjabi-hip hop jazz funk band called Black Mahal, who bring bhangra beats to the masses, and he supports the beautiful charity Project Ahimsa. Did I mention he is a really nice guy as well?
  
• Gerry Griffin, the founder and CEO of Skill-Pill, who truly delivers a very important leadership characteristic of being a person who 'shows' rather than 'tells' as he is freely sharing knowledge with people, and in this way is someone I am learning a great deal from about the business world.
  
• Helen Keegan, who is a mobile marketing expert and writes the popular mobile industry blog Technokitten.com and who I give a heck of a lot of credit to for how I developed the name and branding of the Hai Media Group, as, tough critic though she can be in business, totally steered me in the absolute right direction with what I've been up to in my professional life over the last few years, and continues to be a navigator through what is inevitably the rough, rough, seas in the oceans of start-up business and self-employment
  
• Dan Boultwood, a rising comic book star in Britain, who helped me develop a logo and branding for HMG. I've been his fan since meeting him in my early days of living in London. And got very enthusiastic about his work, as I am a lifelong fan of comic book-style art in all its forms. Look for his comic series Hope Falls, which he produces with the writer Tony Lee, and view his mind-blowing portfolio at: www.shedmanor.co.uk
  
• Steve Double who is a total A-lister portrait photographer. Wow! - check out his photographs at www.double-whammy.com
• Heather Luttrell who is the founder and president of IndieClick.com, based in LA, an amazing digital visionary, who also happens to be a long term BFF (yes, you can have lots of BFFs and I have a few) from back in my Alley days, and a business mentor who has helped me learn a lot about the digital world in the last decade +
  
• My adored friends in New York City: DJ Mark Flynn and my beloved BFF soul sister Karin Louise Mahoney who I am now allowed to tell the whole wide world this news --- Mark and Karin are GETTING MARRIED!
  
• My husband Dr. John Fraser Laird Devaney (a PhD in physics that is!) who is my absolute secret weapon especially in swat team problem-solving IT needs and emotional support for this scary adventure
  
• & many, many, many more people on earth!

I also want to offer a huge thanks to Vox.com for developing a fantastic user-friendly blogging platform that has helped me so much over the last couple years that I've been blogging here. Hip, hip, hurray for Vox.com!

I may try to list all the other people I value (who don't mind being exposed online) in a separate big praising, big love post - all who have offered both really good business counsel and ongoing friendly, trustworthy support. Some of these people even go back to my childhood days growing up in the New York City metro area! HMG is a testament to the kinds of service and creative work I have delivered over the years, but more importantly - it is a beginning for what I aim to bring to the world moving forward.

My simple mission with HMG is to offer sensible service to my clients that makes full use of my two decades of communications experience in traditional PR, while keeping a very alive eye toward the future of how best to reach out to target audiences in ways that hopefully do not feel intrusive, or piss them off. With HMG I'll be folding in new technology marketing approaches where possible with client campaigns, which is why I'm defining my service offerings as being multimedia communications. In my opinion, the best approach to delivering messages is through multimedia that mixes up a variety of tools and tactics. I'll write more about what multimedia communications means to me professionally, but it is basically what ever single one of us live with, use and for the most part enjoy, every single day. Multimedia might mean being struck by an awe-inspiring still photograph, a hilarious YouTube video or an SMS text message that you get on your mobile phone. Multimedia is everywhere and everything around us and is changing every single day.

I'm a participant and creator in the emerging multimedia media landscape -- and so are you.

Welcome to my multimedia garden and I'm looking forward to adventures with my Hai Media Group.

Grow With HMG

You may also notice the plant theme going on here with the Hai Media Group. Nature and plants and the symbol for growth that they represent are central to what I am all about. Green also happens to be my favourite colour. I may live in the big bad city, but in an urban environment it is the green growing plants that mean so much to me -- even if it is just one struggling weed growing up between the cracks in the pavement. That struggling weed is representative of who I am, and what this business is all about. Plants also symbolize so much of my own artistic endeavours over the years, as well as the works of so many of my artistic friends. HMG is here to support the struggling weeds that show amazing potential. We will never STOMP on the growing creative energy that struggles to force its way up through the cracks in the pavement, because to do so is to kill spirit and energy that might emerge to fantastic potential and benefit everyone. HMG is a a watering can, a stake to hold up your business, nutrients for growth and supportive wall you can lean on when the fruits of your labor get a little to heavy to bear.