If you have never seen nuclear scientists and really smart people get creative all in the name of safety- you obviously haven’t been to the annual APS Safety/Human Performance Day at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.

Held for the third consecutive year, the employees and contractors of Palo Verde organize more than 40 booths dedicated to safety topics ranging from radiation protection to heart health to the proper ways to use tools.

With the goal of teaching about safety in a creative and fun way, each department designed a booth and offered an array of prizes ranging from Wii game consoles to flat screen televisions in order to get people to stop and learn about safety.

Some booths featured game show themes such as “Are you smarter than a nuclear scientist” and Palo Verde “Idol.”  Others offered interactive games such as miniature golf, remote control car racing and a live version of the Clue game.

Even though the event isn’t open to the public, over 2,000 employees and contractors attended the event throughout the day and the event was covered by ABC15 and the Business Journal.

Palo Verde is the largest power producer in the U.S., providing electricity to more than 4 million customers throughout Arizona and the Southwest. The plant is operated by Arizona Public Service.

Each day more and more people are using their mobile devices to connect with their favorite Web sites and for general Internet consumption. In fact, over 65 million individuals access Facebook from their phones and a huge portion of Twitter usage is consumed the same way. As technology advances, we want our information on the go, and we want it in accessible formats.

In that spirit, we’ve added a new plug-in to the GCJPR blog that will allow users of touch-phone devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch, Google Android and BlackBerry Storm to access our content in a faster loading and easy to manage format. If you’re looking to take your brand mobile, we highly recommend adding the WPtouch plug-in to your WordPress blog as well.

I am not much for referencing Eminem songs, but this one happens to fit. The recent case of the mysterious Ellie Light letters (LTEs) that popped up in newspapers across the nation is an interesting one. Having experience handling letter writing campaigns, I find it especially intriguing. Mostly because I know how time intensive it is to research and send a LTE to multiple newspapers across the country; especially without the right media software. Of course you can do this through the Internet, but imagine what lengths you would have to go to find all of the correct contacts and email them the letter. The only time this mysterious letter writer saved was by not changing his/her name.

According to FOX News- the letter had “shown up in 68 newspapers across 31 states and the District of Columbia. Three national publications – Politico, The Washington Times and USA Today – also ran the letter, as did two foreign publications.”

Now, two people have come forward claiming to be Ellie Light, which is confusing in itself because one is a man and one is a woman who claims to be married to the man, while the man denies this. Sketchy. Also, the supposed reasoning for using the fake name, was to protect himself/herself from the “right-wing crazies” or any retribution, which of course, is now moot since he/she has come forward with their true identity. “Ellie” scoffed at the thought that this had DNC or White House fingerprints all over it, rather saying “he wanted to defend Obama both from the right and the “ultra-left” that demands ideological loyalty rather than results.”

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I am not buying it. I have a hard time believing that one person, would go to the lengths that “Ellie” did, just to get a letter out supporting Obama. And, consider the timing – just under two weeks before the President’s first State of the Union. Kudos to “Ellie” and the machine that was behind this effort, while I disagree with its content and method, it is quite impressive to get a letter run in 68 plus publications.

I wonder how much “Ellie” is being paid to keep quiet about who really is behind this. As with all things, eventually they come out into the open, no matter how much denying is done in the beginning. Just ask John Edwards.

As technology continues to advance throughout the decades, it has become a stronger force in shaping our opinions, the speed with which information reaches us and how we communicate with each other. From radio to television to computers, Internet, mobile devices and now social media, each revolution of media has increased its presence and influence in our lives. Both older and younger generations collectively plug in to this technical takeover.

In fact, a new study released by the Kaiser Family Foundation now finds that kids ages 8- to 18-years-old spend the rough equivalent of every waking hour of their time in front of some kind of screen.

Today, 8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week).  And because they spend so much of that time ‘media multitasking’’(using more than one medium at a time), they actually manage to pack a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes (10:45) worth of media content into those 7½ hours.

This Mashable.com report has some interesting conjectures on how prevalent media consumption is in our children’s lives. But at a staggering 10 hours and 45 minutes of media time, there’s no doubt that media consumption plays a role in shaping the opinions of the younger generation. If you have children, think of how often they are watching TV, on the computer or texting on their phones.

The real question remains, has it replaced parents or friends as the dominant influencers in a child’s life? It’s a provocative question that holds significance for parents and for the companies and organizations that will adapt to create life-long brand advocates from very early on in our children’s and grandchildren’s lives. These groups have opportunities like never before to shape the way we and our children think. But is it right? Is there an age limit on ethical influence?

How these influencers can positively or negatively affect future generations has yet to be seen, but I’m confident it will be an integral part of how organizations and PR companies operate moving into the future. In part, it already is.

In the wake of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the world community mobilized to lend a helping hand in any way it could, especially in aid relief donations. Social media has played no small role in disseminating the message and helping raise funds.

In just over 56-hours since the quake struck, the Red Cross has raised over $10 million in $10 donations from Americans by texting “Haiti” to 90999. It’s a staggering amount of money in such a short time period. In fact, it doubles the amount of money raised by charitable text message campaigns for the entire year of 2009. And there’s no sign donations are slowing down either.

None of it would be possible without social media. Word of the campaign spread over Twitter and Facebook like a firestorm. Friends updated their status reports letting others know they donated, and showing them how to as well.

So why now? What is it about this crisis that allowed the Red Cross to amass such a huge amount of donations so quickly?

It comes down to a collaboration of both new and traditional media; a merger of TV and print, social media and technology.

The first step in the chain is the ability to text message a donation without using a check book, credit card or other form of payment. The technology, provided by mGive in cooperation with mobile phone carriers, has never made it easier to donate. A major problem with past methods of donating, is that a message for help has lost its impact by the time a person is in a position to give. With the use of this text message donation system, donations can be collected instantly while the donor is emotionally impacted.

That emotional impact is delivered by non-stop coverage from the news media. With photos and video of the tragedy, on the scene reports and accurate journalism, we all learned about the disaster that struck Haiti. Traditional news media still has a critical role to play in this whole process, especially in affirming the accuracy of reports and access to hard to reach locations.

That message, and nearly the entirety of the donation campaign, was then spread through social media like Facebook and Twitter. It was social media that provided the person-to-person networking that empowered donations. Traditional media only picked up on the text donations after they had accumulated over $800,000.

This powerful combination of traditional media, social media and technology provided the means for individuals around the U.S. and world to react instantly. It’s something we’ll see again, and it will the job of companies and organizations to figure out how to use it again in the future.

Make no mistake, social media entered the world of charitable activism in a big way during the Haiti crises. We look forward to seeing how it is able to help others in need.

On Tuesday, January 5, news cameras and media personnel packed the GCJPR office to hear Steve Forbes, Congressman John Shadegg and Dr. Eric Novack speak about their new ballot initiative that would allow Arizonans a choice of care under new federal health care.

The ballot initiative, the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, advocates that each Arizonan should have the right to choose their own insurance, not one approved by the government.

“Arizona Health Care Freedom Act is not about doctors, it’s not about members of Congress, it’s about all of us Americans. And it’s about the rights of individuals to be in charge of their own health and health care,” said Dr. Novack.

“This amendment is critical not only for Arizona, but indeed for the nation,” said Forbes. “This is the center. If Arizona gets it right health care can survive and thrive in America again.”

“What’s wrong with the current structure of [the federal health care]bill, is that it is going to point a gun at every one of your heads and say, ‘you must buy insurance,’” said Congressman Shadegg. “But here’s the real rub, it’s not that you must buy insurance that you like, it’s that you must buy insurance that the government approves.”

To find out more, view the Arizonans for Health Care Freedom Web site. You can also find a gallery of photos from the press conference at our Facebook Fan page.