My buddy Chuck is blogging and podcasting his way across the US, covering something called the AASHTO Interstate 50th Convey. It’s a paid gig for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.

This is just an amazing opportunity to to demonstrate the power of new media and Chuck is firing on all 8 ethanol-powered cylinders.

How would the client have promoted this in the previous century? Well, we’d send out some news releases, inviting the media to come to our kick-off (free snacks!). And, uh, we’d send out some more news releases about what is happening along the way. What else? Oh, we’d take some pictures and put them on our website. And if we were really clever, we’d hire a film crew to shoot a little documentary of the journey. In a few weeks (or months), after the thing is edited (down to say, 30 minutes)…we’d send copies to the media in hopes they’d watch it and be so enthralled they’d do an interview with us and put it on their (Network, TV station, radio station, magazine, newspaper). And if they did do an interview, we’d send out a news release telling everyone about that.

Or, you could invite everyone that might possibly give a shit (or should give a shit) to come along for the ride. And if it’s easy enough, and fun enough… a lot of them will.