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The week between Christmas and the New Year is the least productive for automakers. It's when factories enter shutdown mode and the offices of automotive power that dot the Metro Detroit area become a loosely arranged snoozeville. Inside, if you're not planning for the Detroit Auto Show you're as far from Detroit as is possible on a coach ticket. If you have an active role to play, you're doing so in a bathrobe and Nascar slippers. But for bloggers this year, there was a staggering amount of work, as we all tried to match the buff mags' time-shift act (February in December? What are the odds?). That's why I interrupted Jason Vines, Chrysler Group's VP of Communications, as he was watching a movie at home on the Thursday before New Year's Eve. I had an embargo-related question for the chief-spinmeister at the 'merican side of the German-American hybrid. While on the subject, Vines told me he was "pissed off" at the number of embargoes that had gone to hell "by the buff books" and was interested in planning a "summit" to "figure out what to do differently next time around." I filed that away, too busy to think about meetings yet to be. Then, this past week, I heard Chrysler wasn't the only automaker interested in a "summit," or "meeting of the minds" or "dinner party," or whatever, to address press embargoes. The PR professionals at the largest power tower of them all, the Renaissance Center, were looking to get General Motors in on some of that summit action. Well now. More »
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