Mark Twain and Ken Zino in Michigan.
While automobile use continues to thrive in this new century, reigning companies and the executives who run them are amidst upheavals that parallel the revolutions of the 18th. Potentially there are similar consequences – not only for automakers – but also for owners of cars, trucks, SUVs and crossovers, as well as the communities they live in.
Restrictions on car use, car sharing, hybrids, EVs, CO2 emissions and global warming, hydrogen fuel, ethanol, Distracted Driving from web enabled cars, driver-less vehicles, the collection of and sale of personal data from your driving and privacy issues – all challenge the old ruling order and conventional wisdom.
Add to this a web-enabled democratization and corruption of thoughts and ideas as establishment print and broadcast media fade and Google and Facebook abet foreign interference in our lives and elections, and the time is right for a broad dialogue about the evolution of personal mobility and the emerging issues surrounding it.
Thus is AutoInformed – a web-based information service that urges and promotes critical thinking about the political, social and economic consequences resulting from the complex business of automobiles, all the while celebrating what are sometimes magnificent conveyance machines at the pinnacle of the human industrial arts.
Join us with your observations about the political, economic, social and environmental consequences of automobile use so they are available to all for debate. Mobility and auto-mobility here means that you are free to think what you want, read what you want and are free from corrupt politicians, their propaganda outlets and bought judges who only want to maintain their power at the expense of We the People.
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Ken Zino editor /publisher AutoInformed is a versatile auto industry participant with decades of global experience in print and broadcast journalism, and social media. He has automobile testing, marketing, public relations and communications skills. He is past president of The International Motor Press Assn in NYC, the Detroit Press Club, founding member and first President of the Automotive Press Assn in Detroit. He is a member of APA, IMPA and the Midwest Automotive Press Assn. Zino is at home on test tracks, knows his way around U.S. Congressional hearing rooms, auto company headquarters, plant floors, and industry research and development labs where the real mobility work is done.
Zino builds AutoInformed from his background in automotive communications starting at Hearst Corp. in New York City on Motor and MotorTech magazines where he advanced from technical editor to managing editor to editor. He then became the Detroit editor of ROAD&TRACK magazine in Michigan where he covered the auto industry, then the Big Three, writing monthly columns, spot news, profiles and features while participating in instrumented road tests of new vehicles. He did weekly automotive reports and news commentary for WJR, an ABC radio network affiliate. Zino then worked at Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn starting as Director Global Product Development Public Affairs managing the public affairs staff responsible for global communications strategy of major product launches and messaging at international motor shows including Detroit, Geneva, New York, Paris, Frankfurt and Tokyo. He then assumed responsibility as Director Asia Pacific & Africa Public Affairs responsible for all aspects of Public Affairs, including corporate image, legal issues, sales and marketing, and Ford brand product launches. He negotiated regional P.A. coordination with other FMC Premier Automotive brands – Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo – for major auto shows, product launches and cross-brand issues, including liaison with Mazda Communications in Hiroshima. He served as the lead on the operating committee, strategy development group and the China Governance Council under the Executive Vice President FMC, President AP&A.
Zino left Ford to work at a boutique firm active in journalism and public relations with an emphasis on internet based strategies. He was also Editor of the Detroit Bureau an automotive news web publishing company that deals with the global auto industry. He then founded AutoInformed (AutoInformed.com) and continues cover the global auto industry.
Above all, decades after he first drove a car, Zino still revels in the sound of the exhaust as the throttle is blipped and the driver’s rush that occurs when the entry, apex and exit points of a turn are smoothly and swiftly crossed. It’s the beginning of a perfect lap.
AutoInformed has an editorial philosophy that loves transportation machines of all kinds while promoting critical thinking about the future use of cars and trucks.
Zino wryly notes that he continues to conduct his education in public via this format, and invites all to celebrate and shape the ongoing debate about automobiles so that we can all be – AutoInformed.
I thought that a reference by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times op-ed page yesterday about the influence of money in politics sounded familiar.
Sure enough, the line, “U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from” is not new. I saw it for the first time anywhere in the AutoInformed website.
Friedman credits the “blogosphere” for the quote. Well, the word from AutoInformed certainly does get around.
Well, I certainly did write it, but I don’t know where Friedman saw it – or if someone else used it as well, or given the nature of blogs just used it without attribution.
In any event, here’s my original contained in Taxpayer Subsidized Ethanol Caught in Partisan Budget Battle
“The politics of ethanol, virtually all of it corn derived and therefore benefiting big money farm lobby interests, are as tangled as it gets. Taxpayers would be better off if legislators were required to wear NASCAR-style uniforms with the patches of the organizations that are their major, err, sponsors, to put it politely in “pay to play” Washington where campaign contributions from special interests determine policy not our national interests…”
Friedman was working a similar theme – click here – He said:
“…We can’t afford this any longer. We need to focus on four reforms that don’t require new bureaucracies to implement. 1) If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can’t risk another trillion-dollar bailout. 2) If your bank’s deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can’t do any proprietary trading with those deposits — period. 3) Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk. 4) Finally, an idea from the blogosphere: U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they’re taking money from. The public needs to know…”
Good to hear you. Hope all is well. I was just telling my beloved about the weekend you threw me the keys to your MG… still appreciated.
Well done. Now on my regular reading list.
Good stuff!