What I Believe

I was just reading –  Danny Brown’s Do Your Blog Readers Know Who You Are? – and it got me thinking about who actually reads my blog and how much they know about me. Whereas the only people that know about my blog are people I’m connected with on Twitter, I did some quick research and realized that of the 500+ people I follow and the 350+ that return the favor, I only personally know about 10 of them.

So today there will be no rant against self-proclaimed social media gurus claiming to be able to replace the PR industry 140 characters at a time and no semi-coherent tirade about what the PR industry is doing right or wrong.

JAG and a Hack: This is all about me. My opportunity to tell you who I am, what kind of blogger I am and what I believe. I’m not a guru, enthusiast, leader, or even rock-star. I’m just a guy (JAG). Nothing more and nothing less.

PR Industry Misses Chance to Take a Stand

Last week the PR industry suffered yet another black eye when a dust up between a PR firm and a journalist cost the reporter his job, but the real damage may have been inflicted by the industry’s silence.
    
The short version of the story is that a PR guy aggressively pitched a journalist and the journalist – Chris Dovi – wrote an email (using the F-word) to his editor and accidently sent the email to PR guy. The PR guy published the email in an attempt to further promote his client – a blind motivational speaker. The PR firm published a blog about the incident, but removed the post after it received a steady stream of negative comments targeted toward the agency and the PR industry. Apparently ‘Page Not Found’ is the PR industry’s new ‘No Comment.’

The unfortunate (and edited) quote from Dovi’s email:

“This guy is trying to kill me. He may be the most tenacious flack of all time. He’s been calling me about this blind fu@#er for four weeks. …He’s making me want to claw my own eyes out in the hopes that if he won’t just get lost, I at least won’t have to look at his press release anymore!”

PRs Growing Community…HAPPO & PR Road Show

This last week have been very interesting. While I’ve always been impressed by the talent within the PR industry, I’ve also never been shy about bringing up the fact that in my opinion we’re a group of individuals that rarely work together to promote our industry and I’ve even accused PR of suffering from industry-wide apathy.

But now, I’m happy to say that we are either seeing the beginning of a PR community or else I was W-w-w-wrong all this time. A couple of events from the past week have helped make me feel optimistic about the future our our industry and has made me feel like I am part of not just a profession, but a growing community.

Help A PR Pro Out — HAPPO is a fantastic idea and has really tapped into the generous giving nature of PR folks. The general idea behind HAPPO is to use the power of community to help current PR job seekers find new positions. For more information about this event you can check out Doug Haslam’s recent blog Help a PR Pro Out Day – February 19 where he discusses the origins of the idea and the ways to participate.

PR Needs More Controversy

(Mary Ann / Ginger photo stolen from random Web site)

 

Last week – probably in order to cover-up for the crappy Pro Bowl game – the NFL released its All-Decade Team for the 2000s. As expected, this list created controversy on every sports show and in bars from coast to coast.

This made me wonder, why isn’t there more controversy regarding lists like the Top 10 PR / SM (pick your category) Bloggers? Or top Industry Tweeters? Today, virtually everyone has a list of the industry’s best. Yet, you hardly ever hear any arguments. Are we all just being too polite? All the lists can’t be right.

No offense to the folks and sites like Chris Brogan, Seth Godin, Brian Solis, Shel Holtz, PRSarahEvans, Dave Fleet, Mashable, PR Squared, Danny Brown, and Adam Singer’s The Future Buzz that are often at the top of these lists. I agree these people are well deserving of their standing in the community, but who is The Best? And does it matter? It should because…