Time for PR to Take Its Medicine - GUEST POST

 photo credit: liquidnight via photopin cc

When Greg Brooks posted this on Facebook today, I was equal parts thankful and jealous. Greg's one of the smartest people I know. And the following is good medicine for our industry.

Since this blog, and his post, have been confused as the ranty screed of an angry old man/men, I asked Greg if we could repost it and he obliged. Connect with Greg via LinkedIn, comment on his Facebook post or try out more traditional means via GregB AT West-Third DOT com. 

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10 Observations for my fellow public relations colleagues:

10. "X things about Y" articles are lazy bullshit. Don't do it.

9. Twitter is not mainstream.

8. Our industry is spectacularly, fantastically self-absorbed. A test: Go to any of our crap industry-news aggregation sites, and make note of the content. Now, go to the sites our clients or C-level employers read and rely upon. When we talk to ourselves, it's like back-seat chatter in a clown car.

7. Quit whining about that spot you want at the big-boy strategy table until you can: a.) read a balance sheet; and b.) move the conversation beyond the Oxford comma.

6. If you don't like a new business model, a shift in the industry or color of the competition's dress, yelling "ethics" and waving your hands probably doesn't change anything.

5. That thing you read about in PRDailyPRNewserBulldogReporter that was Today's Big PR Crisis? Probably not a crisis. That other thing you read about? Also probably not a crisis. Responding to the unexpected is not crisis comms -- it's doing the job. Quit trivializing yourself by blowing shit up.

4. Whenever you think journalists are just dinosaurs who don't get the new sparkly that is branded content, take a look up in the sky. They caught the last meteor, but the next one could just as easily hit us.

3. The most boring navel gazing we do -- no small achievement -- is the blah-blah about millennials in our industry. Being a self-absorbed precious snowflake knows no age barrier.

2. Some things don't scale. Talking about how the customer owns the brand when your clients are in the Fortune 50 just looks foolish.

1. More transparency isn't always the answer. Your client's attorney knows it and your client's CEO knows it; maybe you should know it too.