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	Phil's Blogservations Friday, April 07, 2006 Posted by philgomes 11:21 AM Build Traffic! Rehash Old PR Complaints! Build Traffic! Rehash Old PR Complaints! I want to start by saying that I like Bill Holstein of Chief Executive magazine. I met him (I believe) at the International Industrial Conference that my then-client, SRI, helped put on with The Conference Board. At that time, he was writing for U.S. News & World Report. That said, I can't help but wonder if he is the latest to be seduced by the traffic-building tactic that Tom Foremski and Brian ConnollyStrumpette have discovered: Beat up on PR people, either individually or as a group. Wait for all of the attention. Watch traffic rise as a result. Beating up on PR people is a nice, easy target. Journalists are in a fairly safe position to do this because any real retaliation from the flack would be a severely career-limiting move. Hey... I gotta call it as I see it. As I've said before, it's about as interesting as a lawyer joke. IMHO, I have nothing to defend. Honestly... Every quarter or so, you get the old, rehashed complaints about the field's worst practitioners. Heck, even Holstein's comment about PR's "Jason's and Jennifer's" harkens back to a column Ed Cone wrote for the defunct Interactive Week in 2001 or so. (Cone references it in his blog in 2003, but I can't find the original.) I humbly suggest: If Chief Executive magazine wants to get into an interesting argument about PR that comes close to cresting a CEO's interest level, I recommend: Discussing PR's value as a management discipline. The attention paid to communications versus law and even finance. I'll participate in any rhetorically sound argument discussing PR's value. Honestly, I'm still waiting. (Hat tip to Flackette.) Technorati Tags: pr, public relations, chief executive | HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil's demented imagination. Hell, to be perfectly honest, even Phil disagrees with what he thinks sometimes. This site has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Clicking on a link doesn't automatically send a 1/2-cent donation to UNICEF. You can't buy, sell, auction, swap, find a date, win friends, influence people, cross the chasm, or decode the human genome using this site. You won't get free email. You won't win a free video game console. This site will not end world hunger, foster peace in the Middle East, help you smell better, teach you how to swing dance, or move the global economy from petroleum to hydrogen fuels. You'll learn a lot about this site's master, though, which amounts to a haphazard collection of strange and useless facts that pretty much won't help you at all.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This is the blog of Phil Gomes, SVP with Edelman Digital and senior advisor to the Society for New Communications Research. This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. Phil currently resides in Chicago, IL. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes.com View my page on PROpenMic SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.