I’ve been following the discussions between Shel Israel and Mike Manuel over the past week or so.
Somewhere in the middle there’s a straw man being tossed around.
The “traditional PR” guy, you know the one. He’s the guy shouting into the phone and taking reporters out to lunch. Or the recent college graduate who watched one too many episodes of Melrose Place and thought she’d grow up to be Amanda Woodward.
Yes, this person exists. But there is an entire range of choices between the ‘traditional PR’ that Shel says a start-up can do without and those of us who know blogs are not to be spammed. If a start-up is looking at a ‘traditional PR agency’ I’d agree with Shel. If they were talking to Voce or PAN, I’d say they are making a smart move.
So let’s retire the image of the hard driving PRbot. It’s bad enough that their economic model makes the RIAA look nimble, do we have to kick them when they’re down as well?
