1.By Jay Rosen's definition of profession (which matches the dictionary pretty well BTW), very few of us are indeed in "professions." We have jobs, avocations, skills, qualifications, but absent the advanced study and specialized training as a requirement for entry, we are not in a profession.

Professional, as an adjective, on the other hand, seems more broadly applicable:"Websters: Engaged in a specified activity or career"

Net, I think it is possible for PR practitioners to be professional, to have professional ethics and standards, for there to be a baseline requirement for certain qualifications, even if the job is not strictly speaking a "profession."

Linguistic nit-picking... always more fun than the work I should be doing :-)

2.Okay, let me try again. The factor I was trying to underline--and this has zero to do with linguistic nitpicking--is not advanced study or training in PR, which certainly exists, but the autonomy of PR people within organizations, and the deference afforded their views.

If midlevel staffers in the National Security Council can determine military strategy, because (for example) they several degrees closer to the White House than the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, then we may have a military with great training, tons of expertise and credentials up the wazoo, but we do not have a professional military because the generals' zone of autonomy has been invaded and there is no underlying respect, or deference paid to military knowledge. The generals aren't in charge of the very thing they have to be in charge of, if we're to have the benefits of a professional military.

That, I amm aruguing, is very often and maybe even most of the time the case in PR. It undercuts professionalism very deeply, because even if PR practitioners succeed in finding, defining and maintaining standards that serve society, those standards cannot be upheld if the autonomy of the profession is invaded by those who see their own knowledge as adequate to the task.

The example of a company president who dismissed a comprehensive, strategic plan to communicate a traumatic reorganization, saying instead, ?Just write an article about it for the company magazine" thus illustrates what I meant.

3.Jay, I can't begin to express my appreciation for the time you're taking to further this discussion. Thank you.

4.Shel ... while I respect your intent to get to the bottom of this, I honestly don't think it matters one iota.

People will think what they want to think regardless of what we want to call ourselves or how we position our "profession." The bottom line is that it takes certain skills and experience to be an effective communicator, and if others refuse to see that, we're wasting our time trying to convince them.

Here's a personal anecdote that I think sums up our profession nicely.

My wife and I recently hired an interior decorator to help us with our new home. She swooped in, color palette in hand, and proceeded to pick out colors for our house, inside and out.

It took her an hour or so, and when I looked at what she had selected, the colors all looked like beige to me.

So I said to my wife, "We hired a decorator to get beige paint??? I could have done that!!!"

Of course, when the work was finished, it was beautiful ... the colors flowed nicely from room to room and the entire effect was far stronger -- yet more subtle -- than just the beige that I saw. And she made it look so easy!

That's what we do as communicators. It looks easy -- and we're often quick about it -- but while we're working, everything thinks they can do it too. They suspect we're just picking beige ... but we're really using our skill and experience to create a nuanced, effective message that can be easily understood.

5.Whether we qualify as a profession or not, it's something worth striving for. That's why I'm a loyal member of the International Association of Business Communicators, which has more than a few attributes of a profession, including:

* an accreditation program that requires one to go through a disciplined evaluation process, including a graded portfolio and a written and oral exam;

* a code of ethics that must be signed by all members in good standing;

* an annual international conference in which members meet to discuss best practices in the field, along with local conferences and professional development sessions;

* a research arm that studies the impact of communicators on the constituencies that they serve;

* a publishing arm that provides members with guides, handbooks and other materials that effectively establish professional standards for communicators; and

* a trade magazine in which members publish articles about relevant topics with a view to furthering the cause of strategic communication.

I agree that we are NOT a true profession for the reasons Jay so eloquently notes (although we'd be a lot closer if we required all our members to go through the accreditation process). But we are headed in the right direction, and it's a journey worth taking.

And yet there are aspects of what we do that are more comparable to artists than professionals. Doctors, engineers, lawyers and accountants don't get as many opportunities to be creative as we do, and they don't have a hand in affecting social change the way some of the best communicators can.

For me, communication is a combination of craft, artistry and professionalism - a fusion of elements that renders attempts to accurately define us meaningless, as John points out.

At the end of the day, the words "profession" and "professionalism," even when spelled with a small p, are extremely valuable to us, if only as linguistic benchmarks to help the better among us differentiate ourselves from the worst.

6.As many have said here, professionalism is what matters and the debate of this point nearly drove me crazy when I went for my APR with PRSA. But, I found out just a few weeks ago that it matters as I volleyed with a lawyer over language in an endowment that we are setting up to provide training and scholarships to further the ethical practice of public relations. Here is what the lawyer came up with to define our "profession": "individuals who are employed to communicate information to specific groups or the general public and who are members of a class of individuals customarily called 'public relations professionals.'"

Eventually, we settled on: "To provide additional education, knowledge, and ethical training to individuals who are employed in or studying public relations."

We had to complete excise the word "professional" to get any agreement on the issue.

7.It seems to me we're doing a decent job of answering the specific question: is PR a profession? The underlying issue in Jay's question is much much harder - why is it that the "big bosses" so often choose to ignore the advice of the highly qualified individuals they have hired or appointed to give them said advice. Whether it be the joint chiefs of staff or a PR practitioner.

It doesn't seem that status as a profession makes all that much difference. And I don't think that it is necessarily a respect (or lack thereof) issue. I think politics and expediency are a large part of the problem. It isn't that the chief executive doesn't know. Perhaps he doesn't want know?

8."Professionals" are paid for what they do (vs. amateurs being unpaid). I don't think we would argue that Joe Gibbs is a professional football coach, but the fact that Redskins owner Dan Snyder sticks his nose in to make personnel decisions that Joe should be making based on his coaching needs, doesn't mean that Joe is any less a professional coach. It means Dan Snyder, like the corporate president in Shel's example, is an awful boss and executive.

It also doesn't mean, unfortunately, that there aren't dregs getting paid and therefore qualifying as "professionals." One can hope that they are culled as companies let them go for bad performance and they choose instead to pursue the management position at the local Radio Shack. But I digress...

I agree with Susan on two points...love linguistic nit-picking because words do matter, but more to the point, the underlying question is the more important. Why isn't PR -- or more broadly, corporate communications -- getting more respect from those above? That, I think, is because it is difficult to show a direct link to the bottom line of the company. Without that, it is unlikely corporate executives will take the time to learn more about the real benefits of professional communications, and through that learning grow to respect it. Successful advertising shows a direct line. Sometimes a specific news release can show a blip in the sales charts. Something more comprehensive and nuanced becomes problematic to demonstrate.

9.There are a couple of reasons for this lack of power and influence.

One is that everyone thinks they can communicate effectively because it's something we all do all the time. I used to be a carpenter in an earlier life. Our trade was always the lowest paid among others like electricians and plumbers because everybody thinks they're a carpenter -- it's less specialized with fewer proprietary tools and techniques. And so it is with writers/communicators.

The other is that the very qualities that make us good at what we do (empathy, sensitivity, creativity, diplomacy) make us less likely to assert our dominance over others like the sociopaths that run many large organizations. We don't have a killer instinct, and therefore we end up being subservient to those who do.

Too often the response to the stupid order, like "Just write an article in the company magazine" is "Okay, how long would you like it?" rather than, "That's not the right solution and this is why..." The responsibility rests with us to sell our ideas and defend our recommendations but we end up giving up too soon.

Another argument for why we don't get the power and authority we deserve is that we don't have a seat at the coveted "strategic table." This is a myth that I busted awhile ago on my blog -- see http://ronshewchuk.blogs.com/for_your_approval/2006/02/the_myth_of_the.html. Communicators actually have lots of power -- we just have to learn how to exercise it.

10.It all comes down to integrity.