1.I was actually going to comment on the earlier post, but since you made a new one, I'll comment here.

What strikes me in all of this is the extent to which you traditional PR guys have incorporated advanced IT into your practices. In some sense, I see you guys as attempting to incorporate the new culture into the old. Witness Steve Rubel's foray into del.icio.us.

Now, who is better positioned for that? I suspect what you really need are people who understand tech AND business. Clearly just traditional PR guys cannot do that and neither can techies. You, Rubel, and other far-seeing PR types are realizing that you cannot stand still, otherwise you will be passed by.

Now, your argument seems to be that knowing PR and tech gives folks like you, Neville, and Steve an advantage in the race of technically competent people. Perhaps, but only as long as the new PR really relies on elements from the old PR. In many of your posts, you make the argument that the new PR is different, specifically more interactive.

Let me point out that some tech companies from the 90's made it big. Consider Google, Yahoo, and Amazon. Consider that some people who tried to extend their traditional dominance online failed. Witness Wal-Mart, Sears, and other retailers.

To me, the real issue is that blogs and other online tools have changed the game for traditional PR (I am actually working with a little firm that feels the heat) and the question facing everybody is how to respond.

2.Thanks so much for the comment, Bud.

Honestly, I don't think it's at all about incorporating technology. That would be the same as suggesting that communications 50 years ago required the incorporation of printing technology. I don't know many communicators who could operate an offset press, but they certainly understood the implications of print and knew how to employ it as part of the communications toolkit. Ultimately, though, we job the actually printing work to printers.

Similarly, while we should understand the implications of blogs, RSS, wikis, and the rest, there's no requirement that we grasp the IT side (e.g., how to install one on a server) -- although because I'm a geek by hobby, I do.

This, I think, is where the challenge comes in for anybody seeking to establish a consultancy. On the IT side, one can know all there is to know about the technology. You can even understand the broad social implications of the new technology. But how to apply these technologies as part of a communication effort designed to influence specific behaviors, opinions, and attitudes among targeted audiences to produce measurable results? That's what communicators do. We know the models. We know the combination of tools to use.

I've always maintained that having IT "own" a company's Web site was like turning production of a magazine's content over to the printer. I don't think that's less true today with the newer tools. Of course, Google and Yahoo! are tech companies, not communication companies dedicated to producing communications through the sole channel of tech.

Also, I disagree that the old PR methods are no longer viable. Building personal relationships with influencers is a skill and requirement that isn't going to change any time soon. If you read some of the academic works on PR, like "Excewllence in Public Relations and Communications Management," you come to understand that technologies don't change the need for such activities as issues identification, boundary spanning, negotiation, and symmetrical communication. Not every PR effort occurs in direct communication with the public. Look at the work companies like v-Fluence have done in risk management, policy development, government and political affairs, etc.

What can I say? There's just more to comprehensive, professional PR than most non-PR people ever recognize. It's not all press releases and media pitches.

Yes, definitely, PR professionals need to understand how these new technologies forever transformed PR and relationships with audiences. That's the crusade the 110 or so of us PR bloggers have undertaken. But understanding the IT side of the shop is no more important today than it was to know how to work an ADO board in a studio when producing a video 20 years ago!

3.Well, I think the nub of the argument here boils down to how much you think the technology changes the game. Your argument is "not really", and I agree that many of the communication skills are important. But, only time will tell on the rest of the skill set and how transferrable it is.

Why didn't Dan Gillmor stick with a regular newspaper? There's something new there, maybe.

4.No, I don't think "not really" is accurate. I think the technology changes PR significantly and irrevocably. I just don't think this means that other aspects of the profession go away as a result.

I think Dan Gillmor left the traditional newspaper to undertake something new that he found more exciting and rewarding. As I say, newspapers won't go away, but they will evolve and adapt to their new role in an expanded universe of channels, just as radio did. Remember, Edward R. Murrow left radio for television, but radio is still around.

5.Interesting points and thanks for the clarifications. I think I am starting to get it. Mainly, we agree that communication is important. At a talk in Ann Arbor the other day, I actually said many of the things you have said here.

I do think there is something fundamentally different in the Web 2.0 world, and it has to do with how you reach out and touch people as well as how you constitute networks. Right now, I think this really affects a small number of people (low millions at most).

For many people, crossing the technology gap is really quite difficult. That's why I'm not as sceptical as you about technology-centric companies being able to play a role. In some sense, they are the first settlers. Of course, as you point out, only a few of those make it rich. Many die. That strikes me as the nature of human endeavor.

BTW, I'm not trying to antagonize here. I just find the conversation stimulating and am somewhat stuck on my own view. I may write my own post.

6.Good heavens, Bud, I didn't perceive your posts as antagonistic! I, too, find the discussion stimulating, and I hope we'll keep it going.

Incidentally, my definition of technology is "stuff that doesn't work right yet." Your TV is technology, but you don't think of it that way. You turn your TV on and it works. You don't need tech support or magazines or how-to guides. Futurist Jeffrey Hallett, in a talk I heard him deliver, said that for technology to become fully integrated, it needs to reach the "Star Trek" level -- when Captain Kirk simply talks with the computer and it answers in plain English. Blogs represent a huge leap forward in the Internet's original promise of a place where everybody, not just institutions that can afford it, can publish. It has simplified the process considerably. But it's still to technical and complicated for my mother!

7.Interesting view of technology. Given your definition, my cut is that the effects are unpredictable. Usually, the first wave of adoption is figuring out how to get the new technology to even work at all in the current context. After that, people generally move on to new uses and applications that were not available before and frankly not even conceived. Witness search on the Internet and the whole industry that is growing around that.

So, I wonder if the adepts at technology don't have an advantage at defining this second wave, whatever that may be.

BTW, I pretty much agree that things like blogging have a huge communications component. But, oddly, I think blogging through RSS and easy CMS will gain platform status and reshape the communications landscape. Are communications professionals blinded by their past experience in perceiving the new vista? Or, are they better endowed to see it?

Not sure.

8.Sure, the effects are entirely unpredictable. Alexander Graham Bell thought his invention would be used for broadcasting, not one-to-one conversations! But I think there's a difference between technology "adepts" and technicians. If you remember the first wave of business Web sites, created almost entirely by IT departments, they sent shudders through corporate offices because of their absolute cluelessness about such things as trademark, brand, audiences, outcomes, and influence. They were strictly efforts to establish a presence without applying the technology to any kind of strategy or goal. Spelling was atrocious. Grammar was horrible. Many of these sites actually damaged company images and reputations...even though they were technically sound.

You'll find nobody who endorses the idea that RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasting, and the like will transform (is transforming) communication more than me. And yes, the reason so many of us communicators are out here advocating for the use of these technologies is that we recognize that many of our colleagues can be slow to embrace this kind of change.

But communicators -- those who get it and those who will -- will be able to apply the tools to their in-depth knowledge of audiences, behaviors, measurement, outcomes, strategy, and other aspects of communication in order to achieve business results.

Imagine a printing company with the latest in printing technology, but everything they print is written by the printers!

9.Shel, I think I now pretty much agree with you in the following sense. It's really a combination of business and tech savvy that is required. I do think businesses get transformed by technology and sometimes die away.

The newspaper business seems currently to be in bad spot, and publishing is really being transformed in general. That's largely the result of tech savvy businessmen getting into the fray and offering a completely different value proposition than what was there before.

In the arena, I see people who started with a more technical or more business background. But at the end of the day, they had to be motivated to offer a value proposition that someone was willing to pay for. Technical people who actually value engineering excellence may not be motivated enough to do that. Business people will sometimes cling to the old way because, until that old way dies, it seems to be the best bet.