OPEN

Mr Rubel points to a provocative piece by Mike Manuel on Media Guerilla, asking what the place of PR is in a "cheap economy" (I discussed the quicker, cheaper start up environment in the "Business at the speed of" post…).

The most interesting bit for me was his "two cents" at the end:

My two cents:  the industry is in a transition period, the challenge as
I see right now is that too many companies are fighting to keep the old
business (and billing and services) models viable and getting
frustrated with market conditions that just can’t sustain them.
Instead of the force fit, we should be adapting and exploring new ways
to bring new value to businesses – something we’re investigating here
at Voce, but clearly this needs to be in step with a broader industry
shift.

Mike’s right. To stay in the game, consultants and agencies will have
to innovate and find ways to deliver services that deliver value.

What you have in PR is a wide-open, low/no barriers to entry service
sector. It attracts all sorts of people and businesses of wildly varying abilities.

When disruptive forces arrive in the PR industry, whether its an economic downturn or new
technologies and media models, it shakes out a lot of people and firms
that maybe shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Command and control communications structures – such as often exist in corporate communications – are bureaucratic, and
bureaucracies are great places for mediocrity (and worse) to survive. In a more open, cluetrained world, it may be a lot easier to see what (and who) is effective.

NB: Steve Rubel linked to this but promised more later – will be interesting to hear what he has to say.