PR has become a much maligned industry. And perhaps there’s some fairness to the criticism. Over the last 100 years, its “two-way street” origin decayed into something designed to match broadcast media’s growth with scalable profitability.

But as a result, shifting patterns of attention have left many agencies fielding foghorns in a world now thriving in conversation. They besiege anyone with audience, trying to bully their way into the news and, even with non-stories from lifeless brands, some have become very effective at it.

This saturates the news cycle, giving over-pitched and over-worked media a hundred times more noise to digest before finding the signal that matters. But worse, it can deprive great companies and great people of a voice.

I think we can do better. I think good PR is about doing something so interesting or so much better that people can’t help but talk about it — not trying to fake it.

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