Blowing Smoke…
This past weekend my wife and I spent some quiet time at our second home in upstate New York. Two and a half hours from New York City, year round mountain views and total privacy. We cannot see or hear our neighbors and they cannot see or hear us. Just the way we like it.
Anyway, I happened to bring some reading material with me including the July 23rd PRWeek to catch up on some industry news. And you know what? Talk about publishing industry rubbish. What was PRWeek’s editorial board thinking when they published Ed Moed’s Op-ed on “Staffing pyramid impedes service?” Did anybody at PRWeek read the piece before printing it?
The premise of the piece is that PR firms get more bang for the buck and clients receive the strategic counsel they are “screaming” for by inverting the staffing pyramid and having mid to entry-level employees participate in the strategic direction of communications programs, thereby producing real ROI and lowering staff attrition rates.
Bullshit. You don’t need to stand a pyramid on its head. What Moed’s firm and other PR firms need to do first is create a corporate culture that thinks outside the box, pushes the envelope and generates new ideas and suggestions from employees no matter where they are on the totem pole. And then they need to get rid of the deadwood that currently exists among staff and replace them with really smart people. Look, if you’re not smarter than me, you’re not good enough to work at BlinnPR. Period. Also, for Christ’s sake pay top dollar for talent. And lastly, avoid the comical bait and switch during the pitching process. It’s an insult to the prospect/client. Top-flight advice from senior level practitioners should be a 365/24/7 amenity for CMOs and/or VP of Communications. No questions asked.
Follow my advice and you won’t have the high turnover rates Moed speaks of or disgruntled clients asking us how BlinnPR can do better.
Anyway, I have other issues with the Op-ed, like the numerous statements Moed made that were not backed up with supporting statistics. But I guess that is what an Op-ed is all about, opinions not facts.
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2007-08-01 at 3.19 pm
Hello,
To answer your question - yes, we did read it. And, if you would like for us to run this as a letter to the editor, let me know @ keith.obrien@prweek.com.
2007-08-03 at 7.22 pm
Keith,
Thanks for the offer, but I nor the company don’t feel like we need to be publicity mongers to feel good about ourselves.
At BlinnPR, it’s the client and their needs we’re most concerned about.
So while I appreciate the offer, I’m going to have to take a pass.
Cheers,
Steven
2007-08-14 at 4.49 pm
Hear hear to weeding out deadwood and paying top dollar to attract (and retain) the right caliber of talent. Would poke at your reading of Moed’s op-ed, though — I interpreted his call to “invert the pyramid” as a challenge to the PR industry not to involve junior and mid-level staffers in the strategic stewardship of clients’ businesses; rather, to rethink the traditional agency staffing model to invest more heavily in day-to-day senior involvement in accounts so there is greater strategic value-add coming from the PR agency and therefore a more privileged position as counsel (equal to or greater than the ad agency). Needless to say, when put into practice — for real — this makes the old bait-and-switch you rightly condemn a thing of the past.
P.S. The “heavy-up senior involvement” pyramid inversion works. we’ve been doing it at DeVries for over a decade.