Why has it become so crucial for PR people to honor themselves and sit gazing knowingly at their navels? I’m sure you know: this long adhered-to tactic of talking about PR as if it’s The Most Important feat on earth.

Every other day another organization says they are making their life’s work finding out what’s wrong with the PR industry and finalizing how we can make it better.

As if.

The only way to give PR a better outward image is to ensure that the media (e.g., folks with a voice to the public) have a clearer understanding of what we do. No one is being courted by PR people because PR people are afraid of over-selling what we do. (Would it hamper their clients to pitch our industry on the side? That’s what made so many literary agents extinct; they won’t push the envelope with editors for fear of hurting those all-important relationships.)

Then there are the untenable awards being doled out constantly. They are for best PR “practitioner,” best buzz, best coordinated effort, best gaffer; we have Oscars-envy. I could understand if we were a public industry, where water cooler chat gets people buying our products. But…it just seems like we’re all too anxious to honor ourselves for the day-to-day.

Why it is crucial for people in our business to think they’re the best at a thing-—in some cases (agencies) everything -—boggles me. Is this how we earn new clients? I doubt that companies seeking PR firms who’ve been beaten up by crappy campaigns and a bait-and-switch pulled by a big agency care a whit how much we are loved by our peers. With the risk of sounding like Joyce Brothers, can’t we just like ourselves and do good business?

At the end of the dot-com era Orlando Business Journal asked me what I thought of their local firm, WordWise, whom they cited as having hired someone full-time to get awards for them.

WordWise did no advertising. This hardly-shy communications agency pursued a different strategy: it won awards. Actually, by 2001WordWise had racked up nearly 300 awards, including 23 that year alone. They included Florida Public Relations Association’s Dick Pope All Florida Golden Image Award and the (yikes) Grand Golden Image Award. Their employee was all over the award circuit.

They wanted me to stop laughing and give a comment.

I muttered how award-seeking was truly trendy during the period when competing media relations firms were trying to show they were “in” to an overcrowded industry. But then it became too self-congratulatory. It’s like a wedding ceremony every year.

I thought of this conversation a month ago when attending an Advisors Meeting of PR News. The topic More Awards Needed was on the agenda. Reason: “Our clients love it.” Don’t customers love their own press more! Alas who am I to advise a bunch of Advisors?

Oh let me. We should stay in the background more than the fore—well, except for newsletters. RLM goes for case studies. We let trade journalists display our process; we’re proud because how we did it counts more than quantity of hits.

When it comes to golden shovels being handed out for every fabulous press release I wonder what the fuss is all about… nodding to Emily Latella. Who cares whether we get kudos for doing our job? I realize lots of trades do this and still all that comes to mind is “How much is there to be made on entrance fees?” My brother was a chemical engineer and never sought an award when he found new uses for horse tranquilizer. Yet I think he probably deserved at least one for making his company bank or finding ways to calm down those heady beasts!

Isn’t it bizarre that awards are being given to people who in their hearts know good PR is not talking about yourself—except for the dude who runs 5WPR—but displaying attributes of well-meaning clients?

Lest I forget, who are these groups who won’t stop hocking me? Council of PR Firms, PR Leaders, PRSA, CAMA, Counselors Academy, PR Mucky-Mucks United (made that up), and finally, an unnamed faction that cracks me up most because it’s a cadre of coveted PR know-it-alls who hold an annual blow-out. One colleague whispered with a straight face, “Richard, only the biggest and best are invited. Man is it a great party!”

To get the most beloved PR types in a room (aren’t they in rest homes?) to party down sounds un-provocative. I’d rather home watching The WB. I can’t help thinking: Why aren’t all these mega-geniuses having coffee klatches with Editorial Boards rather than each other?

Instead of straining their backs staring at belly-buttons can’t of these men and women move away from the bar and go get some good PR for our field? [I contributed to two widely-disseminated articles for Bulldog Reporter and Washington Post about how PR pros must comprehend journalists’ innate dislike of our peeps.]

These groups have got to slow down the e-mail chatter, too. [Hint: E-mails by the dozen are insulting and dilute the sender’s reputation.] Bored admins write me constantly asking for facts and figures about salary, attitude, new trends or revived ones, slowing growth or faster growth, and other factoids I’m not at wont to share. Then I’m being asked to buy the study I didn’t contribute to.

The invitations to party down at some cocktail hour or panel where I can learn from “experts” just won’t stop. The makers take in mucho dinero at the door and twice as much at the bar. I went a few times to see: always the same folks doing the same networking. Here’s hoping someone gets a date.

Drinks are better without chitchat.
In review: Organizations want PR-earned money in order to kibitz about PR-knowledge most of us already possess. Hearty folks pat themselves on the back for being in the background. We work hard getting people exposure and honors. Yet we’re exposing ourselves to ridicule while we stand in a room with peers remarking how honored we are to be honoring people.
That’s where the irony escapes.
If we stopped thinking we’re the best for a minute and spent those 60 seconds straightening our arms to pick up a phone seeking another venue to expose worthy work of clients, then we could earn a big burst of self-respect.

As for me I’ll be at the bar talking to myself.

Richard Laermer is the author of Full Frontal PR, which has won awards. Yet who shows up for those…