Blogs and Libel - or Damn, NKK!

July 2, 2003.

That’s when I started this blog. I have been writing - off and on - for almost 14 years now. When I started, there were a handful of public relations bloggers and social media was not yet a term. Yes, some of us were doing online PR (remember that quaint term), and some were already doing digital work and coding.

We were a pretty close-knit group, with not much drama or jealousy, and mostly egos were kept in check. What we did was try to learn from each other and help each other out. I still talk to many of them and think of them as friends.

During that first year, the focus of the blog changed. I started with the issues of starting my own firm but grew really bored with that, and focused on the issues I was seeing - and still see - in the industry. And that industry has expanded to be social media marketing, marketing communications, communications and more.

Or is that the lines have become so blurred in all the practices out there, that they are all bleeding into each other.

Also, during the past almost 14 years, I have seen many in that original group stop writing and blogging, wholesale delete their old blogs, or just move on. The deletion makes no sense to me, it is like being afraid of having your past views and thoughts held against you; I pretty much stand by what I have written, even though some of it is embarrassing as shit, because as a professional and a person, I have grown and evolved. Or I believe I have.

This space has gone through a Blogger template, to a custom-one designed by Josh Hallett, back to a basic spartan Blogger template. But as I started blogging again this year because the same issues seem to come up again and again, I have gone in with a new redesign.

Here is the new look. I hope you like it, but it is also a rebirth or refocus for me to consciously make an effort to blog at least twice a month; originally it was weekly but hey, I am nothing if not realistic.

There are a lot of things I see out there that make me scratch my head and wonder why we are seeing and writing about the same crap, the same issues, for the past 10-plus years. Friends joke that I should just republish old posts, because I wrote what is being said now by others … but five-plus years ago.

It is an oddity that our industries do not seem to learn, that the large agencies are stagnant and afraid, and clients are looking elsewhere. And that there is an overall lack of understanding of just what is public relations.

So I am back. And I am writing. And I am hopefully getting people to discuss things, or at least having a few friends read what I write. Enjoy the new journey.