The end of PR as you know it

Chris Anderson has an interesting post.

He says: I wonder whether the solution to this is to evolve the role of PR from external relations to internal relations, from communications to coaching employees on how to effectively do the outreach themselves. Take Microsoft's 3,000 bloggers who are, for many of us, a welcome substitute for Microsoft PR. Internal project managers like Major Nelson of the Xbox 360 team are a trusted and timely source of information, and have largely replaced the formal press release with blog posts. He and other Microsoft bloggers like him are part of a transparency movement that grew out of the company's developer relations team, but it could have just as easily been driven by an enlightened PR team.

Yes, this is a legitimate argument as far as it goes. It does not take into account the rest of PR such as the analysis and explication of the values relevant to the organisation in relationship clouds among the nexus of values that represent the organisation. Nor does it explore the role in developing the use and application of channels for communication b eyond blogging.