Open-source Marketing

I've been discussing Open-Source Marketing -- or should I call it community marketing? -- with Jerry Michalski and some of our mutual friends.  Here's a snippet from an interesting post of his from August 2004:

"What if your Public Relations department became the Public Relationships department? What if its new mission were to help individuals and groups inside your company form better authentic relationships with their various publics outside?

To do this, your PR team would improve disclosure, increase transparency, train everyone, seek opportunities, make introductions and then get out of the way. They would be open-communication consultants, looking for places where your company is screwing up by behaving in less-than-credible ways, and helping heal the problems rather than buff them up and spin outsiders."

Go Jerry.  In the intervening year and a half the concept of "public relationships" has gained real traction in the best PR agencies, like Edelman, where I plan to finish up my WOMM consulting this month.