I was intrigued by your earlier post about Environics after reading the Star story earlier this morning. Environics is a competitor to the firm I work at. We're even in the same building. They are a good firm and do great work as far as I know. However, I was just about to comment on your previous post to make the same point you did. Nobody from Environics Communications blogs themselves or even seems to be tracking their own company's rep in the blogosphere, or they would have been all over your previous post. I know I track our firm's mentions throughout the blogosphere as I do for all of my clients and would have been here to set the record straight, or posted on my blog and trackbacked to your post. I don't like to trash my competitors, but I'm worried that the whole blogging and PR thing is about to jump the shark (a title for a post I'm toying with based on the Star article today.) When PR firms with no real presence or expertise in the blogosphere start talking like experts, get quoted in the paper and end up generating a PR agency feeding frenzy, it will make all of us look bad. Now, I'm not naive enough to think there won't be opportunists who talk a good game to sell something hot to their clients. I just hope all those firms that are late to the party can actually walk the talk.

[...] Maggie Fox is one of those rare bloggers. She does actual blog consulting for actual paying clients. Check out her recent posts on Environics and blogging. She takes the firm to task for selling the hype. With Environics lauded today on the front page of the business section for providing (gasp!) blog monitoring for a client, she notes that her recent post that questioned some of their research was neither responded to, commented on, monitored, read, or visited by anyone from Environics. (Blog stats are awesome by the way.) [...]

[...] First, a little background. The Oct. 31 edition of the Toronto Star had a story about blog monitoring that featured Environics Communications new blog monitoring service. Social media consultant Maggie Fox took some exception to the story through a post on her blog and followed up with a comment to Inside PR. [...]

I had precisely the same kind of misgivings about that Star article, and then a friend of mine pointed out something even more curious. There's no easy way of raising this concern without appearing to be poking at a competitor. It's also, inevitably, going to involve some poking at Dana Flavelle. So - for the record, before I start: I like Environics, think highly of their people, and have even referred clients their way in the past (when I wasn't agency side, natch). I also like Dana's work. A lot. She is, to my mind, one of the most interesting reporters working in Canada right now. Having said all that, here's the poke. Let's just check the list of sources quoted in that piece, shall we? Bruce McClellan: President, Environics David MacDonald: President, Environics Research Jordan Banks: eBay Canada, an Environics client Roger Hamshaw: Fusepoint, an Environics client Um... anyone else seeing a pattern here? The other thing that really bothered me (apart from the obvious "Er, Bruce - where's your blog?" thought), was this comment: "The best rule of thumb is to write as though your identity could be revealed at any moment, MacLellan said." Unless I'm wilfully misinterpreting this point, it seems that what Bruce is saying is that blogging is typically a case of obfuscated identity. This is clearly a concept entirely in conflict with the nature of blogging. The thought that one should write from a mindset of complete candour and transparency is muddled up in there somewhere - but the very fact that the way it is stated assumes an anonymous/pseudonymous approach to be the norm - that's just icky.

Appreciate your insights and ability to get a lot of people talking. I will certainly check in on your blog from time-to-time in the future. I sure hope someone from Environics does too!

[...] Last weeks’ For Immediate Release Podcast features an interview with Dan York about the Environics Kerfuffle (which I seem to be almost entirely responsible for starting). [...]

[...] Which made me think: how does Canada compare? It’s clear that Maggie Fox of Canada’s SocialMediaGroup sees an uptake in the public reading blogs, but from verbal conversation I’ve with many in Toronto’s tech community (and links here would be appreciated) its clear there’s widespread agreement that Canada lags in its uptake of social technologies. [...]