See Dan Lyons below. He notes, in a pretty darn funny email exchange:
3. Favorite horror story about a PR person (no need to name names – not trying to out anyone):
Dan: There is a certain PR guy at Waggener Edstrom who made a bet with me and lost and is supposed to make a video of himself dancing on a desk. I’m still waiting.
But I do know who has the dancing feet, and maybe I'll post the video here when it happens, and all us PR folks being honorable people and all, I know it will happen.
Stacy Lucy from SXSW fame also answers the questions. She's not as funny as Dan, and also managed to put her caps key in the same place that Jerry Yang keeps his.
1. Things I respond well to:
Sarah: someone who knows my name (hint: it’s not lucy or stacy), knows where i work, what i cover, where i LIVE, (please stop with the “so-and-so is going to be in new york next week…” pitches. my column for businessweek is CALLED VALLEY GIRL and i broadcast for yahoo OUT OF SUNNYVALE), and what i would realistically write about. seriously, it’s not rocket science people. if i call a CEO or a venture capitalist for a meeting, i always get their name right and know what they do for a living, and where they stand on things. i takes about 10 minutes of good internet research. i would never expect someone to take time from their busy day to help me do my job if i got their name wrong. you shouldn’t either. this is why journalists hate you. and this has happened to me several times a day for the last ten years. these are not isolated incidents. maybe you haven’t done it, but look around you. odds are someone sitting on either side of you has. maybe both of them.
I'm just saying, but maybe the person who totally cheesed off a pretty large group of people while doing an interview that seemed to miss the mark shouldn't be ripping on PR folks for not doing their homework, eh?