Last week Robert Scoble sent off the incendiary post PR is Dead and Lame, where dressed as the Incredible Hulk, he proceeded to take umbrage at the bad practice of PR professionals blind blasting out crap to writers, journalists, bloggers and your Mom. It was followed by many and generated a firestorm when Mark Story asked if “Robert Scoble is a Jerk.”

I was planning to take Robert to the wood shed over his mantra because, well, I don’t like to see my profession painted over with a bad shade of black. In defense of the profession there are quite a few PR professionals who do understand that blanket pitches and frankly bad grammar tend to make us all look bad. And quite a few of us don’t use bad practices.

That being said, I fully agree with a couple of points that Robert made in his private note to PR people where he provides a refreshing articulation in comparison to the previous flamestorm. Much of my success in placing stories or promoting a cause has been because I have taken the time to listen, understand and build a relationship.

First off, no one wants to be the guy who has to make a living cold-calling people to pitch them a story. And secondly, we all know that it is counterproductive. Clients love to see that you’ve talked to everyone in the world and statistics that show you blasted out a message to thousands. PR needs to demonstrate that talking to 10 people versus 10,000 often provides better results. So as a profession we have a problem in showing results and measuring success (There’s that common theme again – measurement). Coupled with the inexperience of many junior execs who are struggling to show results and you have a lot of crap being sent to Robert Scoble.

Focused research, taking the time to build a relationship and using tools that strengthen that relationship always trumps the shotgun blast.

Now, A-listers and journalists and anyone else tired of getting garbage could improve everyone’s lot in life if they took the time to share what they are planning on doing next.  Make sure you have a bio somewhere. Tell me what you’re interested in. Provide a roadmap. Not an editorial calendar per se, but a forecast of things on your horizon. Help these young crap stirrers to send peaches your way instead of prunes. Point us to your crystal ball and help us build a relationship.

Tools like HARO, ProfNet (I was on the advisory panel that created ProfNet), MicroPR, et. al., open the doors and allow some insight. They also allow for the building of relationships. These are tools we all should be embracing in our efforts to improve how PR works and how PR pitches are received by other communicators.