Misdirected email...

I got the following email yesterday. Talk about barking up the wrong tree...

< snip >
Hi Melissa,

I would love to speak with you about job opportunities at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. We currently have Technology PR openings at various levels on several of our Microsoft account teams.

< /snip >

I've been doing PR for open source projects and companies for the past 2 years or so. A bunch of enterprise, proprietary stuff before that. I don't want to say I'm religious about open source. I feel like that's such a loaded term. However, I have internalized a number of open source values and they are directly at odds with how MSFT approaches PR.

In open source PR:
1) If it seems unclear, shine some light on it
2) If it needs an embargo, it's probably because you're working with a partner and your regular reporters will sense something fishy and will start digging to determine identity of said partner
3) You can't control the blogosphere so you may as well make friends with and go out drinking with the blogosphere.
4) If you don't move serious money, you have to find creative ways to explain why you matter to the publications covering serious money.
5) Respect the individual voice. There's so much of the same out there. Embrace the things that are different.
6) The threshold for voicing an opinion is caring enough to have an opinion.
7) You're in a fishbowl so if you screw up, there are a lot of people who will let you know.
8) You have to know when to betray deeply ingrained industry practices and when to stick with what's working. This is a lot less obvious than it might seem.

These are just a few...there are tons more. This post is by no means complete, just some thoughts that were bouncing around my head today...