Two general topics grabbed me this week. One was the recent ballyhoo surrounding this notion that customer service is the new marketing. No fewer than most of my favorite public relations minds all wrote about it. Some argued semantics. Others jumped on board and echoed the sentiments.

The second was Bill Sledzik’s tome declaring reasons he mistrusts marketing. He refers to it as PR’s “evil twin” and hints that public relations practitioners today even fail to differentiate between PR and marketing. Sledzik appears to be an old school PR craftsman who is resistant to the notion of integrated marketing (i.e. – that which includes public relations).