I didn't sleep at all last night.  I spent most of the night thinking about Steve Dolinsky's post about the M Burger press release. First, a sigh of relief that it wasn't me. Wow. Ouch. Second, a shout out to the person who wrote the offending release: We've all, publicist, journalist and ex-publicist alike, have written up the wonky release or story. That blog post could have been about any of us whose job it is to communicate.  And if you need it, I know Steve's home address.

The reality is, we all now live in a world of transparency. People can review their meal on their iPhone while eating dinner. Anyone can tweet about stupid mistakes in about thirty seconds.  Blog posts can be tossed out into the ether without the leveling influence of an editor.

I, for one, think it is a good thing. 

Because of a blog post I wrote about Groupon and its impact on chef-driven restaurants, Groupon and I are going to be meeting about how Groupon can work to serve these kinds of restaurants better.  Sure, the post stung, but there is no way we would have gotten to moving the conversation forward without it.  And now, the Grouponistas are eager to get to brainstorming a solution where chef-driven restaurants will win as much as Groupon does. So, in the end, that whole saga is a happy ending waiting to happen.

At RIA, whenever we catch wind of some negative talk, we try to understand the source and assume it is something we can fix. Now, I am not saying it is easy to hear the sniping chatter of bored people with nothing better to do with their time than gripe about everyone and everything. And thankfully, there is precious little of it, probably because we are still so new.

But how else would we ever really uncover real problems that need to be addressed?

You'd be surprised how much a the ridiculous insanity of a blowhard can lead the RIA team to identifying and resolving an actual problem. So you'd be surprised at the little gripes I actually pay attention to because I believe there might be something there that can make my service better for my clients. And since that is my business, how I spend my day, I care a lot about doing it right.

Personally, I think all this transparency is going to make us all a lot more honest. We'll work harder if we know that the product of our work is potential fodder for public ridicule.  For a while there, our culture seemed to exist in an alternate reality where everyone's attempt to keep things shrouded in mystery, not question aloud, be PC and not ruffle feathers ended up creating a lot of mess that nearly took down our entire country.

And while it may seem odd that a blog post by a Hungry Hound could lead me to worry about the state of American society, this new age of transparency is really all about people being a lot more accountable for their little corner of the world.  Publicists being more accountable for accuracy in press releases, even if it is just about a hamburger; journalists being more accountable for writing without agendas; chefs being more accountable for, well, I'll let you fill in the blank there.