So says Weber Shandwick’s US based chief executive Harris Diamond, speaking this week to PR Week’s Danny Rogers. Diamond sees the Italian suited ad execs and Ivy League management consultants ‘walking away’ from the challenge of driving reputation in the era of dialogue and a more strategic place for PR in the corporate pantheon.

On a more micro level, I was in a restaurant in Reigate this week, eating a cheese omelette with some very successful international marketers, talking about social media. The thing that stands out is not the need for technical advice, though there was a bit of chat about blogging platforms, but the need for good quality, on- message communications through new channels which they simply don’t have time to handle.

In the old days, a company’s PR person would have a small but effective gun – maybe a Beretta, by which I mean limited power to influence company reputation via a press release and a few journalist contacts who might publish it. With the new era of dialogue, the same person has been handed a machine gun (I’m beginning to regret this metaphor).

Problem is, PR in the UK probably doesn’t realise it’s been drafted and marketers don’t see PROs as social media soldiers. Meanwhile, SEO and IT engineers continue to sell piecemeal services to marketers that should be led strategically by communications professionals.

This is future gazing though. Harris Diamond says he ‘has never been so excited about the future of his profession’ neither have I, I haven’t got up this early for years.