There's an old line about "never start believing your own PR". Such wisdom there. If I ever show signs of doing so, please wake me up. I suppose the best way to avoid that fate is not to produce any public relations material. Hmm. There's a connection here to the Cluetrain Manifesto, and also (I think) to my concept of the organizational imperative: the notion that organizations take on a life of their own and insidiously influence the individuals involved to subjugate their own interests for the sake of the greater good of the organization. Organizations need PR to keep growing. Individuals usually don't -- though even here the temptation to issue glowing PR is strong (especially among those seeking fame). But at least an individual can possess a healthy concept of growth -- improvement as a human being in creativity, understanding, emotional vibrancy, spiritual depth, and the like. As far as I have seen, organizations lack such measures. Not that I'm saying it's straightforward to stay centered and healthy as an individual: it's all too easy to measure oneself in terms of money, fame, status, power, influence, and so on -- and even relatively healthy dimensions such as knowledge can be used to ill effect as a measure of comparative worth (just go to any Mensa meeting, from what I gather). Many people think individualism is easy. Au contraire.