BMW looking for an in-house Online PR pro (and why)

The collision between the worlds of traditional PR and online culture continues to spark off interesting new consequences, and as a bystander it interests me greatly to observe...

At an Online PR roundtable put on by e-consultancy a few months back I bravely suggested that the net worth of everyone at that table from the PR community (most of the attendees) would go up rapidly in the next 12-18 months - those that understand the confluence and collision of corporate communications and its interaction with online will be sought after more and more, their skills and knowledge suddenly recognised for its worth and importance. And the 'suddenly' would probably be when the client in question got bitted on the proverbial by an online campaign or spiralling crisis. Cometh the hour, cometh the one person in the PR team that knows what to do and how.

And although the PR community has a better cohort of early adopters (the UK PR blogger ecosystem is one of the richest, for example) than most industry sectors (e.g. conventional marketers or brand people), the broad majority of PR people still don't really understand the full implications of what's going online, if my conversations with them recently at the Online PR roundtable and the PR Week 'PR & New Media' show are representative.

But the tide is absolutely turning.

I met Mark Harrison from BMW at the PR Week 'PR & New Media' show last week, and what interested me was that he'd seen the challenge and the opportunity of this collision better than most, and was preparing to address it in the way I'd personally recommend: by hiring a genuine, credible and experienced Online PR consultant to work in house.

So he's looking for someone - perhaps you know them?

Mark Harrison, at BMW, is looking for a dedicated new media PR manager, key facets I'm looking for are guile and tact.
And maybe a bit of charm. He/she needs to quickly gain the trust and
confidence of other key stakeholders in a company; marketing (website /
advertising), customer services, global headquarter's and other major
markets' PR communities, especially US (one third of The Times and
Telegraph online readers are in the US). Within a company, a new media
head needs to work across disciplines and country borders, but still
know the value of PR as a marketing tool.