Muppets and Nerds

PRs have been caught with their trousers down, once again. Bill Ray at the Register (one of the UK's key tech news sites) had the opportunity to overhear a discussion between two O2 PR people on how to position O2's bandwidth allocation (or lack of it) "O2 PR calls Reg readers 'techie nerds'"

To be specific, how to find a way of saying (without offence) that customers who want more bandwidth are "a bunch of techie nerds" and expounding the view that anyone leaving O2 for more bandwidth is clearly "a muppet". It also included a discussion on the best way to rescind statements made previously. Ouch.

The issue here is not that they were overheard (although it was for them unfortunate, but mistakes happen), it's the backtracking, rescinding of statements and the quality of the discussion about a fairly important customer issue that has raised a few eyebrows. Does it need to be reduced to muppets, nerds and backtracking? No. Does it confirm every PR stereotype out there? Yes. Now that's unfortunate.