My favorite stereo type is Sony

This one's making the rounds today, from Valley PR Blog: Are You a PR Stereotype?

The discussion in the comments is all very thoughtful - and a lot of it gets to the heart of the publicity vs. PR issue that I've read and written about before. One comment in particular resonated with me, though... from Bridget Daley:

The most common assumption I run across is that I love to talk on the phone and chat over coffee for hours. I actually very much enjoy being alone and it surprises people. I think it’s because my JOB is to be social, so when I’m “off the clock” I like being alone and doing quiet activities with my kids and fiance. I always hear, “Aren’t you a BIG ‘people’ person since you’re in PR?” And actually, I’m not really. Only at work.

Like Daley, I am a proven and tested introvert. And I have repeatedly encountered the idea (in both a professional and casual context) that introverts "can't possibly be in PR" - that all marketing-related fields are in fact dependent on extroversion. I don't think that's the case. True, you won't get very far in PR (or in most fields, actually) if you're painfully, cripplingly shy or if you absolutely hate people. But that's not what introversion is. Conversely, there's a lot more to PR than chatting on the phone all day and handing out your business card at cocktail parties. Smart public relations requires the ability to make connections between ideas, to engage in systematic problem-solving, and to think before speaking - all skills that come more naturally to I's.

Even so, I'd just as soon let people assume my career is exactly like Samantha Jones' on Sex and the City. It's a lot like when people find out I have a degree in Linguistics and they say, "so you speak a lot of languages, right?" I want to just say, "sure... why not!" I figure there are worse stereotypes to contend with.