Ah, the good old days. When public relations and media relations simply meant writing a press release and hitting the "SEND" button. Not today. Great public relations and media relations specialists must be reputation managers, storytellers and brand champions for their clients. Effective PR strategies must engage customers by merging social media, blogs, online news releases and other forms of web content with cost-effective traditional media. They must promote conversation. And they must be seeded with a big idea that breaks through all the communications clutter.