Being slightly reclusive by nature, last week's Microsoft Worldwide PR Summit was one of the few times I spend much time with counterparts from other PR agencies. Microsoft has a strong hand of agencies supporting it, so its interesting to compare notes and current thinking.

As usual, I don't have much gossip to share, but one comment made to a Microsoft client and a peer from the PR world made them stop in disbelief. We were discussing the need to invest in new delivery channels etc, and I mentioned that we had as many software developers in our company as PR professionals. They were surprised.

The surprise is forgivable on two counts. First, we don't invest enough energy explaining ourselves to the outside world (we should do a better job of this). And secondly, in my experience, no other company I've met has quite understood the need to become fully immersed in the capability of a new generation of software tools and technologies. Most PR agencies talk about the need to understand the new medium and tools. We belief you have to be part of it. To eat, live and breathe it. To be able to build the future for our clients, as much as talk about it.

Because we have always been a bit of a hybrid marketing services vendor, this isn't so problematic for us. Our development centre has existed for over six years and has built marketing solutions for many of the world's leading protagonists in the technology marketplace. But I can see its tough for people entering this arena from the direction of PR. Push past the chatter and most of them are at best observers and commentators, rather than the enablers or drivers of these changes.

Our schizophrenia was brought into relief later in the week. To my surprise we were declared the UK's leading Tech PR agency in 2006. I've never really felt comfortable with the criteria for including or excluding revenues in the rankings upon which these sorts of tables are based (and lots of competitors skip them entirely). But we try and complete the forms as honestly, accurately and consistently as possible. We exclude as much of our revenue in value terms as we include, so we are not bending the rules in our favour, for sure.

But coming first was a bit strange because we have never really seen ourselves as swimming in the same pond as many of the traditional hitech PR agencies. Oddly, during the same week earning another technical accreditation for our development team generated a more visible 'Mexican Wave' of email-based recognition inside the company, than did the PR Week rankings. 

So what are we? A PR agency? A digital agency? Or a Web 2.0 communications company? I don't know for sure. I know we have a distinctly mixed genetic heritage as a company but I don't have a name for it. I don't like any of the current labels and I'm searching for a better term. Good ideas gratefully received.