It's the Friday before Labor Day, and most offices are shutting down early, if they're open at all. Is your office open? If so, what do you hope to accompish before the holiday weekend?

Marifer Rodriguez, ePR Specialist at Adaptive Marketing says, "Office is open. Business as usual at least until 1pm. Office officially closes at 1pm. Some people stay longer, most are not even here."

Maria Garcia, Account Coordinator at Converseon explains, "Yes. I guess there's too much work to do and too little time to do it. Friday's after all are part of the work week."

Others are sticking to the basics. Rob Manfredo, Account Director at KCSA tells PRNewser, "I had to come in today to clear the floors in my work station for a thorough end of summer cleaning that is to take place over the holiday weekend."

What are you up to today? Or any day for that matter. Our inbox is always open, and of course you can always send in your anonymous tips via the entry form on the right. Anonymity guaranteed!

(Barack Obama, David Axelrod, speech writer Jon Favreau and Communications Director Robert Gibbs working on the historic text, via TIME)

Barack Obama's acceptance speech will remain at the top of the list for most critics, if only behind his 2004 convention keynote. When we interviewed Ethan Riegelhaupt, former speechwriter for another great orator Mario Cuomo, he told us that successful ones are "75 percent speech and 25 percent delivery".

The delivery last night was exceptional--putting the balance more at 50/50--given excerpts of the speech were shared with the media in advance, and the campaign promising "nuts and bolts".

TIME has a look at Obama and his inner cirle, including the 27-year-old speechwriter Jon Favreau, and how he got the job done. Favreau, according to a Times profile from earlier this year, met Obama backstage during the convention in 2004 when he was writing for John Kerry, and helped him make a quick final edit to that speech.

The overall media impact of last night was summed up by New York Times TV Watch columnist Alessandra Stanley this morning.

Meanwhile, there is controversy brewing over Chuck Babington's (Associated Press) negative analysis of the speech, initially spurred by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann late last night. The Washington Monthly's Political Animal blog (via CBS) demands the AP take a look in the mirror.

Yesterday we highlighted Obama Chief Communications Officer Robert Gibbs, and his role as the media "enforcer."

After last night's big event, what did Obama relay to Gibbs regarding his feelings on the speech? Gibbs told the Wall Street Journal Obama was, "Very, very pleased...and to some degree, relieved."

Also weighing in on the speech to reporters late last night at Invesco Field was Oprah, who said, "I've never experienced anything like that. I think it was anything anyone could ever expect."

Check out coverage from TVNewser, FishbowlNY & FishbowlDC, all of whom were on the ground in Denver.

A profile in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) dubs Obama Communications Chief Robert Gibbs as the media "Enforcer." Gibbs told the WSJ that he tries "to attract more flies with honey than vinegar" and, "I work the referees a little bit if they're unfair or inaccurate. The other side is working on them, too....I'm a protector of the image." Hailing from Alabama, Obama calls Gibbs his "one-person Southern focus group."

As PRWeek reports, "...Gibbs served as Obama's communications chief during his senate run in 2004, and assumed the same role for the presidential campaign."

PRWeek: WPP sees 9% growth in PR

Chris Brogan: Workflow- Social Media for Marketers

ZDNET: Some brands should allow themselves to be 'jacked'

NYTimes: New Media Stream Into an Old Tradition

Richard Edelman: Response to the "PR is Dead" meme

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) seems to have gotten itself into a little PR mess.

Reports Newsday:

The LPGA, worried about losing interest among fans and sponsors, said it will suspend players who can't pass an English oral exam after two years on tour.

This appears aimed directly at South Koreans, who represent 45 of the 121 international players on the tour and who - British Women's Open champion Ji-Yai Shin and U.S. Women's Open champion Inbee Park, to name two - are dominating.

The issue also seems to be with the way the news was made public, not via press conference or public announcement, but rather through a leaked story on Golfweek magazine's website. However, Newsday's Mark Hermann reminds us that despite this news, "...the organization is generally open- minded and forward thinking." Nonetheless, with the sport losing sponsors and needing to drum up business, this is an unnecessary ruffle in the proverbial feathers. What would you have done?

Oh wow, Lizzie Grubman and Chris Stern are expecting their second!

Umm, doubt it. The picture above--via Pacific Coast News--illustrates a serious problem with the Splogosphere (blog + spam). The item in question is from Celebrity Moms, a site rich with baby advertising, and get this: 9,259 posts since inception in 2005.

Five seconds of research indicates the photo above was frequently used when Grubman was actually pregnant in 2006. PRNewser is very bullish on user-generated content--when it's legal. C'mon!

We'll email people at Grubman PR and see what we can find out.

According to The Age, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been handling the bear's share of the peaceful rhetoric himself in the conflict with Georgia. Interviews include the BBC, CNN, al Jazeera, LCI and an op-ed in the Financial Times titled "Why I had to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions". A week ago, Mikhail Gorbachev quelled some of the heat with his own piece in The New York Times.

"We don't need another Cold War or a modern-day remake," said the 42-year-old Medvedev on CNN. The Age article points to the work of Ketchum's sister company in Brussels, GPlus Europe and quotes partner Tim Price on the Kremlin's willingness to listen to council: "They realised that they needed to explain the rationale behind this decision."

The Kremlin's spokesman Sergei Lavrov, was quoted earlier this month, "We are like schoolchildren when it comes to using the media. But we are learning."

Meanwhile, Intelligence Online (registration required) is reporting the Republic of Georgia will be looking to choose a Paris-based firm to amp up their European media relations. Currently they're using the small Brussels-based Aspect Consulting, which shows a variety of pharma, food, and energy companies on its client list in addition to Georgia.

More after the jump:

continued...

[Somewhat related to this post: Charles Barkley and James Carville at the CNN Grill]

As we've mentioned, TVNewser's Steve Krakauer is reporting from the Democratic Convention in Denver this week. This morning he posted some excellent video interviews, including CBS Anchor Harry Smith, CNN/U.S. President John Klein , and Fox News Channel correspondent Alicia Acuna.

Click on the names to watch the videos. And if you're in Denver, Klein reminds us that at the CNN Grill, "the food is excellent."

Hillary Clinton rallied the Democratic Party with her convention speach last night, urging party unity, and delivering what might become a well remembered campaign phrase in, "No way, no how, no McCain."

In addition to the calls for unity, Clinton advisers sought advice from a former strategist, Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn.

The NYTimes reports, "...her aides limited input on the speech from Obama advisers, while seeking advice from her former strategist, Mark Penn, a loathed figure in the Obama camp."

We wrote yesterday about embargos, and whether or not they are an effective PR tactic. While some reporters disdain embargoed news, every reporter loves an exclusive, and none of them like receiving an email pitch hours after the news is public.

On this note, an editor writes in to PRNewser asking, "Can you explain why PR folks think it's helpful to send a press release out to their press list at, say 3PM when the thing hit the wires first thing in the morning and then act like we wouldn't have already seen it?"

It's certainly a fair point. No reporter likes being left out of a news cycle, or even worse, hearing from a PR rep hours after the news has been made public. Next time you're prepping an announcement, make sure to keep reporters in the loop beforehand, or at least notify them at the same time as when your press release hits the wires.

According to another study from our neighbors across the pond, PR firms in the U.K. don't get new media. A smaller survey from a few weeks ago found more than half of PR people see print media as more valuable than online.

A new survey released today by interactive marketing shop bigmouthmedia, "79% of the industry's major players have yet to develop a set of online and social media services". Further, 89% of agencies still don't have their own blog.

We'd love to compare to numbers in the U.S. Our contrarian guess would be the numbers are about the same. Perception of the industry--especially in the age of the echochamber--is that everyone is blogging and engaged in new media. With something like 240,000 workers in this country identifying themselves as practicing PR, the percentages of firms engaged in social media could be even less.

Are you from a U.K. agency? Send us your POV here.

[Image of the wonderful cast of Little Britain via Illiterarty; the show has no relation to the survey or bigmouthmedia. No offense to the PR industry there.]

Ketchum is looking for a Vice President, Interactive Strategy Group

Myspace is looking for a Director of Communications

Rhizome at New Museum of Contemporary Art is looking for a Social Media Intern

Pollock Communications is looking for AE's, SAE's and AS's

Zagat Survey is looking for a Communications Associate

Jon Greer over at BNET recently polled his readers, 55% of whom said the embargo is still alive and kicking, while 45% said it is dead.

The embargo, where the PR person and journalist agree that a story will not be published until a certain time, is "one of the most useful tools in the PR toolkit," according to Greer.

However, in the new media landscape that we live in, are they practical? The answer: sometimes. If it's really big news, or something from a public company, reporters can be more likely to hold tight until the agreed upon time. If not, there is always the chance the reporter will run with what they have, so tread with caution.

As an editor at a well known digital media news site recently told PRNewser, "We're going to pass on 90 percent of them going forward."

Our fellow mediabistro bloggers, TVNewser, FishbowlNY and FishbowlDC are all reporting this week from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Chances are many other reporters you may be trying to pitch this week are as well.

TVNewser reports on a first ever meeting between spokespeople from the rival campaigns, "It was their first joint appearance, but it wasn't even on TV. Obama spokesperson Bill Burton and McCain spokesperson Tucker Bounds appeared together for an impromptu interview with Greta Van Susteren on the FOXNews.com's The Strategy Room."

In other convention related news, Nielsen sent out a press release proclaiming Obama's VP announcement by text message was, "the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date," and "one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media..." By Nielsen's tally, the text reached a total of 2.9 million people. Is mobile marketing finally here en-masse?