I started in the PR business when the height of communication technology was the IBM Selectric typewriter with, omigosh, correction tape built right in! I remember gathering with my colleagues around a different mechanical behemoth, agog that we were now able to send documents to clients electronically, over the telephone! It required encasing a single page in a plastic sleeve and clamping it to a rotating drum. Then in only 30 minutes of so, that whole page would someone appear magically on a matching machine anywhere in the world. My first cell phone had a 15-pound shoulder-mounted battery pack. So when the Philadelphia Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America asked me in October to join several other "seasoned" practitioners on a panel about the future of PR, I felt better prepared to discuss the past. I had to give some thought to the future regarding my assigned topic, the future of PR research. In my blog this month, I reprise my conversation with a roomful of my peers on a subject of intense concern among public relations practitioners. Summary: the past is prologue to the future.