The Boston Business Journal is part of my required reading. I look for it every Friday and I've always gone cover to cover by the following Monday. It does a great job reporting across all the key industries, it is civically minded, the writers are well informed, the writing is lively, and largely spot on.

But I take a lot of heat from my people at PARTNERS+simons for not providing illustrative information to the BBJ so we can be included appropriately in the annual list of the "Area's Largest Advertising Firms." A few clients have even wondered about this -- which is a bit more awkward, frankly.

For those ART+Science blog readers who may be unfamiliar with the list, agencies submit "2007 Massachusetts billings" and the number of "Massachusetts employees" among other data points having to do with business breakdown by media and by discipline. But a close look at the list reveals that there is something very squirrelly afoot, that there is a lack of integrity in the information that some of these agencies present about themselves.

For example, the agency listed at #3 claims $2.6 million in billings per employee, the #4 agency claims $4.7 million and #5 claims a whopping $8.6 million, but the poor shop that's ranked #6 reports only $1.2 million per employee. Are these agencies in the same industry? No amount of analysis of the breakdown by media or discipline can satisfactorily explain the astonishing differences.

Instead of presenting some visibility into the relative scale of the region's advertising agencies, the list says more about the hyperbole some agencies invoke on their own behalf. I am sure there are some truthful numbers, and I have a general idea whose those are. And in a more intimate setting, I'd point out where the truth is on leave.

My strategy? I don't play, and I don't feel left out.