Some of you may remember the JimWorld forums from the 1990′s. The owner and founder, Jim Wilson, passed away in 2003.
When Jim Wilson passed on, his moderators and staff tried to keep his work alive. Today, the SearchEngineForums live on. Some of the staff from Jim’s forums, and other SEO/web dev forums, are now Admins and Moderators for Cre8asiteforums, which I founded in 1998.
As I face more changes in the next few months for Cre8asiteforums, I do what I do several times a year.
I wonder when and how I can stop.
Coach Club
My avid sports son is guided by two fathers (bio and step) and countless baseball, hockey, football, wrestling and weight lifting coaches. I’ve come to know so many of these men over the years. Several of them treat my son as if he were their son. They give untold hundreds of hours of free instruction. These guys work their day jobs and volunteer to coach sports on weekends, afternoons and evenings. Some of them have great humor and make watching the games fun. I know they often find it hard to quit coaching once they start because they would miss the boys. They’ll tell you they can’t stand the politics and organizational nonsense. Some get quite fed up, but I’ll see them back the next season, fully dedicated to the kids.
I can relate to what motivates them. When you love what you do, it’s hard to stop doing it. Sometimes, however, we might wish to consider why we’re still doing that thing we do, year after year. Are we burned out? What scares us the most about the idea of quitting?
What would the search engine marketing industry look and feel like without Danny Sullivan, Jill Whalen, Rand Fishkin, Brett Tabke and Aaron Wall? A few names consistently come to my mind for certain niche areas, like Debra Masteler, Julie Joyce and Eric Ward for link building. I’m not sure who would take the places of any of these people and plenty more like them who have helped to create the search marketing industry.
Passing Along The Torch
Since two local interviews appeared about my work, I’ve been swamped with inquiries. Most small businesses can’t afford me. If I can’t work out something with them (I always try), I offer advice on how they might help themselves. I refer people very often, but most of my referrals are in the top tier of the profession. They’re expensive and booked in advance. Since I don’t refer people I haven’t worked with already or who are not partners of mine, my list has drastically shrunk.
Who are the people coming up in the usability, user experience design and search engine marketing industries that may be moving up the ranks of professionalism and expertise? I see a few but it takes time to truly understand who will be around for 10 years and who is in this because someone convinced them Internet marketing will make them wealthy.
Fading Into Dusty Memory Chips
What if Danny Sullivan, Chris Sherman, Shari Thurow or Jill Whalen wanted to call it quits? What if they wanted to change careers?
To get to the top requires commitment, dedication, passion, expertise, and a gifted ability in one’s niche. None of so called “thought leaders” ever stops studying. I doubt many companies and clients truly understand that when paying the higher fees for top professionals, they’re getting the folks who ingest every piece of information there is on a daily basis, test it, and have the ability to look after the welfare of their client because they have a dozen-plus years of experience.
I also doubt many people understand that to run the big projects, such as forums, conferences, book writing and influential blogs takes a giant chunk of time that is not spent with family and friends. Vacations are mixed with work. Managing people, handling business decisions and staying on the ball with your own skills is not for the faint of heart. There are indeed moments where any one of the people we look up to is wrestling with how to keep up the momentum, and what that costs them personally. Internet related work is 24-7, global, fast paced and changes with every whim of technology.
In my own case, I have no idea how to walk away from a project like Cre8asiteforums. I don’t know who would want it. Would it be appealing if I was gone and I gave it to someone else, or am I part of the package? Has anyone ever given a forums away? Do we sell them? Could I give Jill or Danny my forums and they can have all the years of data? Is it “my” forums or does it belong to the members and moderators? You might be surprised how sensitive those questions are and the debates and arguments they start.
There’s no forums owners counseling group that I’m aware of. I often wish I had someone to talk about running a forums. It’s a gigantic job. Nobody ever agrees on anything. People always get hurt. You have to be tough. It’s anyone’s guess how I survived this long.
Do you ever wonder what happened to certain folks in our industries? Some say goodbye and others just fade away, but you can find them in searches if you miss them. With the Internet, we no longer need to say goodbye to anybody. We don’t die in cyberspace.
As with most things we become attached to, it’s very hard to accept change.
You’re leaving money on the table there. You’re not helping them (they needed something, someone), nor yourself. You should create a middle product, something they can work with.
Why not encapsulate some of the thing you would tell them normally in an e-document and sell that with, for example, 1 hour telephone consulting included (billable/counted in 15 min. increments).
Unfortunately in your case Kim, you dont walk away from it. You are (and always have been associated) with the Cre8asite since the days I was learning the ropes back in the early noughties.
That said however, forums wouldn’t be the same without the dedication from the moderators and senior members. Certainly its one of the reasons, I stayed reading your forums for as long as I did, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Randfish (when he used to use his ‘anchorman avatar’), Ammon Johns and the like.
I started to type something about stopping and realizing that the internet has really only been around (in the form we know it) for the past 10-15 years, and that none of us have really been at this profession forever, but then I realized that that’s exactly the problem, in a way. Those of us who have been internet professionals for most of that time feel like we’ve been at it forever because, in a sense, we have. We’ve seen many generations of the worldwide web born, grow up, and pass on, and somehow the 12 years I’ve been working the web seem like eons.
I fight this feeling with client sites. I’ve worked with one client since 1999, building their original site and every version of it since them. I still can’t let it go, because it’s my baby – I do design work on the site, manage hosting, etc., even when I know I have no business wearing all of those hats these days (and should focus on what I do best).
I guess the bright side of all this is that you do have work that you care about enough to feel this attached to. Some people are happy to drop their projects and move on, because they hate what they do and feel no connection to it. Better to be passionate about something and have trouble letting it go than to be able to toss it aside easily because you never cared about it in the first place.
I have to agree with Ruud regarding loosing out on some $. I am sure there is a way for you to tap into that market with either a partnership, or selling Ebooks, videos, audio, etc. But, I am sure you are well aware of your options.
I have been on the Internet (since 1990) seems like almost a century ago… I would venture to say a lot of these “social media” guru’s were still cub scouts. But, I have to admit It’s great to see the new talent and how fast technology has grown. I actually have made arrangements for my retirement and am training & passing the torch to my “Senior Project Manager”
We are a small copywriting agency. Yet, we have been so busy I have had to open other branches that specialize in specific fields. But that’s neither here nor there, your post just reminded me of how close I am to retiring or should I say would like to retire. The beauty is I don’t have to, I want to.
Thanks for making walk down that memory lane…Just remember, life is short break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably & never regret anything that made you smile.
Pete when you discover the secret to walking away from sites like that tell me because Toni and I would love to know how to do it too
Stuart
Just send ‘em on over to my forum and make yours read only. (If you ever really do want to give it up.)
I never think about wanting to give up the forum or SEO! But then I don’t spend as much time with my kids and stuff as you do. Only have one left at home and even before mine weren’t all into sports and stuff so I wasn’t as busy as you. Plus, not cooking helps save time too!
@Jill, but if you did ever want to leave, do you ever wonder how that would work? Do you pass it on to someone else or close up shop, for example? What we have on our servers is history in the making. Maybe once we start a forums, it’s not supposed to stop
@Ruud, you’re right of course. I do have services for small biz, but those that want the whole thing, SEO/Usability/Accessibility/Linking/SMM, are shocked at how much that adds up to. I historically undercharge. There are many stories about that
I don’t charge what most of my peers do. I never have. It’s a pain in the neck to be told I should raise my fees, and then face small/med biz who think I charge too much….when in fact, I don’t.
@Kim, I honestly don’t ever wonder about it. The forum would/could definitely live on without me. Randy answers more than I do these days, I think.
The biz though, I don’t know. I don’t think it could survive (at this point) without me because the knowledge is all in my head. I have been working on ways of transferring that knowledge though. So maybe at some point others could do what I do and know what I know through various means.
It’s tough when your business is based on your expertise.
Hi Kim-
Awwww…that is so sweet. Thank you for your kind words.
Your post hit a nerve. I have wanted to leave the SEO industry many, many times because my own industry disgusts me periodically. And I think about going into an area of study where I, personally, would be happier.
It wouldn’t be very difficult for someone like me because I have a diverse education (Genetics and Developmental biology, Asian Studies/Japanese, Library and Informational Sciences, Usability, etc.) but it would be a major transition. So I tough it out. But believe me, I have even considered, many times, about leaving this industry. Even as recently as a few months ago.
But I cannot deny the fact that I am completely fascinated with the “how” and the “why” of decision making. How do people find information? When presented with options, why do they select some options and not others? Is it biological? If it is, why is it difficult for some people and not others to go against a biological or genetic predisposition? How does color and placement influence decisions? How do words influence decisions? Age? Gender?
I am so fascinated with the “hows” and “whys” of decision making. So I stay in the industry because it allows me to continually (and continuously) study these things.
I am with Jill. I don’t think the SEO industry would survive well without someone like me. I keep most (and the best) of my information in my head. And I happen to have an unusually diverse set of skills (web design, SEO, information architecture, usability) and education/training.
I am a usability professional. I’m not an SEO who claims to know usability because I’m trying to close a sale and give the impression that I really care about the user experience. (Yeah, right. Name me 3 usability tests an SEO firm has performed in the past 3 months and basically what you learned from them). I’ve been an information architect since the 80s, since I took my first library science classes in American English and Japanese.
And I’m smart enough to apply my education and experiences to SEO. I don’t think I’m replaceable at this time. And I sincerely hope it isn’t always this way. I wish people in our industry would quit obsessing over rankings and evolve.
Maybe we need more time and experience. In the meantime, I feel very strongly about educating people. My Mom is a teacher, and she is amazingly good at it. I am doing my very best to get the “good” things about our industry taught in schools. Not only colleges and universities — schools.
I am troubled that kids think that just because a listing appears in a Google search result, it must be true. We need to teach people how to search and how to carefully evaluate search results and corresponding information on landing pages. And guess what? I’m not a parent nor have I ever wanted to be a parent. Yet I’m very concerned about future generations and their incredible lack of knowledge and critical thinking about information on the Web. It kills me that parents and teachers don’t think about this stuff.
But I do. And I’m trying to make it better. Yeah, I earn a good living being an SEO/Web developer/usability professional/information architect. But I want to leave this world in a better place than when I came. So I’m big on education.
The “goody-two shoes” and other (rather colorful) name calling falls on deaf ears. I really do want to make an impact on educating people about search. So I don’t abandon the SEO industry.
Wow! Sorry to write so much. I type quickly.
My 2 cents.
Loved hearing from you Shari! You bring up an excellent point regarding teaching. Topics such as Internet Marketing for the consumer as well as business person would be interesting college or community courses. The behavioral aspects have me hooked as well. This is the “thinking” stuff and what keeps me here as well. The way you, me and Jill look at and approach things for our clients is the difference between an expensive, full bodied wine with a hint of that special something, vs. the every day $19 usability tester and improperly educated SEO out there. I can see a future where colleges have a Dean of Web Design and an entire major for web work that includes all the various pieces. There are SO many. And…the studies and research being done by the science community into computers and the web is just getting warmed up