Think Basis It's Good For Business

If you’re good at something it’s okay to have a bit of an ego about it. Anyone who’s competitive would probably agree that a great deal of strength can be drawn from a person’s belief in their own abilities. You don’t see a lot of boxers going into their pre-fight press conferences telling reporters they’re going to get knocked out a couple rounds into the fight. If they don’t go into the fight confident in themselves, they’re not going to be very successful. However, imagine that same fighter has been winning for a couple years and is now surrounded by people who are constantly telling him he’s at the top of his game and he’s finally made it. Do you think that fighter is going to stay on top for very long?

Weak boxing analogy aside, the main point is there’s a fine line between having a healthy amount of confidence (good ego) and taking your ego to the point of outright arrogance. And, in an industry that manages to manufacture faux celebrities like very few others, some SEOs seem to fall victim to believing their own hype. If enough people treat you like you’re on a pedestal, it’s very easy to start thinking you actually belong there and forget there’s always something you can still learn.

Buying Into the Hype

A couple common traits of the SEO Super Ego are:

1) They are incapable of making a mistake (regardless of what “lesser” SEOs might say)

2) Anyone who says something negative is just hating on them because they’re “famous.” And,

3) They don’t need the community, the community needs them

As a relative newcomer, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a few different mentors who are continuously striving to learn new things and maintain their place at the top. They enjoy debating different tactics and never seem threatened by someone offering a different perspective. On the flip side of that coin, however, anyone that has gone to more than a couple conferences can probably name a few SEOs who might not be so willing to go out of their way to talk to a noob. The ones who tend to only be seen talking to the people they feel have already achieved a similar celebrity status.

I’d venture to say the vast majority of “SEO Stars” have managed to stay well grounded and continue to contribute to the community in a way that benefits a lot of different people. But, it seems like the structure of the industry also creates a slippery slope for the shameless self-promoters in the group, with each additional speaking engagement making them feel more and more like the ultimate authority on whatever topic they discuss.

Celebrity Isn’t Necessarily Achievement Based

The above figure shows a highly unscientific display of “SEO Stars” by achievement

The irony seems to be that with so much of the actual work everyone does taking place in private, sometimes charisma can be confused with talent, and you end up with huge personalities resting on non-existent laurels. The important thing to remember is that unlike the Hollywood model of stardom, in SEO, celebrity is not synonymous with success.

So, is letting the celebrity status go to your head really excusable? Or should you just be grateful you’ve gotten some recognition and leave it at that?

A Simple Benefit to Staying Grounded

In a recent post on “Stroking the SEO Ego,” Chris Hooley made an excellent point about taking the time to invest in some of the up and comers who might be aspiring to reach a higher level;

“There’s a lot more bang for your buck in making a big impression on the next big thing, instead of getting in line to impress the current big thing.”

People like to be liked, and by reaching out to the people who look up to you, you’re actually building a great amount of equity over the long run.

Obviously, as a part of the non-famous, I’m biased toward thinking the approach Chris mentions is probably the best. But, I’m interested in hearing what other people have to say. Do you agree that there are out of control egos in the industry? Also, which “SEO Stars” are consistently contributing to the community in a positive way?

For the most part, SEOs and Internet marketers seem to be a fairly collaborative bunch, especially in the social media realm, where so much of your success is predicated on strong relationships with other like-minded people. However, it seems like there is always a bit of a disconnect between the people who work with clients and the people who spend the majority of their time working on independent projects. The main question usually is, “If you’re truly an expert at something, what incentive do you have to teach others? Wouldn’t you want to just work on your own projects and make money for yourself?”

Well, if money is the main motivator it’s hard to argue with that logic. But, in taking a look at a few of the other factors, it seems like there’s a lot more going on here than just looking at which path can make you the most money. First, let’s look at a few of the reasons a person might choose to teach someone:

1) They’re a Saint

I’ve been told that for whatever reason, there are some people who legitimately enjoy helping others. These are the people that typically make me extremely uncomfortable and leave my inner monologue pinging, “What’s your game…? No one can be this nice,” while I politely thank them for going way beyond what I ever would have expected. These are the born teachers, and the people who just can’t help but pass along a quick pointer to someone if they know it’s going to help make their life easier.

Strangely, they almost never seem to expect anything in return. They actually want to see other people succeed, and are rewarded by knowing they helped contribute to someone else’s prosperity.

2) They’re an Ego-Maniac

These teachers fall on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and typically just want to pass along enough information to make sure you understand they are a genius. Usually they are extremely knowledgeable people, but when they pass along information they tend to be less concerned with whether you understand what they’re saying than they are about making sure you understand how brilliant they are for saying it.

3) It’s a Relatively Safe Option

These are the people who choose to teach primarily because it offers some form of a safety net. For some it’s purely financial, and for others it equates to being able to place the risk squarely on someone else’s shoulders. Either way, these people have enough expertise to be a valuable resource, and are able to carve out a successful career being exactly that. Also, a fair amount of the people in this group probably pull some traits right out of group 1, and take a tremendous amount of pride in seeing their clients succeed. That’s what makes them good consultants in the first place.

Obviously these categories are a bit simplified. But, I’d definitely argue most search marketers that do consulting are at least leaning heavily toward one of the three, even though they may have characteristics from multiple groups.

There are bound to be some people who can’t comprehend why anyone would choose to take a different approach than they do. And sometimes it seems like the more entrepreneurial individual has a hard time understanding the in-house SEO that works a set schedule and is required to put in the same long hours day after day while being inundated with internal meetings. And, on the other side, the more risk averse person can’t always comprehend how someone could pour countless hours into a project with no guaranteed ROI, or have the confidence to pursue their own ideas as a sole source of income.

But, as with anything, there are plenty of pros and cons to both pursuing individual projects and choosing to work with clients. Here’s a quick list I threw together with some of the obvious ones:

My feeling is that neither one is more “noble” than the other. And, whichever side a person feels more comfortable on is almost certainly going to be the right choice for them. It seems if you just examine the reasons behind why someone would choose to teach in the first place, and the basic pros and cons of consulting versus working on your own projects, certain people will just gravitate naturally to one role or the other.

However, I’m interested in hearing whether or not other people agree with this philosophy.

Is there more merit to one than the other, or is it really as simple as “do what makes you happy?”

Alright Digg, the honeymoon’s over, so I want to cut right to the chase. When we first met I was pretty much smitten. I loved the way you showed me new and exciting things, and took me to wonderful places I might never have found without you. However, as time went on, you started to grow more distant, and I quickly learned that despite all your talk about community you really didn’t care about my needs at all. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, and to be quite honest, you’re kind of an asshole sometimes.

Now don’t get all defensive and start telling me I’m the asshole. I’m only telling you this because I do care about you deeply and I want us to be happy together. Consider this an intervention of sorts. I’ll be the first to concede I may not be the perfect user all the time, and there are probably a few things I’ve done that you weren’t particularly fond of. For starters, I’ve been cheating on you with reddit for a couple years now. But you know what? It’s because reddit gives me something you don’t: honesty.

So, in the interest of honesty, it only seems fair to tell you where we stand, and point out a few simple ways we could right this sinking ship and regain a healthy respect for one another:

Make Up Your Mind About Shouts

Alright. So you say you want people to be able to promote their stories among friends? Seems reasonable enough. But, then you turn around and seem to devalue a person’s digg if it comes from a shout. How does this make any sense?

So, just level with me. Should I shout my stories or not? Don’t talk out both sides and tell me the variety of people digging a particular submission is important, and then provide a feature designed explicitly to solicit diggs from the same people over and over.

All I can figure from what you’re telling me is that I’m better off just digging as many different stories in “upcoming” as I possibly can so 1) friends will feel obligated to digg my stories back, and 2) my submissions have a better chance of showing up in the recommendations for other digg users.

Eliminate Blind Digging

This brings me to the next point: please eliminate blind digging. Sure sure, you’ve slowed people down a bit, and you can’t just go around digging a story a second like the gold-ol’-days. But, the fact remains you can digg a submission without ever even clicking through to look at the site, and to be fair, I’ve found myself guilty of doing this on more than one occasion. For the most part it’s an innocuous thought process of “sure, who doesn’t love zero punctuation reviews, I’ll digg it now and watch it later.” But, this can be taken to ridiculous extremes and people digging several hundred stories in a day can’t honestly say they even looked closely at the majority of what they were digging.

And yes, Digg, I blame you for this. Sometimes it seems like you’re more caught up trying to be the hip parent / best friend instead of an authority figure. Just grow a pair and decide when enough is enough. Tell us how much is too much and then stick to it. We might be mad at first, but at least we’ll respect you for it.

Show the Number of Buries

Speaking of respect, let’s use the “if you have a problem with me, then say it to my face” mantra as a start and at the very minimum begin publishing the number of buries a particular story has gotten alongside the number of diggs. You do it with the comments, so why treat a bury like some big secret when it comes to the actual stories themselves?

How many people who have had submissions with 200 or more diggs fail to make the front page are left wondering “why didn’t my story go popular, dammit?” At least it would help eliminate the frustration if you could quickly see your picture of a beagle reading the newspaper wasn’t as newsworthy as you’d initially thought.

Allow for Customization

Similarly, it would be nice if I had a little more say when it comes to what I’m greeted with when I come running to you in the middle of the work day for a quick reprieve from productivity. Yes Digg, maybe reddit has spoiled things by letting me be so picky about what I want to see, but I’d appreciate it if you were at least decent enough to respect some basic allergies from time to time. Can’t I at least opt out of the war on Scientology and have a brief respite from reading headlines about the RIAA becoming even more bastardly?

I don’t see how it would hurt things if you gave your friends a chance to choose what interests them the most. You don’t even have to let me choose anything significant, I just want to pretend my say matters. Let me eliminate a category that doesn’t interest me from showing up on the home page when I’m logged in. Let me pick title keywords that I don’t want to see ever again. You can start by providing me a way to filter out anything with the words “best” and “ever” in the title.

Honestly, if someone can write a whole book that lets me choose my own adventure, the least you can do is give me the flexibility to only see upcoming stories with titles in the English language.

Provide Some Transparency

Really, I think all of my complaints boil down to this last criticism. You don’t tell people where they stand. The open letter to Kevin Rose from a few months back actually did a pretty good job of pointing that out. You hide behind an algorithm because it lets you keep us at a distance and you can easily sidestep people’s questions without ever having to let things “start getting real.”

It would be wonderful if there was someone who actually took the time to interact with interested members of the community and treated the users with a little respect. Obviously you’re not going to be able to respond to every email wanting to know why a submission didn’t make it, or what you can do to make the front page more often, but developing some clear standards and then communicating those to the community at large would be a fantastic start.

So, even though I do feel bad for kicking you while you’re down, now seemed like as good a time as any to pull you aside for a little heart to heart. However–and this might just be me being paranoid–I have a sneaking suspicion you aren’t even listening to me. My guess is anything I said was only falling on deaf ears while your eyes darted around the room getting sidetracked by pictures of anteaters and nerdy comics.

Yeah, I know, that stuff is amusing. And you win, I’ll probably keep coming back. But, if you actually took a few minutes to really think about what I said and considered making a couple of changes on your side of the fence, we might be able to rekindle a little bit of that excitement we’ve been missing for a long, long time.

At least think about it. Please…