That's interesting. It appears to confirm what I'd thought - that it's died a death. All the "further discussions" were dated last October when the thing was announced.
In 2.5 months they have received around 20 membership applications - presumably including the 10 members of the working party. That's about 10 actual applications in 2.5 months - at the very time when they would expect the most applications. It doesn't look good, does it.
They suffer from the same thing that SEMPO suffers from (if it's still going) - nothing worthwhile to do. They are both aiming at the same thing:-
Quote:
For too long we have been viewed as exponents of various “black arts” and our skills often viewed with suspicion. You now have the opportunity to change how our industry is viewed.
Seo and sem aren't seen as black arts and the skills are not "viewed with suspicion". Apart from that who are they going to educate that we are not black artists or wielders of suspicious skills. Who? And how?
There's nothing for them to do except exist for the sake of existing - like SEMPO does. Maybe they can take a stand at a search engine strategies conference - like SEMPO did. But what good is that? Everyone at those things knows about seo and sem, and don't need any educating that it's not a black art and not to be suspicious. And, of course, if the thing actually does get started, it won't long before someone is getting paid for their time. SEMPO pays one of their number about $65,000 a year for her part-time efforts. As far as I know, that's the only benefit that anyone has got out of SEMPO.
It's interesting that Ammon Johns is in it, because a few of us started AIM-PRO (Association of Internet Marketing Professionals) a few years ago, and he was part of it. It wasn't his organistaion as the SMA-UK PDF files says - he was one of 4 board members. I was another one of the 4. That attempt failed through too much bickering and making no progress. The only thing that one of them was interested in was making a million out of it - not Ammon Johns or me.
If it hadn't failed for that reason, it might have stood a chance because it was aiming at real benefits for members - work, resources, etc. , and the membership fee was much lower than SMA-UK's, so members would have actually been getting something out of it, whereas there are no actual benefits for members from SMA-UK.
Still, if it's taken 2.5 months of peak time to attract about 10 people, they sure ain't gonna reach their required 50 applications in the time allowed (less than another 3 months) for the thing to actually be launched.
But suppose they do get 50 members and launch the thing. Let's say the members are paying £250 each - corporate ones will be be paying £1000 each, but we'll stick at £250. That would be £12,500 in the first year (about $25,000). What the hell are they going to do with all that money?
I expect they'll pay for the committee members' expenses when there are committee meetings - like staying in hotels plus transport costs, and I expect they'll pay for function rooms for the meetings, and things like that - expenses that keep the organisation going, but that don't actually do anything for the members. I am sure they will shell out for a stand at a search engine conference, plus the full travel and accommodation expenses of the people who man it, even though they will be preaching to the converted. Or maybe the stand will be to attract more members and more membership money, so that they have even more money to spend on things that perpetuate the organisation but are of no benefit to the members.
So what will they spend that amount of money on that actually benefits the members? I'm truly curious.
