Search Engine Tigers

I was at my local Toastmasters meeting on Wednesday night, and the issue of finding a coordinator for the area humorous speech contest came up. The district governor lamented the fact that it was hard to find people to volunteer for positions such as this, as people these days tend to ask “WIIFM” or “What’s in it for me?”, rather than leaping in and volunteering to help.

This got me thinking about the SEM industry, where I really have to say that the people, on the whole, are really nice and welcoming. From buying strangers, like me, drinks, to being willing to forge friendships with people they either haven’t met, or briefly met on a bus on the way to a party for 5 minutes. People in the industry are willing to share their insights, answer your questions, or even ask you for help. This is a kind of community that I didn’t experience in my previous life as a programmer, and I have to say that it’s very refreshing.

But it does go beyond that. This week, the company that I work for announced that they are going to be providing pro bono support for a charity that takes at-risk kids and trains them a triathletes in order to make sure that their life is on track. Not only is the company providing this marketing support, but we’re also going to be providing financial support to the organization – Exceeding Expectations – by sponsoring all clients and employees for any endurance distance events (you may notice that a certain blogger gets mentioned in the article as the next to run a distance event… thanks for the pressure Nan).

It’s not just RedBoots that does this though, there are plenty of other individuals and organizations in the SEM space that support pet projects and charities in order to enrich the world we live in. Back in May, Bruce Clay ran a contest for non-profits, to give a couple of people training and tools to increase their effectiveness for their organizations. Looking at Facebook, you can see the various charities that people in your network support, such as Matt McGee of Marchex, who appears to support similar charities to some Irish singer called Bono.

I have to say that I’m happy to be part of this community, and I’d like to think that I’m trying to give back as much as I take from it. As for the contest coordinator job at toastmasters… well, my name is on it, and it’ll be one of my tasks when I get back from SES-SJ, what’s in it for me? Outside of the experience of helping out a great organization, not much, but that’s just fine by me.

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