On February 21^st, SEMPO announced in a quietly released press release that it would be closing the SEMPO Institute . The press release indicates that growth and change in the search industry have dictated a shift in SEMPO’s educational focus. It goes on to say that after evaluating the changing and growing needs of search and digital marketing professionals, SEMPO determined that it can better serve the community through webinars at various levels and through recommending educational and training material  provided by others.

Not a Blip in the SEM World
Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land comprehensively covers the action in the search marketing industry. When a story breaks, it usually breaks first on Search Engine Land with detailed commentary, facts and interviews. These guys know what they’re doing and have contacts with everyone worth knowing in search.

*I was rather surprised then, to see that Search Engine Land did not cover the SEMPO Institute story when the press release went out on February 21^st.  A search on the SERPs reveals the SEMPO Institute press release on multiple news syndication sites, however, there are no opinion pieces, no public lamentation from SEM thought leaders, nothing.

The blogosphere had nothing to say about SEMPO Institute closing.

What Does All this Mean?
Let’s take it from the top, why SEMPO closed SEMPO Institute in the first place?
The title of the press release uses the word ‘pioneering’: Pioneering SEMPO Institute closes. This tells us, that SEMPO Institute was if not the absolute first organization to offer search marketing training, they were at least one of the first. Having this competitive advantage and with some of the search marketing industry’s leading all-stars on the board of directors, it confounds me that SEMPO could not get this right. To this day, the SEMPO board of directors features highly experienced search marketing professionals, and yet, even with all this knowledge, all this experience, they could not pull it together to develop better training than is already out there.

SEMPO Institute decided that others can do it better
I have a great deal of respect for the people who run SEMPO but I honestly cannot understand what is SEMPO’s mission? How is SEMPO striving to serve the digital and search marketing industry and the marketing professionals engaged in it?

As a purported educational supplement and half-hearted replacement, SEMPO will be presenting a monthly webinar  and recommending other available learning tools.
4 Courses and 9 books: Is that all that SEMPO has to recommend? In the absolutely vast industry that is search marketing, SEMPO has 13 recommendations. What about Market Motive or UBC’s Web Analytics courses? What does it take to be make it on the list?

It really appears that a list was just thrown together in 30 minutes, so that there is content on the page. It really does not appear that any real effort has gone into developing a genuinely useful list of the many fantastic books and courses available. If this were to be done, then perhaps SEMPO could play a role in regulating quality and exposing search marketing professionals to the best content as it is released. That could also give professionals a reason to come back to the SEMPO site.

Why did no one have anything to say about SEMPO Institute closing?
Perhaps this, more than anything else, shows how insignificant SEMPO Institute was when it came to training courses. Perhaps SEMPO leveraged its many contacts and made some requests that this story not be broadcasted across the web. Whatever the reason, it does not bode well for SEMPO, which today, seems more directionless than ever before.

Is it a case of too many cooks? Are there just too many strong personalities and big names on the board of directors wanting very different things for SEMPO?

Whatever the case may be, one thing that SEMPO still has going for it, is that some very experienced search marketers are vying to be on the SEMPO board, as witnessed by this year’s nominees.

Still Hopeful for SEMPO, Somewhat
I have in the last few years tried to involve myself with SEMPO in varying degrees. I know other search marketing professionals who are deeply involved with SEMPO, but even they seem more disillusioned with the consistent lack of direction. We are like hamsters running on a wheel, but going nowhere.

SEMPO needs direction, from its leadership. We need a common goal to which we can strive and work towards. Pick up any leadership book and it will tell you that without common purpose, greatness cannot be achieved.

So I challenge the SEMPO board of directors to drive SEMPO but first they must determine what they want SEMPO to be. For an institution that purports to support search marketers, search marketers seem to have little contact with or use for SEMPO.

*I have searched far and wide on the Search Engine Land site and in the SERPs so unless I’ve missed something, there is no story on the SEMPO Institute closing covered by Search Engine Land

When I started in the search engine marketing game I put SEMPO on a pedestal because some of the industry’s greats were behind the organisation, from Kevin Lee to Bruce Clay and Gord Hotchkiss, to name a few. To young search marketers these are the rock stars of the industry, they were there in the trenches when it all started with Alta Vista and Geocities websites and they have continued to lead us into the next era of online marketing.

In discovering SEMPO and seeing that these were the people that pioneered the organisation, I thought, this is where you need to be to dive into the industry, meet other search marketers and grow professionally. So, that’s what I did – I started to explore the companies that were members of the organisation, I read the blogs and articles featured on the SEMPO website and I decided to invest in one of the courses, Advanced Search Advertising (now appears to be discontinued).

SEMPO: Taken Off My Pedestal

I found that even though many large players in the industry associate themselves with the organisation and are even circle members, the SEMPO fan base appears to be shrinking rather than growing. I’ve met more than one company who has decided to drop membership level because they do not feel the value justifies the membership cost. I realised that even though there is a niche group of people who are intimately familiar with SEMPO, there is an greater number of search marketers who have never heard of SEMPO and others who do not understand its value.

In exploring the resources on the SEMPO website, they seemed to be lacking and out of date, with the most recent media center articles frozen in 2005. I was dismayed at the results and so found myself using SEMPO as a resource less frequently.

In the midst of all this, I was undertaking a SEMPO course that dubbed itself ‘advanced’ so I had high hopes for the skills that I could develop. The basics were covered well but the examples and industry references were out of date, referencing as far back as 2004 with no follow up references. I began to wonder how frequently these courses are updated. Working in an industry that thrives on change, SEMPO courses could certainly do with an infusion of some heavily overdue changes.

Where to From Here?

On Twitter, sempoglobal has 573 followers and is itself following 25 people. Need I say more?

How hard is SEMPO trying to engage with search marketers or make itself known?

SEMPO needs to decide what it wants to be and for whom? If it wants to serve search marketers, the approach needs to be more sophisticated and valuable – remember, these are people who pore through blogs, webinars, conferences, books, networking, you name it. Where does SEMPO fit into this educational picture? Its courses need to be cutting edge for it to even make sense for agencies and companies to invest in the material.

What is SEMPO really? Where’s the direction? The passion? Search marketing is not an industry of half measures; people love what they do. If search marketers could see where SEMPO wants to go, they would certainly be more willing to help it get there. We need to kickstart SEMPO’s engine, because in this industry, if you stand still, you start moving backwards and then it’s game over.

Did you know that within the search marketing industry, there exists a professional non-profit organization built to provide a foundation for industry growth through fostering awareness, providing education, promoting the industry, generating research and creating a better understanding of search and its role in marketing?

No? Well, there is: SEMPO – Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.

Maybe as a first phase, SEMPO should focus on ‘fostering awareness’ of its own existence and promoting itself in the search industry.

In 2003 perhaps, when the search marketing industry was fledgling, barely in existence and Google started to gain some traction, SEMPO came galloping in, the valiant arbiter in a lawless, unchartered online world.

Suddenly there was a professional institution that stood for the search marketer – creating credibility where mostly business was done in dark waters. In the world of black hat, cloaking and doorway pages, there was little to define the ‘white hat’ marketer.

The SEMPO logo was the sign of a professional elite that stood for ethical search marketing and upholding the integrity of the field. Brandishing the SEMPO logo was a sign of a safe haven for hundreds of businesses that tried in vain to navigate these murky online SEO waters.

What happened to SEMPO as a professional organization? For an organization that calls itself ‘international’, its 700 strong membership base is modest at most if not rather embarrassing.

What went wrong?

This is not something that an impartial observer can hope to answer, but it certainly seems that in the tempestuous evolution that has swept the search marketing industry in the last few years, SEMPO lost sight of what it wanted to be. In this struggle, without a clear goal or direction, the organization has continued to trudge along, but perhaps rather aimlessly.

Even the SEMPO website looks rather tired and outdated. One could say that SEMPO has completely missed the boat on Web2.0 and could do with a significant revamp of the site. Even the case studies section seems to have hit a standstill with the archive only going as far back at October 2005!

What about a blog? Twitter? Real-time updates? Interactivity?

It all just feels a little bit stale, which is sad, depressing in a way. How is it that the organization purporting to be the official representative of one of the most exciting, fast moving and evolving industries in the world, can be getting it so wrong?

The irony lies in the fact that it is some of the best of the best in search, who came together to start SEMPO. Has all this amalgamated greatness resulted in a formula that produces mediocrity?