What's next after SEMPO?

[mugshot]

Perhaps the title is not exactly suitable but I was discussing with a few members on this forum over IM about the future of our industry. There has been much debate over SEMPO's next move with the departure of a couple key contributors, so let's move forward and see where we can go from here.

I firmly believe that there needs to be an organization where both SEO and Usability experts (not make belief) are involved to better the industry. With that being said, I also know it is difficult for some SEO and Usability experts seeing eye to eye, but the truth is, we don't have much of a choice if we want to see the Internet grow into a more valuable tool than merely a place to post your favorite dog or cat's photos. I'm probably beating a dead horse, but your site needs to be visible and usable to motiviate high call to action.

I'll toss out a thought here and see what you all think about it. The organization will consist of experts in the field of SEO, usability, marketing, customer profiling, and HCI. There could be more, so please add to this if I'm missing something.

So instead of focusing just on SEM or SEO, we have committed individuals who's vision is to integrate all the components that make #1 websites really look and work like #1 websites.

What do you guys think?

[Anthony Parsons]

We don't need an organization of experts, what we need is an accredited industry, minimum standards apart from country business regulations and laws. Something where your going to TAFE / University / College to perform an accredited course and training package. You finish with a qualification. Something along those lines would fix alot of problems to begin with. An organisation with no real control, that are not even reporting fraudulent companies and so forth to their relevant states, territories or countries. What is the point of them exactly? You shouldn't need an organisation to market yoruself, you need an authority to govern the industry.

[mugshot]

Agreed, I might have miscommunicated my post. If you want to qualify individuals or companies, you do need experts in the industry to validate the qualifications though.

This organization is not about marketing...absolutely not! It's about maintaining a level of integrity, standards if you will, for companies within the industry.

I'm not saying what SEMPO did or is doing is wrong, but like you say, why do we need someone to market our services, when we should be the ones doing it ourselves if we want to make the money.

You know how we have the W3C...we need something along those lines for SEO and Usability.