SEMPO Announces Three New Advisory Board Members

[Joseph Morin]

The new SEMPO Advisory Board members are Chris LaSala, the Search Engine Marketing Channel Manager at Google; Neg Norton, the President of the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association, and Safa Rashtchy; a managing director of Piper Jaffray and well known industry analyst.

[hiero]

Is anyone familiar with the people mentioned? Does it mean thet SEMPO has a chance?

[Nick W]

Untill DUMPO have the good grace to communicate with the community they purport to serve I find it very difficult to give a flying <eek!> who they appoint.

Nick

[Joseph Morin]

Yes, Chris LaSala is the SEM agency rep so he works directly with the SEO's themselves, kind of like Overture's ambassador program. I don't know Neg Norton.

Safa Rashtchy is a very well known industry analyst from Piper Jaffray who has been covering the ecommerce and search spaces for quite some time and is commonly referred to as the one who projects figures such as "SEM is an $8BB industry by the year 2007"

[bethabernathy]

That's nice. Members didn't get a chance to vote on the appointments or even comment on them.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by hiero

Is anyone familiar with the people mentioned? Does it mean thet SEMPO has a chance?

All three are very important players in this industry. YES, I do believe SEMPO has a chance to survive and grow strong. Even more with board members like Safa Rashtchy and others.

Originally Posted by bethabernathy

That's nice. Members didn't get a chance to vote on the appointments or even comment on them.

I approve with the new advisory board members and perhaps it would have been nice to see some type of mebership consent process. However, keep in mind that not every decision SEMPO makes will be given to the Members to vote on.

All together I continue to have the same belief that SEMPO is an organization that is very well needed in our industry and therefore it is here to stay. As members, what we do with it will be what we get back from it. It has way too many things that still need to be addressed and improved. Oh! but they will done and current policies, boards and goals will get better. Someday SEMPO will be all we want it to be.

[Elisabeth]

i think it's important to note these are ADVISORY board positions, not Chairman, VP, treasurer, secretary type positions that members should get to vote on.

[bethabernathy]

Well the current board or at least 1 needs to go before anything will get done. Just my opinion.

[Nick W]

It's an opinion shared by many. They should be ashamed of themselves, small children have better manners...

Nick

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

All good people for an advisory board but I could not help to notice that the SEMPO board apparently don't seem to need any more advise from Europe

However, keep in mind that not every decision SEMPO makes will be given to the Members to vote on.

Well, to be more accurate there haven't really been ANY voting at all for anything, right. This dosen't seem like an exception but the rule.

[bakedjake]

It scares me that search engine employees are on an advisory board for an organization of search engine marketers.

"Dear optimizers, please only use approved methods to manipulate our money making products. Signed, Vendor G."

*shudder*

[Nick W]

bloody good point jake, nice to see you here

Nick

[bethabernathy]

High profile lawyers, high profile advisors, is that really non-profit? Maybe Mr. Blair would have the answer.

[I, Brian]

So...what is the constructive outcome the appointments??

[Chris_D]

<takes mod hat off>

I especially like the way that sempo has taken on board the recent criticisms regarding their total failure to communicate with members.

So - once again - speaking personally as a paid up sempo member - I get to read about strategic sempo decisions on a public forum.

Barb and the rest of sempo - if you are reading these threads - what part of COMMUNICATION WITH THE PAID MEMBERSHIP don't you actually understand?

It's pretty dangerous to keep shooting yourselves in the foot, when you keep putting both your feet in your mouth.

<puts mod hat back on>

[Mike Grehan]

Excellent... Another three high profilers with no background at all in trade associations. That should change things a lot.

Well done SEMPO... So it's business as usual then?

[The PR Guy]

One of the new SEMPO advisory board members, Neg Norton, has an extensive background in trade associations. In fact, Neg is the President of the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association. The Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association (aka Yellow Pages I.M.A.) is the association of the publishers, marketers and suppliers responsible for producing Yellow Pages directories in more than 20 countries. Founded in 1988, the Yellow Pages I.M.A. has been instrumental in leading, serving and growing a print and electronic media industry valued at more than $14 billion in the U.S. and $25 billion globally.

And, with the growing importance of local search, SEMPO should benefit from Neg's perspective on search as well as associations.

[Chris_D]

<mod hat off>

Speaking personally as a paid sempo member - there is only ONE position that I believe that sempo needs to fill urgently - and that is the role of 'Member liason' - in order to keep the membership informed.

Also, I'd just like to clarify that normally I email suggestions, advice, and feedback directly to organisations that I'm a member of. However, its now becoming clear to me that the current sempo board feels that public forums are the most appropriate way to communicate with members.

<mod hat back on/>

[Jill Whalen]

Actually, from what I understand, I don't think they like communicating through public forums at all, and in fact would prefer not to communicate that way. However, since that's where people are discussing them, it makes sense for them to communicate this way to a certain extent.

Really it seems that at this point, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't announce stuff here, then they get yelled at for not communicating, and if they do, then they get accused of only communicating through public forums.

From what I've heard (and I am not a board member, nor do I have any special "in") they have a communication committee now who are working on how to better communicate.

Guess we'll see how well it actually happens over the next few months.

[Nick W]

>>communications committee

Sheeesh! How many damn committees do they need? - No wonder they're a laughing stock, we all know committees cant make decisions...

IMO they should stop wasting time playing around with titles and appointments and generally finding administrative work for themselves and get down to business.

I've never seen anything so amateur in my life.

Nick