Web Metrics? SEO? Ugh! Where's My Martini!!!

As I continue my journey into the world of Digital Marketing Communications, I find myself in a sea of unknowns. My third class in West Virginia University’s DMC graduate program, Web Metrics and SEO, promises to be the most challenging yet, at least for me. You see, I’m a writer, and have been for more than 20 years. It’s a profession I’m good at and enjoy. It’s also one I selected because I didn’t have to take much math to finish my undergraduate degree.


After graduating with a journalism degree in 1987, and working in television news for four years, I found my niche as a reporter with The Associated Press. I spent 14 years with The AP before moving into public relations for the West Virginia Department of Education, where I am now. Still, I write. I am the primary writer for the department, writing everything from speeches, news releases and editorials to radio scripts, magazine articles and brochures. I have been in my position nearly four years.

Working for the AP was a fun yet demanding job, and I am glad I had the experience. I have written stories that have appeared in publications and on television broadcasts all over the world. I was the first reporter to talk to Jessica Lynch’s family when she first went missing, before the Bush Administration used her to promote the war in Iraq. This was one of the more interesting stories I worked on. Jayson Blair, who was fired from the New York Times for plagiarism, used parts of several of my stories without attribution. He was fired and I ended up in a New York Times article. Not exactly how I thought I’d be in the Times but interesting nonetheless.

I am not alone in leaving a job I loved for new adventures. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg (2010) writes about how public relation practitioners are being inundated with calls from journalists looking to escape the profession before it dies, as opposed to after it dies. Many of them, like me, will need some additional education to be the most successful.

My years at the AP taught me a lot about research and writing but little about technology beyond laptops and cell phones. Everyone has that ah-ha moment, Oprah says. For me, that time came about a year into my job with the Department of Education when I was working on a marketing strategic plan and felt out of my element. It was a gap in my education for which my vast writing experience failed to prepare me. I’ve learned so much about new media in just two courses and am ready for the next step. Yet I admit I am intimidated by this class and the concepts of web analytics because of the math. I hope I am up to the challenge, and overcome my math phobia.

Reference:

Goldberg, J. (2010, January 20). The Great Journalism Exodus. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 22, 2010, from http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/01/another_one_bites_the_dust.php