Rip Van Winkle: Use Tiger Woods as Wake Up Call for Going to SES New York Next Year

In Washington Irving’s story story, Rip Van Winkle falls asleep before the American Revolutionary War and wakes up 20 years after it. He gets into trouble when he proclaims himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that a revolution has taken place.

There are people inside many organizations today who don’t know that a revolution has taken place in the search industry. They mistakenly believe that we still live in the era of 10 blue links.

So, how can you help them realize that this isn’t 2004 anymore? And how do you get them to wake up to the fact that a revolution has taken place in the past six years?

I’d suggest that you ask them to conduct a search on Google for the term, Tiger Woods. Here’s what you will see above the fold:

News results appear at the top of the page. Ask your SEO specialist, IT project manager, or webmaster if they are responsible for optimizing any of this news content and don’t be surprised if they say, “That’s not my job.”

Underneath, you’ll see the latest results for Tiger Woods, which comes from Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Ask your SEO specialist, IT project manager, or webmaster if they are responsible for optimizing any of this real-time content and don’t be surprised if they say, “That’s not my job.”

If you scroll down the search engine results page (SERP), here’s what you will see next:

You’ll see the Official Site of Tiger Woods. Ask your SEO specialist, IT project manager, or webmaster if they are responsible for optimizing this website content, and they will be eager to say, “That’s my job.”

But, ask them if they are responsible for optimizing the Wikipedia content, image results, or video results that appear underneath, and don’t be surprised if they say, “That’s not my job.”

If you scroll down to the bottom of the SERP, here’s what you’ll see:

You’ll see the Tiger Woods Foundation surrounded by news stories from the past two weeks.

Maybe your SEO specialist, IT project manager, or webmaster is responsible for optimizing your foundation’s website, but ask them about the news content at the bottom of the SERP and don’t be surprised if they say, “That’s not my job.”

So, whose job is it? Who is responsible for optimizing all other digital assets that appear in these Google real-time search results?

Yes, a revolution has taken place in the search industry and the Rip Van Winkles in organizations slept right through it.

That’s why the marketing team, C-level executives, and IT/Web staff should have attended SES New York 2010. They would have attended sessions entitled “Digital Asset Optimization” and “From Real-Time Search to Dynamic Discovery.” They would have come back to the office knowing that someone needs to be given a new job.

Even though it’s too late to attend SES New York 2010, it’s not too late to give Rip Van Winkle a wake up call. Use Tiger Woods to do it. Hey, he’s got to be good for something.