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While I was at SxSW, I couldn’t help but notice how cool and trendy all of us WebGeeks were, with our Macbooks and Twitter accounts and smartphones. We were discussing alternate-reality games, privacy in social networks, use of blogs and podcasting during war time, building strong virtual communities, lead generation on the web (cough), and Second Life.

I got the sense that the world of the web has increasingly become extremely bifurcated between those who practice all this stuff and those who buy these services. I thought a lot about the marketing directors and VPs (and business owners!) I rub shoulders with every day, and I don’t think many of them have quite the handle on these issues that we geeks think they have.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that most of the folks who hire the Triple Dogs of the world really don’t care about all these cool little techno-issues. They care about their businesses, and about dominating a marketplace, or about disseminating a message to the right audience.

So I figured, “Hey, that’s a nice thought, why don’t you ask the community and see what happens?” So I did. A few nights after SxSW I posted the following question onto LinkedIn:

What are the top 3 online issues/problems you face as marketer/business owner?

Let’s face it–web experts live in a pretty rarefied atmosphere. We tweet, blog, and attend virtual conferences. We’re familiar with CSS, content management, and analytics. It’s easy to forget how strange this world is to an outsider looking in. I’m trying to get a sense of what marketing managers and business owners really face out there.

What are the top 3 (or more!) issues, problems, questions, or challenges you face in the online world?

I received about a dozen replies, all of them long, thoughtful, and pretty much hard to summarize in a pithy report. In fact, I won’t even try to summarize them all, nor will I mention them all. I will try to convey to you the sense that I got from them, because they each offered a compelling look inside our collective headspace.

Right away, one particular response (from Shanker Achari) made me pause. It begins:

I think that the biggest separator between marketers and their IT expert colleagues is the perception of what is driving the business. The issues are not usually technological, though it might seem like that. It is important not to lose focus and to only address those online services that will add value to the firm - not to jump onto each and every web-based bandwagon that crosses your doorstep.

I definitely understand what he’s saying here. After 15 years in this business, I’ve definitely crossed some kind of threshold. I’m constantly looking for the WHY instead of just the what and the how. Why is this project important? Why are we doing it? Why aren’t we doing this other thing? Why are we doing it now?

Others, like David Pedragon and Greg Kilgore get down to even brassier tacks: how do we drive traffic to our online sites? Do I have enough bandwidth and resources to handle the traffic? Can I continue to make improvements in content, usability, and other areas to increase response rates? Can I filter out the fluff/noise/chaff to focus on real opportunities? Can someone please add several more hours to each day so we can get everything done? (This sentiment also echoed by many others!)

Angela Brutsche brought up a good point: “Determining when/if to let go of traditional communication mediums.” It’s a scary thing, venturing out into this brave new world, where a storm of tweets at a conference can erase a whole bunch of expensively created brand good will.

Rene Craft hit it on the head when she mused:

Getting used to the new technologies constantly popping up and trying to figure out which ones are useful for business vs. just for kids (ie, anyone under 30).

I remember when I was one of those hotshots under 30, but of course, back then, having a tables-compliant browser was the cool thing. I’m just kidding.

All in all, the sense I’m getting from all these responses is that it’s high time to focus on value. Become really good at a few things within the Web world, and pursue your goals with a passion. Help companies make money with all this stuff instead of bouncing them from one faddish technology to another. Help them start and deepen conversations with their customers with great tools, good usability, and great content, and the rest becomes easy.

In this, as in all things Web, we all have a place at the table–whether we’re copywriters, back-end developers, Ajax scripters, designers, or PHP nerds.

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