I'm loving my new job as General Manager of the Domain Portfolio for Tucows, however I have identified one thing I don't like:
Nobody understands what I do for a living!
OK, maybe a few people - my colleagues and others with specific domain name industry experience - understand the nature of my role. For the vast majority of people I speak to, however, I might as well be telling them I'm a Snuffleglot engineer from the planet Zulothar.
This was made painfully obvious to me during a party I recently attended when the inevitable "what do you do for a living?" question arose.
Pre-Tucows, I used to introduce myself as someone who worked in the Internet marketing industry, this time I responded by saying I manage a large domain name portfolio for an Internet company.*
Blank stares.
Then a question I guess I'm going to be hearing a lot:
"Domain names? You mean Websites?"
Clearly I have lots of educating to do about the domain name space, which I love to do - don't get me wrong.
It's no surprise people are confused. The domain industry has its own arcane lingo (drops, redemption periods, TLDs, etc.) and hasn't done the best job explaining itself to the general public. That's going to change - it has to - and I'm delighted to be working at a company that recognizes this.
For the time being, though, I'm a Snuffleglot Engineer from the Planet Zulothar.
* Yes, for the record, I still consider myself to be working in the Internet marketing industry.
Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.
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Greetings Snuffleglot Engineer from the Planet Zulothar!
Honestly, I don't understand the world of domains and there's probably a lot I also don't know about the Internet marketing industry for that matter. Still, it's refreshing to find someone who doesn't take himself or his job too seriously. Not that I mean anything negative by it. It feels great to hear or read about someone who knows how to inject a little humor into something a lot of people seem to take too seriously.
Posted by: jen_chan, writer SureFireWealth.com | October 22, 2007 at 04:56 AM