Since its founding in 2006, SEMpdx’s mission was to put Portland on the map in Search and Search on the map in Portland. We achieved that goal by 2010 but were having too much fun to stop. We continued to elevate the digital marketing community in the Greater Portland area for the past 18 years, evolving our annual digital marketing conference, SearchFest, into Engage. Our October Engage Conference was a tremendous success based on attendee and speaker feedback.
However, the industry has changed over the years, and it’s time for SEMpdx to evolve with marketing. Now that digital has integrated into traditional marketing disciplines, our member and sponsor needs have changed. COVID and AI have further altered consumer behavior and how they use digital channels. The remote workforce has increased the need to reach beyond Greater Portland. MarTech has evolved as have media and advertising with it. Events have changed as well, creating greater challenges for trade organizations to create financially-viable conferences.
To address the changing industry, the SEMpdx board has unanimously voted to merge with NextNW, a creative industry association with an international footprint across the Pacific Northwest into Canada. Our new mission is to further elevate and integrate digital into all aspects of marketing, including creative and advertising. With a membership of over 500 marketing professionals across five States and two Provinces, our resources are considerably greater.
We’re excited to integrate SEMpdx’s members and sponsors into NextNW, effective immediately. All SEMpdx memberships will automatically transfer over to NextNW through December 2025. We plan to migrate our infamous digital marketing blog to NextNW in the coming months as well. Our key sponsors, Forix and Data Speaks will also carry over to NextNW. And most importantly, we will maintain a focus on developing digital marketers with excellent programming, starting with a February webinar with Rand Fishkin. We will also continue sending our monthly email newsletter, although the frequency may change.
Stay tuned for further communications as we merge the two organizations in 2025. We value your membership and support and look forward to bigger and better programming, events and networking opportunities in 2025.
Kent Lewis founder of pdxMindShare, an online career community and networking group mentioned on Seth Godin’s blog. Formerly a CMO and founder or co-founder of multiple agencies, he’s known as a thought leader in digital marketing. He’s been an adjunct professor for more than 20 years at Portland State University and a volunteer instructor for SCORE. Lewis co-founded SEMpdx in 2006, a trade organization for search engine marketing professionals. His recognition includes Marketer of the Year by the American Marketing Association and Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencers by BuzzSumo.