The Agoraphobic Straightjacket: Agoraphobia and its Intersection with my Search Career

“Why do you feel you have to turn everything into a story? Because if I tell the story, I control the version. Because if I tell the story, I can make you laugh and I rather have you laugh at me then feel sorry for me. Because if I tell the story, it doesn’t hurt as much. Because if I tell the story, I can get on with it.” Nora Ephron, Heartburn

In the comments to one of my older articles, Gab Goldenberg, a Search Engine Optimization expert, wrote:

Have you yourself gotten any new clients from speaking at the conferences, Todd?

Gab’s not the only person who has assumed that because I’ve written a bunch of articles about SEO, I am a regular speaker at conferences (or should be). I’ve certainly had the opportunities to speak and I’m confident that I would have been able to successfully pitch my way onto a panel at one of the big conferences if that’s what I wanted.

But with one exception (which I’ll get to shortly), I haven’t spoke at any conferences…and I’ve actually gone out of my way to avoid all such opportunities.

Why?

Agoraphobia.

Agoraphobia isn’t the “deer in the headlights” look of search conference speakers doing their first gig…after all Rebecca recovered from her “rough” first engagement at Searchfest 07 to perform splendidly at Searchfest 08.

Agoraphobia is what has limited me to being either a SEMpdx conference moderator (which doesn’t involve much speaking the way I do it) or a SEMpdx Hot Seat panelist (which consists of sitting at a long table with several others and speaking extemporaneously, as opposed to presenting solo).

I don’t believe I have a fear of public speaking…I do have a significant fear of crowds and certain types of wide open spaces…for example, much of Washington DC (especially the National Mall area) totally freaks me out. A large, deep conference hall full of tables & chairs and endless rows of people also triggers that same fear.

I’ve probably told a dozen people in the search community about my Agoraphobia…what I haven’t talked about is its close nexus with events in my search career.

For example, SES Seattle 2006 (the half day conference) was notable for me in many ways. It was the first conference I had attended. The idea that evolved into SEMpdx was hatched at Seattle. I first met Rand Fishkin and Matt McGee at that conference.

While there, I also had the worst agoraphobic attack in my life.

Since I had never been to a Seattle Mariners game, at the conclusion of the conference I planned to walk a mile or so down 4th Ave to Safeco Field to see baseball that evening.

All was going well until I walked under an overpass and got to where I could see Qwest Field (with Safeco Field in the distance) (photos poached from Windows Live). Suddenly, my agoraphobia hit me with full force and I was pretty much “affixed” to the sidewalk at the traffic island that divided 4th Ave & Prefontaine Pl S. for about 20 minutes, sweating profusely, unable to decide whether I should continue onto the stadium or forget the idea. Eventually, I was able to overcome the electrical storm in my brain to make my way back to my car. I drove out of town (and still have yet to see a game at Safeco Field).

In 2007, I signed up to attend the Domain Roundtable conference in Seattle and I ended up meeting Stephen Douglas, the conference organizer and a fellow Portland resident for drinks before the conference. During the course of an interesting chat, Stephen asked me to speak at the conference and for whatever reason (likely because I was buzzed), I told him I would. I immediately regretted it and tried to get out of the gig, but he wouldn’t let me…sure, I could have forced the issue but I couldn’t do it without breaking my word and losing face. I felt that Stephen had to “agree” to my getting out of speaking and he wouldn’t do it.

The Domain Roundtable had planned to do multiple SEO sessions and for a long time, it was unclear which sessions would be presented because it appeared to me that they were slow in booking SEO speakers (whether that was actually the case, I don’t know). What ended up occurring is that I was excused from their “basic” SEO panel but ended up stuck on the “advanced” SEO panel with Aaron Wall & John Andrews.

For an agoraphobic virgin conference speaker’s first gig, speaking on a panel with two of the smartest people in the industry intimidated the heck out of me. I had no idea what the format of the session would be…if it were to be a panel discussion, I would probably be OK, but if it were the typical “stand up and present” session, I would be in a big quandary. So, as Aaron, John & I began communicating about the session, I pushed hard for a “panel discussion” and told them truthfully what my agenda was. John wanted a more structured session with presentations and Aaron was amenable to either. I acquiesced to John’s desire for short presentations (I wasn’t able to totally dissuade him from doing them) and I left for the conference believing I had to stand up in front of a large group and speak.

I wrote down some thoughts and ideas and attempted to weave them into a cohesive narrative (I didn’t have Power Point on my computer, so I couldn’t create one of those presentations if I wanted to). In my head, I could speak flawlessly however, when I tried to speak them out loud, I couldn’t get any sort of flow going and I s-t-u-t-t-e-r-e-d. As many times as I tried speaking what I prepared, I couldn’t do it. So, I gave up and accepted whatever fate had in store for me at the Domain Roundtable.

I don’t think any of the other speakers (Aaron, John & Dustin Woodard who got on our panel at the very last moment) had any idea how the session would be run when we showed up for it. As it turned out, we had a moderator who proceeded to drill us with unlikely questions (he asked 6 different times whether subdomains or directories were better for SEO) that IMO weren’t that important or relevant to the audience. I was clearly the weakest link on the panel but I got through the experience without embarrassing myself.

Now, some folks have seen me speak on SEMpdx Hot Seat panels and I’ve been told that I do a pretty good job in offering folks insight into how they could make their websites better. I can do the Hot Seat events successfully because:

• I’m seated with others.
• I speak “off the cuff”.
• Our typical Hot Seat setting has muted lighting and I don’t feel I’m in any sort of spotlight.
• (Most Importantly) I have a nice beer buzz going.

However, there was a recent Hot Seat event sponsored by the Software Association of Oregon that happened to be alcohol-free and was held in an awfully brightly-lit very large and deep conference room in the U.S. Bank Tower. I was attempting to answer the question for one of the site owners when all of a sudden…

…the room seemed much bigger and brighter than before…

…and my mind totally blipped off in the middle of what I was saying. As I recall, Scott Hendison jumped in and finished my thought before too much dead air permeated the room.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Todd Mintz isn’t speaking at SMX Social Media or SMX Advanced but can offer you 10% off the ticket price. Use “SMX10PDX” when you purchase your ticket to save 10%.