Last month I attended a SEMPO New York networking event that featured an "In-House versus Agency" debate, in which the debaters argued the benefits of each model. After the debate, I was speaking with one of the agency panelists, and we discussed the challenges agencies face differentiating themselves from their competitors given the number of search marketing agencies in the market today.

I believe it is time to introduce an additional topic into the standards dialogue that to date has been largely ignored. Currently there is no recognized standard for assessing the skills and knowledge level of the search marketing professional. This not only increases the difficulty for employers to accurately identify the talent level of the professional workforce, but also impacts the ability of our industry to achieve its forecasted growth. In the next several years,

Despite the uncertainty in our near-term economic environment, the market drivers for continued growth in the search marketing industry remain strong. However, a major challenge for the search marketing industry is being able to operationally adapt and manage growth as we face a national shortage of qualified professionals.