Today I took part in the Bridge The Gap conference, part of which was disrupted because some speakers refused to participate due to community pressure. That is, people wanted to share interesting case studies and deliver valuable content, but due to a misunderstanding between two public SEO specialists, part of the conference fell through.
Is this situation normal? Not at all, and it needs to be resolved. Let’s figure it out. We will discuss this until no one has any questions left.
How it all started: Maxim published a case study on Aviator in foreign markets on his channel, without knowing whose site it was. It turned out that this site belongs to another CIS SEO specialist—Alex from SEO Dream Team. Two Russian-speaking SEOs met in the international market 🙂
In turn, Alex asked to be credited as the site owner, but didn’t write in DMs; instead, he started making fun of it publicly in the comments (in his words from the conference: «I just teased you, I didn’t insult you… it would be nice to give credit»). But because he wrote it with banter, he was banned from the Telegram channel😀
But how could Maxim know it was his site? Yet Alex believed he knew. «Well, I don’t believe you didn’t know whose site it was, sorry (his words from the conference).»
And Alex couldn’t write in DMs because, for some unknown reason, he had banned Maxim on Telegram even before the quarrel. Talk about a one-in-a-billion coincidence))
A broken telephone situation formed — they couldn’t talk privately, and since neither wanted to admit a communication error, an even bigger problem arose in the form of a conference disruption. Some speakers refused to participate because of this conflict!
12 people prepared the conference a month before the start, rented the stadium where Messi and Ronaldo played to shoot a promo video. People put in real effort and worked hard. Why hate on it? A big question. We gathered to make money online, but instead we get counterproductive nonsense in the form of public drama over who owes what to whom and who is wrong.
Alexey, as far as I’m concerned, you overstepped a bit on this issue and made wrong assumptions, but it’s cool that you joined the conference stream and finally resolved everything—that was a great move.
Promoting you once again. Subscribe to Alex‘s Telegram channel.
Maxim, I hope you will still host more conferences, because I know you tried and invested effort for the Russian-speaking community 👍
Let’s make money on the internet, not mess with each other’s heads)
UPDATE: Part of the conference was disrupted not because of the conflict between Alex SEO and Maxime Sabrie. Turns out it was more complicated.