SPAAM: why I HAD to take a Sphinn holiday…

It’s sounds crazy doesn’t it, why would anyone need to take a Sphinn holiday?  Well there are some good reasons.

What is a Sphinn holiday?

A Sphinn holiday is when you break-away from the addiction (certainly not affliction) that is Sphinn.  A Sphinn holiday therefore entails removing yourself from your Sphinn environment – which essentially entails leaving the country to a place without 24 hour internet cafe’s, leaving your laptop behind, your PC, your mobile phone, blackberry, PDA or other, all at home, locked safely away so that at some later time, you can not have it mailed to you on your holiday. That is a Sphinn holiday.

Sphinn is not a bad place though. Sphinn is where so many of the best search marketers hang-out; a social media site with fast-flowing, new online marketing content that encourages users to share their thoughts and continue to learn more and more about the search marketing industry in ways that relate to them. Great stuff!

Articles range from ridiculous challenges that sucker me in, to classic interviews, interesting titbits, and plenty more help advice and humour…a great place to spend your time.  So why is Sphinn so bad for me?

Why Sphinn is bad for me

Sphinn is bad for me because it is too good.  You know when you go to bed at night to sleep, well I didn’t do that…I lay there waiting for Mrs Ben McKay to fall asleep then sneak down to check-up on Sphinn comments…so much activity goes on across the Atlantic when I’m supposed to be sleeping that actually sleeping is no longer an option – I could simply miss too much.

Is it just me but, embarrassingly, there has been times when I spend more time hovering around the comments feed, looking to pounce on any lively conversation than I do anything else…surely this isn’t healthy?!   But is this really an addiction?

The Free Dictionary states that an addiction is:

The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

Now, call me silly, call me Ben McKay even, but being immersed in reading blogs, Sphinning, commenting, shunning spam, licking my lips over the thought of the next ‘Hot Topic’ or ‘Greatest Hit’, or even taking pride over finding a gold mine of information from the topics that go underground and not ever making it off the What’s New list, to the detriment of getting my Zzzzzz’s, my sanity, my time away from working, is not a good thing?  So, how did it all begin?

Every addict is asked “so, how did it all begin?”, well this is my story…

It happened fast, too fast for me to know what was happening.

My profile shows me to be a relatively new member but I had in actual fact been a member since some point in 2007 but not an active ‘user’. But something happened to my details (the problem with hapving multiple pseudonyms, aka’s and nicknames) – my password didn’t reset, I re-registered but it left me with an empty feeling of loss and despair…I did however make the decision to be more vigilant, thinking: “OK, if I lose my details again I am going to leave a long paper-trail behind me”…

So, rather than just Sphinning or casually browsing, I started laying down the odd comment, and that’s where it really began.  One comment leads to a response, a response leads to you making a response to a response, which in turn…the addiction overwhelmed me.

I did try to cut-back by just making the odd comment but someone might reply to a comment and then leave me in the predicament of either ignoring them and being considered rude or simply making just one more comment.  Anyway it was too late, I was fully immersed on the world of Sphinn, writing posts about my love of Sphinn and my even greater love for Sphinn Japan.

Rehabilitation

I’m not a total addict though. I did ‘the test‘, to see whether I was in actual fact a social addict of sorts, and came out a little better than what I expected actually, a rosey looking 96% addiction…but, I’ve been told that this still needs a little bit of work.
96%

Like with any chronic form of addiction, whether it be physical or mental…rehab is needed.  For me it took a 4 day break in Poland to get over the Sphinn obsession…success!

Although…monday afternoon, I was back at it. Shinning away!  I am glad to say though, I have not hit the Sphinn pages with such ferocity as before, probably bringing down the average page views by quite a large proportion over the last week or so.  It’s OK though, Danny Sullivan did drop me an email to mention that the servers were in need of a break too.

In response to what I have learnt from my rehab, knowing there’s a whole lot people far worse off than me, I have set-up SPAAM – Sphinn Addict Anonymous Meetings, to give something back.

SPAAM are here to help

Does anyone else have this addiction to any sort of social media?  I’ve seen a fair few twitter holics in my time, but I know there’s a huge number of people out there not ready to admit it to themselves.  It’s OK, SPAAM are here for you.

Psychoanalysing yourself over an addiction to Sphinn is not a pleasant process, I grant you that, but MUST be done.  Remember, you’re only kidding yourself when you say that you’ll be OK, just one more Sphinn.  I’ve said those words to myself before – I still do at time but you’ve got to fight it.  Consider trying the SPAAM patches or the SPAAM gum.

Meetings Time, Date and Location

SPAAM take place daily at http://sphinn.com, where you can share your opinions, support each other and generally try to distract yourself from your addiction by reading blog posts and articles on search marketing.

And remember, here are some addiction cliches to consider before you Sphinn that next fantastic post:

One Sphinn is too many, a thousand is not enough.

A message from SPAAM:

We’ll love you, until you learn to love yourself.

Good luck with your addiction conquest. Ben McKay, CEO of SPAAM and recovering Sphinn addict

I heart Sphinn Japan

I love art.  It’s a weakness.  My tag-line is currently “marketing for marketing’s sake…?” – inspired by “art for art’s sake”.  Draw from that what you will, but…I love art.

I also love Sphinn.  A bit of industry space to share ideas, be told you’re wrong, make and lose friends …it really is a hot-bed of excitement!  It’s for this reason, I hang-out there, everyday.  I’m even a 7-day-a-weeker kinda guy.  BUT, after the launch of Japan’s Sphinn last month, my sweet tooth for Japanese art, I’ve got to admit, did kind of give me the ‘grass is greener’ syndrome.  Just look at it…

What is it about the subtle thing’s that the Japanese do that makes them look so damn cool? Now check-out ours, a tad bland would you say…

If you know me, you might know I’m just being picky, and when my blog is in such need of work can I really complain?  I have no gripes with Sphinn, it adds too much value to me and the SEO community for me to ever do that, but I’m definitely learning Japanese, moving to Japan and taking on Japanese clients so I’ve got some excuse to look at that for 2 hours each day.  I heart Japan.