When I became certified as a — drumroll please — Yahoo Ambassador at a former company, my colleagues and I joked that they should start addressing me as Madam Ambassador. I have always wondered how many brainstorm sessions took place before the Yahoo folks settled on “Ambassador.” And was it supposed to be funny, like my coworker whose official title is CSS guru?
For those of you who don’t know, the Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassador Program was developed to provide training and professional recognition from Yahoo Search Marketing to search engine marketers who complete all web-based training and receive a passing score on the final test. Though not required, before becoming certified, as with pay-per-click platform Google AdWords, I honed my expertise with real experience creating and managing hundreds of online ad campaigns, driving tons of traffic to local business who might otherwise not have been on the first page of Yahoo or Google. There are a lot of Yahoo Ambassadors out there with the logo and title but no real experience or proven results. Those of us who have that deserve a title a bit more serious, don’t you think?
Years ago I worked as a mental health professional at a residential school for boys who were hard-of-hearing or deaf and who also struggled with issues like mental illness and developmental delays. There was one little boy diagnosed with sociopathy, who I’ll call Tommy. At the time, Tommy was 13 (but his physical appearance, as well as his emotional maturity, were stuck at about 7 years old). He had moments of pit-bull like rage and yet he could be as yielding as a small puppy. I remember him standing outside, as the other boys played football in the courtyard, kicking his foot against a brick wall, head down, lonely and dejected because they wouldn’t let him join in. But the sweetest memory I have of him was him watching those old Yahoo! commercials — the ones where a cowboy would yell, “Yahooooooooooo!” Tommy was so tickled by these commercials, and when the voice Yahoo’ed, Tommy (who was almost completely deaf) sang right along–with gusto–in his shrillest voice, “Yaheeeeeeeeeeee!”
I guess it’s one of those things you had to be there for. But it makes me laugh out loud to this day, as does the title of Yahoo Ambassador. But to answer my own question, is there a sillier title? Yaheeeeeee!
