This really surprises me as well Mike. The listserv as you state was probably the most successful piece of WorldWIT and ChicWIT. It is difficult to think that the valve is shut off for thousands of people who communicated with each other this way. I am shocked that no one from this community decided to take this over. At the same time, maybe this was not an option that the founder wanted to offer. To me, it is apparent that WorldWIT was too dependent on the founder who didn’t have a succession plan. With any successful company or group, you need to move beyond the founder for it to sustain itself.
Why are ChicWIT and WorldWIT Shutting Down?
By Mike Maddaloni on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 12:16 PM with 8 comments
How would you expect a widely-popular email mailing list with thousands of subscribers, where people would post requests for information on a wide variety of personal and business topics, to shut down? Not to mention that it was shutting down altogether, without any justification other than the fact that the owner was “moving on.” Then take this confusion and multiply it by dozens of cities around the world, and you are wondering, as I am, why the ChicWIT mailing list and its "owner" WorldWIT are really shutting down.
WorldWIT, by their own description, was "the free, friendly online and offline resource for women in business and technology." That being said, men were never excluded from joining their mailing lists or participating in their events. In Chicago, the “chapter” was called ChicWIT, and the name refers to the first four letters of the city, not women. Its most outward function was its email mailing list, where at last count had over 6,000 subscribers. It was an eclectic list of requests, everything from requests for Thai restaurants to pet psychics and everything in between. It was a moderated list, and it required things like event tickets be sold at face value and it would not promote events for other organizations. ChicWIT’s own events were every few months, from paid topical events to open socials.
On Wednesday, March 21 someone posted to the list that they read that the mailing list would cease to operate on Friday, March 23, two days later. Upon further review, this message was posted on the WorldWIT Web site’s home page, on the right under the heading of “What’s New.” The reason given was “WorldWIT founder Liz Ryan’s demanding speaking and training schedule prevented her from taking the self-funded WorldWIT to the next level.”
Where we all wish Liz Ryan the best, why just shut it down? I had no idea that she was the sole owner and was footing the bill herself. Why didn’t she remove all transparency and reach out to the community and ask for help – either to fund it, or to sell it? And I intentionally use the word community, as she had truly created a virtual community of people, and their connection was the several-a-day email messages, as well as the events. I emailed Liz Ryan yesterday to ask why, and as of this post I have not received a reply.
The ChicWIT list was a tremendous resource for me. I can trace most of the connections I made here in Chicago over the past 3 years to that mailing list, whether directly or indirectly. It was a resource not only for specific questions I wanted an opinion of from the community, but to keep a pulse on what others were looking for and thinking of. For a professional “organization” its demise is anything but.
Business • (8) Comments • PermalinkComments
Comment by Good point Jason - she may not have had a plan. And this happens all too often, where a business or other venture - from our favorite restaurant to an employer - goes away… but somehow we survive!
mp/m
Comment by What I heard through the grapevine is that she wasn’t profitable. I can’t imagine how someone could run something like WorldWIT without making a decent profit. How much do you need to pay someone to read email all day to approve or deny postings? And any overhead on hosting shouldn’t be a penny over $300/month, or she was getting ripped off.
Comment by Hi Joe - I concur on your cost assessments, and though we may never know the true reason, moving forward and new services like the CW Network will definitely fill the gap.
mp/m
Hi there,
Just wanted to remind that she also charged advertisers and the rates weren’t cheap. That should have been more than enough to offset staff pay to manage the list.
I agree as the list also has helped me so much since I’ve been in Chicago. It’s missed by all of us.
Comment by Sherion 05/04/07 at 05:23 PM
Hi Sheri - You may wnt to sign up for the CW Network - http://www.cw-network.org - as the list is back in Chicago!
mp/m
Hi - I worked for Liz, WorldWIT for about 6 years until a very unpleasant parting in October 2006. I was paid a token salary the last 3 years and options that are now worthless. I set up and configured the L-Soft list-serv (all the lists), managed the servers and dealt with the ISPs that called WorldWIT a spammer, even though we were purely opt-in. I also basically built the web site and its ecommerce components with the help of a great .net programmer name Brian Patsch and I maintained the website on a regular basis.
By the end of my time with Liz, it was clear something was happening. For the first time more subscribers were leaving ChicWIT than joining.
A profit was never made and there was never any true business plan. Liz and her staff and advisers jumped around from one idea to the next but never had a solid sales plan or people who could sell sponsorships.
I think it is really goes to show that even if you have a good idea you still need to understand business to make a business work. I still can’t believe that Liz’s new tech company, CMIT, let her turn off worldwit.org which had a Google rank of 7/10 and more than 20 K unique visitors a month. In the end the jobs and events portion of the site were bringing in several thousands of dollars each month on their own without any human assistance plus the site had healthy ad-sense revenue. I just don’t get it. She could have toned done the lists and still kept the profit making site which BTW was the only thing that ever made a profit…
Comment by Bill Phillipson 05/09/07 at 12:17 AM
I recall years ago ChicWit was a a very useful networking group. I was one of the few male members.
Why did it shut down?
bazil
Comment by baz grayon 02/19/10 at 03:23 AM
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