A very young industry

Last week I saw a tweet that quoted Joel Book, Director of eMarketing Education at Exacttarget as saying

less than 20% of ppl in #emailmarketing have more than 2 yrs experience

I have this feeling that some of the industry wide issues with conflicts between “frat boys” and “utilitarians” is partly due to the lack of experience on the email marketing side. Contrast that with the ISP side, where many people have 10 or 20 years experience with email.
If we take for a fact that Joel is correct and 80% of email marketers have less than 2 years of experience, how does that affect the way email marketers approach email and delivery issues? More importantly, how does this affect deliverability? Does it affect the perception of email marketing and email marketers by the ISPs and spam blocking companies?
What does it mean for the state of the industry that so few people on one side of the equation have long term experience in email marketing and so many people on the other side of the equation have long term experience with email (and marketing)?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, triggered by one of the session moderators at MAAWG introducing me as “someone who has been in the industry since before there were ESPs.” Yes, I’ve been around a long time, and his comment is accurate, if a bit disturbing.
Being around for as long as I have doesn’t just mean I have experience dealing with different problems, but also provides a deep understanding of where we are now and how we got here. The history of delivery, spam fighting and email marketing are all intertwined but never documented. Knowing that history is vital for mapping the future.
I can’t help but think that the lack of experience of the majority of the people in this industry is hindering delivery and effective email marketing. There are so few of us who could be considered old hands, is that hindering the industry as a whole?