I first really encountered Bill through our mutual friend, Kim Krause Berg, through her Cre8PC group, sometime around 2002 I believe. Kim was a member of one of the multitudinous forums I spent a lot of time in, and a few times I had stepped in to save her from angry mobs wanting to virtually burn her at the stake for the heresy of talking about usability, or the user at all, in an age where most SEOs still talked only about hits and rankings, and keyword-stuffed redirecting doorway pages.

Kim's group had outlived eGroups that had been sold to Yahoo to become Yahoo Groups, and now Yahoo was killing that off, and Kim was looking at the option of starting a forum instead. Anyway, that is what all lead to the opening of the Cre8asite Forum towards the end of 2002, and how Kim, Bill, and I became the Admins of what would become one of the iconic webmaster forums over the next few years. There were also a talented group of diverse talents that formed the moderating team of the forum, and it was the diversity, and the welcoming of diversity that set the forum apart from others.

It is probably hard for anyone to quite imagine it now, but Bill was the least known of our admin team back then, though that would not last. The thing was that Bill was already mostly the Bill Slawski you all know. He was patient and tolerant, kind and considerate, and, of course, had a genuinely brilliant mind. He didn't yet have a blog that everyone flocked to, or a following to do the flocking, and wasn't taking apart papers and patents for everyone at first. Cre8asite was where the seeds for all of those things found fertile ground and sprouted.

Every day in those early days of Cre8asite we'd have conversations. Initially a lot of them were just between ourselves, the admins and moderators. Anyone was welcome to join in, to ask questions about the finer points of things we discussed or just to add their own views and experiences. Those of you who've had the chance to speak with Bill know for yourselves what a fantastic experience that can be. And I finally met someone who was as prepared as I to talk at length, immensely long detailed posts, with patience and humility in explaining the details to anyone of any level of experience who wanted to understand.

But despite all the huge, detailed, incredibly rich, discussions in the public forums, there was just as much discussion going on behind the scenes. We all put just as much time and attention and care into the discussions in the Admin only area where we discussed and decided on the big vision and strategy for the forum, what we wanted to create for people, and what policies and procedures would best bring that strategy to fruition. Then there was the Moderator forum, where we discussed that policy with our awesome moderators and grappled with any tough decisions over the nitty gritty of implementation, tone setting, etc. It is no exaggeration at all when I tell you that there were actually more posts behind the scenes from the admins than out in the public side, and the public side alone would blow most away.

Bill has this amazing ability to almost instantly pull up quotes and links he's remembered on almost any topic at all, at the drop of a hat. He's one of the few people in my entire life that I almost never needed to explain myself to when my mind made some connection between points that for others seemed an incredible leap. He was a perfect partner in those forums, for whenever I'd share my personal experiences and anecdotes on topics, he'd almost instantly and perfectly back me up with citations to research and patents that backed up the points.

I've had so many people, many of them famous names in our industry themselves, thank me for the education they got at Cre8asite over the years, but whatever part I played in that I can absolutely say was down to having folks like 'Braggadocio' (Bill) and 'Grumpus' (Stockbridge Truslow) there to bounce off of and along with. We each had our different styles, but when we were together we sang with harmony and counterpoint that really brought each and every topic to life.

The thing above all that Bill taught me was patience. I don't mean from making me wait 15 years or so to finally meet him face to face in person. I also don't mean that he made me some paragon of patience either. I'm still an impatient man in many ways, but almost all of the patience I have I would say I picked up out of admiration and awe at the patience of Bill Slawski.

More than once I described Bill as "The greatest friend I never met". Then, just a few years back, we finally met and so now I change that. Bill Slawski is one of the finest people, and finest friends, that I have ever known. His contribution to the industry is beyond calculation, but his contribution to my own life is far greater than that.