March 28, 2008, 10:48 pm : AdFest Cyber Jury – Running from dogs, Condoms & Cabbages, Panels and Metal

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Since my first couple of days here, the jury and time has flown past. I’ve been getting up early (for me – 530am) and running around the neighbourhoods which surround the hotel. It has been a great way to let off steam – literally – since the reaction between the freezing air-con and my intolerance to humidity makes me look like a human dim sum when I ran back into the hotel. Which I had to do yesterday, when I took a wrong turn and ended up in a construction site, with four nasty looking dogs growling and circling me. I remembered some episode of some show where you need to stand your ground and forcefully use your voice to take command. Which I tried, and it worked right up until I got to the edge of the gate and a couple of the dogs thought ‘Hey he’s trying that TV show trick – GET HIM’. I was far and fast enough to make it to a 7-11 and park for a few minutes, like a 24-hour American Embassy that hands out 42-oz Slurpees to asylum seekers.

I felt like I needed a run today – had a huge meal at a cool restaurant called Condoms and Cabbages, right on the water and great company from Paul and Richard from Contagious Magazine. Funny to be hanging out with the guys far from our London base, really the only time when we aren’t running around. The meal was my wind-down from the Judge’s Panel Discussion, which was good, but not firey enough for my taste. I tried to prod and poke at some of the selections, since it seemed like everything from outdoor to press to direct was in the Cyber category as well. I have been thinking all week how awards shows are getting more complicated, categories aren’t always keeping up with the industry and consumer behavour changes. I know great work isn’t getting recognised because of fine print in the call for entries. I expected to see some break-out work in mobile while here at AdFest and found some interesting stuff, but not the edgy stuff that I read out in Contagious or fubiz We need to stimulate the groovy little shops that are making the cutting edge stuff, as well as making it possible for the big brands to innovate, without categories for media and discipline getting in the way, confusing and discouraging entrants. I’ve worked with Adfest, Cannes, Clio, One Show, Axis (NZ) and AWARD (Aus) to tweek their categories, and will continue to push wherever I can to get shows to pay attention to the marketplace and technology to keep festivals fresh and encourage more creatives to drag out the great work. OK, off the soapbox. Here’s the final entries from my Cyber Lotus Jury blog.

Day Two – AdFest Cyber Lotus Jury
Yesterday was the push to the finish line on the Cyber Lotus jury here at ADFEST, which means that all heads were down for five hours solid from early morning. There was lots of checking and double checking banners, sites, mobile, games and virals to make sure that our first, fast impressions on day one were correct. After a short break in the afternoon, we had a short list. And it was short indeed. The jury has been diligent, stuck the bar up high and judged the work at that level. Some might even say tough, but in a good way. I would argue that when you put people like this jury together to evaluate interactive work, they come from a background that has lived and breathed interactive thinking their whole lives. This jury knows what to look for, they see lots of great work all the time because of who they are and what they do all day long and they know a techie trick from a great idea. After a round of working through the shortlist and rescuing a few gems that got missed in round one, we voted a finalists list and broke for the day. The work that has come through to the end feels right and tomorrow is the last day. That’s when the metal gets decided and the hard work of ADFEST finishes for the Cyber Lotus Jury for 2008.

Final day of Cyber Lotus Jury: This morning we started with a clear brief of how to vote for metal, how many we can award per category and how to break the inevitable ties. Having three stints on Cannes juries under my belt, I knew that a clear brief from the organizer at the top of the day gives everyone an equal chance to question and probe the fine print in the rule book. It also saves the jury President a lot of repetition and revotes. Then we grabbed our finalist list and hit the mouses for the last time at ADFEST. After some debate, a few (short) re-votes, a list ditch attempt to rescue a lost gem from the shortlist and a call to Jimmy Lam to qualify a vague bit in the rules, we voted for Best of Cyber Lotus from our Gold winners. And we had tie! I then asked the jury to defend their choices to sway the tie breaking juror – it was like being on the high school debate team, but with credit cards. The next round of voting for Best of Cyber Lotus saw a clear result, in fact more than one mind was changed. And then, it was over. I thanked this great crew for being smart, great and picky and finding the best work. We all exchanged business cards, thanked our team that looked after us and went off to work, watch Festival speakers, lay in the sun or just stop. Which is what I am doing right now. See you on Saturday for the results.

March 25, 2008, 8:25 pm : AdFest Cyber Jury – Another Day as President in Paradise :-)

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Day One – AdFest Cyber Lotus Jury

I’m writing a daily blog for Marketing Magazine Hong Kong. Here is the first shot, cranked out last night from the balcony of my room at Royal Cliff Resort in Pattaya.

Last night at dinner, I realized that I could feel my fingers again, which meant that I must be away from the recent cold snap in London. Sitting in a pair of shorts and jandals, sipping a cold beer with some Aussie workmates, I started thinking about how lucky I am to be able to escape once in awhile, go to an exotic place and sit indoors clicking ‘yes, no or abstain’ for four days. Believe me, I’m not complaining, especially when the awards show is a cool one (ADFEST) in a cool place (Pattaya).

Jimmy Lam from ADFEST asked me to be President of the Cyber Lotus jury last year, not long after hanging up by nametag as Cyber Lions Jury President at Cannes. It’s an honour, and one that I have been keen to start ever since. I’ve been spending more and more time in this part of the world, with our new interactive folks spreading throughout our offices in Singapore and across China. I love the people, places, food, the work and especially the attitude – very ‘nothing is impossible’, which is close to my heart.

It was great to see a familiar face when I arrived – Hye-Kyoung Kim and I were on the Cannes Lions Cyber Jury together last year. All of the jury, which includes Johan Vakidis, Valerie Cheng, Shaun Branagan, Yasuharu Sasaki and Hiroo Kida, are smart, talented, well-awarded, cool people. We’re all keen to get into the work.

Today started the same way all juries start – a little talking, a little housekeeping and a lot of clicking. I asked the jury to look for great ideas matched with great technology and an understanding of the medium. I asked them to remember that we are representing ADFEST, as well as ourselves and that we need to set the bar high and find the work that gets up to our standards. And have some fun along the way.

After viewing100s of entries, we knocked off after eight straight hours of tapping, tapping and more tapping. Sitting now on the balcony of my room, looking out over the water at some twinkling boats, I continue tapping and anticipate where we’ll be this time tomorrow: a shortlist of the best work in the ADFEST Cyber Lotus category in one hand,  hopefully a cold beer in the other hand, with two big days ahead, continuing to sort the good ideas from the Great Ideas.

March 13, 2008, 7:22 am : The Hotness | v1.7

DesignPolice
If you are a typeNazi, Kerning Queen or any other character in the design kingdom, you need these to say those things that you always say, but with added style.

UsTrendy
Their homepage blurb: “Welcome to UsTrendy – a place designed to give YOU the power to determine future trends in popular culture.” It’s an online forum for models, designers and other cool creative types, which you vote and rate into staying on the site. It’s in beta, so be the first kid on your block to be ustrendy.

MonkeyGallery
David Colquhoun is a genius and a generally lovely guy, who lives in NZ and cuts Flash like a muthafucka. He had an idea for a cool online gallery resource free of bullshit and ads, with no limits on sizes and big pics and vid playback. MonkeyGallery has been around for awhile and has been a place where David and pals collect our pics and vids. He is now offering free galleries, although you really should pay him and keep him in beer and code.

Bluetooth Baggage Tracking
Increase your frustration or provide peace of mind? You be the judge. There is a cool idea in here for something other than luggage…

Hal Riney site
Turn on your web cam, wave your arms and navigate around. We did something cooler for out of home in New Zealand last year and this is being used in other retail environments. A cool technique begging for a much cooler execution.

March 3, 2008, 3:42 am : The Hotness | v1.6

Syd Mead saw the Future (and it was good)
A portfolio of futurist renderings by the legendary Syd Mead. Dig on the weird tiger/lynx creature! Check out the Imperial Walkers with tyre feet! Groove on the freaky street signage! There are some serious illustration stylings waiting to happen here.

Muonics / Theodore Watson
I dig Funky Forest so much (see Hotness v1.2) that I’ve been digging around on ‘who done it?’. Here is the site for Muonics/Theodore Watson. Have a look and be inspired – this is where we need to move interaction – away from computer screens and out into the world.

Water-Drop Typography | Julius Popp
Controlled water-drops make typographical art. I so want to have a key pad to type in words, make a movie of it and send to people with some really profound message, like ‘You’re a real drip’…check out the clip below.

Saul Bass-styled Star Wars Titles
One of my favourite comics of the 1980′s was Marvel’s What If? One of my all time favourite designers is Saul Bass. One of favourite movies is Star Wars. Take three great tastes and put ‘em together, it’s the comic fiend, sci-fi addled, type designers wet dream. Only problem is the typo on the first set of titles….find it and get a cookie!