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

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.

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