Last weekend I experienced my second turn at being a juror for the SMPS Marketing & Communication Awards. I’m bound by a confidentiality agreement to not reveal any awards recipients (or non-recipients), but I can talk about my experience. My first year I was on the category of jurors that turned out to be the last category to finish judging - it was very long and grueling. This year I requested a different category.
This year I was asked to be the Team Leader for our category. We sat down at our station with 11 entries and knew it was going to be a long day. We weren’t the last group, but we were not done early.
The whole event is quite interesting as a participating juror. It’s more than just looking at the entries and picking the one we like. Each entry was judged on the same criteria:
It’s a valuable learning experience volunteering as a juror. I had the opportunity to view content from a wide variety of firms from across the United States, and had a first-hand look at some of the things that work really well, and some of the things that don’t work so well.
MCA Judging is a great opportunity for networking. A nice reception started off the evening on Friday, followed by groups heading out for a bite to eat. Saturday evening included a dinner at the Brazilian Steakhouse. I would guess about two-thirds of the jurors attended the dinner, which was organized by the Cincinnati Chapter of SMPS. Then after dinner it was time for drinks at the Cadillac Ranch.
If you ever have the opportunity to judge awards for an organization, try it at least once. The learning experience and networking are well worth the effort of judging.
Big thank you to Melissa Lutz at Champlin Architecture and the Cincinnati Chapter of SMPS for the tremendous job organizing and hosting the MCA Judging weekend.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:03 am It was a great learning experience for me too! Ditto the thanks to the folks at SMPS & Champlin. @my88s