Net Visionaries More Brands Than People
ON THE WAY back from the 2006 Net Visionaries Awards, I was struck by how the evening was more about brands than people. It's not a detraction, just a reality of running a glitz event when you need to accommodate the reach of the brands who pony up to pay for exposure. This is something Damien Mulley needs to consider when ramping up the Irish Blog Awards because the more buzz you give to an evening with friends, the more it normally costs. And if you tap into company money, you have to spotlight a company brand.
There was a harmony in the air among the hundreds who gathered for the Net Visionaries in Killiney. By the way, true visionaries read this blog. There were no losers. It was hard to pick out the gate crashers because they didn't have a seat during the awards or the dinner. Only a few were hanging in the wings, clutching free wine, watching the proceedings. It's very difficult to crash a seated affair nowadays. We actually haven't paid for our seats yet. We'll return to Killiney Castle because it was one of the best evening outs we've ever enjoyed in Dublin.
When we realised that we were at the rear table and that we had two award winners in our midst, we knew the top honours for best Irish podcaster were seated elsewhere. Tables don't take away three awards at presentation ceremonies unless they're head tables. We took away friendships with bright sparks offering Irish jobs.
I listened to the carefully-crafted messages on the evening. On the large plasma screens, the messages were one-way advertorials promoting the reach of the Irish Internet Association. Fair enough. But the planners missed an important fulcrum that could catapult an Irish winner into the 2007 Webbys. The IIA brand could have been wrapped around the awards nominees by showcasing the talents of the nominees around the big screens. This would not be a simple undertaking because it would mean animating hundreds of screen shots to create a new media presentation. But if that presentation unfolded, people would have paid it more respect than the stand-up comedian. Plus, someone in the showreel would have mustered popular support to influence an international vote on a bigger stage.
My recommendation: lose the comedian for user-generated big screen content that all can take away as a DVD. Give free seats to an entire table of people who make the presentation. That presentation would serve as a strong message for the grass roots of the Irish internet and would galvanise support for an international lobby for Irish entries to the Webbys.
It was refreshing to encounter bloggers on the evening who were not full of themselves. It was sweet that Twenty Major, himself serving wine to the unsuspecting, played the humility card. This will serve him well as he finalises his book deal.
Ask Twenty and he will tell you stories about growing up with the mass media generation, the one without Bebo, MySpace, e-mail or Flickr. From those mass media posturings, he learned that having a recognisable image counts and that the first impression sets the tone. You cannot get beyond the third sentence on Ireland's award-winning blog without encountering his hard-hitting and unapologetic reporting. People hunger for the human, especially the unwashed human. This often confuses blogging consultants who tell their clients, "If big media won't publish it, don't bother writing it."
I retired from the Dublin social scene five years ago. Living a train journey away put me out of easy reach of the spontaneous chats that happen around late afternoon hotel mezzaines and during Thursday evening piss-ups. Those in the Big Smoke with an ear to the ground can hear consultancy transactions worth tens of thousands of euro happening in all of the big hotel lobbies between new media, software developers or image managers. You won't get that kind of money sloshing around the lobby of the Cashel Palace Hotel unless you're into horses. And horses don't need Web 2.0.
We're back in the sunny southeast, planning our next foray into the bright lights. It will be the BT Young Scientist exhibition where we will podcast with the next generation of Irish internet developers. You know, the ones with the earbuds, the PSPs, and the tats. We're elevating their status because we need them to pay our pensions.
Flickr has some of our pictures tagged from the Net Visionary Awards, including our grainy snapshot of Brian Greene dueling with Stacey Lyons.
Evelyn Rodriguez -- "Perfection Wanes, Beauty Reigns."
Bonus Link: Quiet splash among Irish bloggers.
