For years, back when I lived my life producing television, I dreamt about winning an Emmy. I won a bunch of other awards. I was a judge for regional Emmy a few years and was nominated once. Like most career-producers I have boxes of Telly Awards and Aurora Awards collecting dust. In 2001, I was even voted by my peers as being one of the top 100 video producers in the country. But no Emmy! To me, an Emmy Award stood out as the award of excellence and I wanted nothing more than to be able to put “Emmy Winner” on my resume’.
Well, my life changed, and the world changed along with it. Winning an Emmy is the farthest thing from my mind these days. Plus, I’m not so sure an Emmy in Television means what it once did. The internet and web video has gained the spotlight, and the Webby Award is maybe the most respected award showcasing a variety of digital media excellence.
I started Invisible people with $45 and a hack on a WordPress theme. The “branding” was actually anti-branding, since there wasn’t any. As someone who takes design very seriously it always bothered me, but I never had the time or resources to do things right. A few months back I asked Dawn Nicole Baldwin and Keith Baldwin from AspireOne to help me start from scratch and do things right. Part of the result is this site you’re reading this post on. I think it’s a pretty rock’n design so when the Webby’s opened up this year I sent Dawn an email saying we should enter.
To my shock, we passed the first round and are now nominated to win a Webby in the activism category. Just being nominated is a huge honor. It means this site is the best of the best of the best! Judges will pick the winner, but we are also entered into the Webby’s People’s Voice Awards. People from all over the world vote for their favorites. The good news this is AWESOME. The bad news is we are up against the giant Change.org with their network of millions. Normally, that would concern me enough to not even try, but some of you may remember that we actually beat the big and powerful Mashable.com at a vote contest many years ago – so we can do this! CLICK HERE TO VOTE!
Since we were nominated traffic to Invisible People’s site has doubled. Lots of people who may never roll down their window at an exit ramp to ask a homeless person their story will have a positive interaction with homelessness. Imagine the exposure and the traffic if we won? Earlier in this post I referenced that I have changed. Years ago my motivation for winning an Emmy was mostly selfish. Yes, winning a Webby would very cool, and I will maybe get back a little professional respect I lost during this economic crisis, but my motivation is simply to get more people, new stakeholders to be exact, to learn the truth about people experiencing homelessness. Winning a Webby Award will bring awareness to tens of thousands of new people – and that is AWESOME!
So please take a moment and CLICK HERE TO VOTE. for Invisible people to win a Webby.
