The Digital Signage Expo folks have announced 33 finalists for its Apex Awards, which celebrate innovation in the development and deployment of digital signage technology.
The nominees in 11 categories were chosen from a field of 88 entrants, representing 18 countries. The judges were five industry journalists.
<start mild rant>
I don’t know who the judges are, and as I said a year ago, the fine people who write for trade publications and maybe blogs are ill-suited to assess the quality of creative, strategy and installation work. Great, sharp people, I am sure. I probably know all of them. But writing about and actually doing the work are wildly different, and my safe guess is the only “journalist” who has cut POs for digital projects, run creative teams and supervised installs is me – and I would not consider myself a particularly suitable judge.
Is it really that hard to find people who do or have done projects to be judges, and who’d agree not to favor themselves or their buds?
</end mild rant>
That stated, and not suggesting for a millisecond these are bad choices, the finalists:
Arts, Entertainment, Recreation
- Bally Total Fitness
- Museum of Design, Atlanta
- Parx Casino
Business, Industry & Government
- CBC/Radio-Canada
- Christie Network Operations Center
- Harley-Davidson Motor Company
Education & Healthcare
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
- CTV
- Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
Event Venues
- HP Pavilion at San Jose
- Sun Life Financial BuzzWall Kodak Theater
- LIVESTRONG Sporting Park
Food & Beverage
- Acros Dourados Comercio de Alimentos
- Holyfields Restaurant GmbH & Co., KG
- Starbucks Coffee Co.
Hospitality
- Monteregie Tourism Association
- The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (Four Winds Interactive)
- The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas (Samsung)
Interactive Self-Services
- Build-A-Bear Workshop Retail Stores
- Central Kansas Revival
- CTM Media Group
New Concept
- Experience Station
- Diji-Taste by Kraft Foods
- Red Leaf Retail Concepts, Inc.
Public Spaces
- Costa Rica Shopping Centers
- Oxford Properties Group/Scarborough Town Centre
- Paramount Pictures/Nickelodeon Movies – The Grove & The Westfield San Francisco Centre
Retail
- Benetton Live Windows
- Fresh
- Sony Stores
Transportation
- Melbourne Airport
- New Mexico Rail Runner Express
- Port Columbus International Airport
Because the awards are for the sites it is hard to pick out who has done what. I do see Arsenal Media, which won a pile of awards last year, is up again for its work with Sun Life and Cirque du Soleil, and the Monteregie Tourism Association centre near Montreal. The latter is up against the seriously stiff competition of the AV work inside the new Cosmopolitan resort in Lost Wages.
Lotsa Canuck nominations, as usual (yay!).
Pic from Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery
Some project vids here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL616A09921F225C1F&feature=plcp
We’ve traditionally used industry journalists to judge the DSE Apex Awards because of their broad view of the industry. They also typically don’t have an ax to grind. I’ve worked with these judges for several years now and found them to be both professional and thoughtful in their judging. I’m also a judge, but remove myself from the judging when ties are involved. This year’s judges are:
Lionel Tepper, Managing Director, ScreenMedia Daily
David Keene, Executive Editor, Digital Signage Magazine
Ben Skidmore, Publisher, Signage Solutions Magazine
David Silverman, Editor, Sound & Communications
Richard Lebovitz, Editorial & Educational Services Director, Digital Signage Expo
If there are any industry experts who feel they are open-minded enough to judge the Apex Awards, we would entertain their participation in the future. They need only contact me at rlebovitz@exponation.net and provide their credentials.
Meanwhile, of more serious concern to us than your “mild rant” about the judging, which I personally think is a red herring, is that the 88 entries represent only a small portion of the installations that take place every year. To those who didn’t participate, I would like to say, “If you don’t enter, you can’t win!”
Thanks Richard, I think directly experienced judges would be better, but at the same time don’t think your panel is bad.
And yes, 88 entries is a little weak given all the jobs out there, and given those 88 probably represent multiple entries from companies.