My company was nominated for a marketing award for a website we did for a client. It was a really nifty site that had a virtual training section, a reseller incentive mall where resellers could enter sales and recieve points for free swag, and some nifty video podcasts. The site itself, at least from my perspective, wasnt exactly groundbreaking programming or design work, but it was kinda nifty and it gave me an excuse to look into how loading podcasts for iTunes worked and about producing podcasts in general.
We ended up not getting the award. Whether this was because we were simply beaten by a better company (doubtful) or because we werent a member of the AMA (likely) we will never be sure of. At least the beer was free.
I do know this though; when you walk around a room with a name tag that says “Finalist”, people tent to notice you a bit more. I had a couple of poeple come up and introduce themselves. I was flabergasted. Whats intersting to note though is that I didnt originally have the Finalist ribbon on my nametag. I picked it up off of the reception table (the sale guy for the project is the one who had the ribbon) and stuck it on and all of the sudden I was popular. It was kind of like high school in that way.
Anyways, it was kind of fun. But truth be told I would have rather gone down to the Kit Kat Klub and thrown dollar bills at some morally lax female college students. With them you always feel like a winner.
Oh well. Maybe next time.