Getting Out of the Hive!

Today, we launch The Bees Awards - First international social media competition for communication and marketing professionals. A wonderful journey starts!

For people who want to read the official text before copywriters reviewed it, please read this text! For people who want to read an English text written by a French speaking Quebecer, you are welcome to continue reading...

I remember 13 years ago how award shows changed my life. I was 24 with 2 clients and some people approached my partner and I to submit our campaigns. We had a small interactive agency and our work was far from being at the level that we dreamed of. But they insisted and we submitted a small amount of entries with the sincere belief that we had no chance of competing with the large agencies.

But we won one of the awards!? The small shop of 2 persons was now recognized. We were legitimate to approach large brands. That event changed my career drastically.

Fast forward in 2009, I start to get serious with social media. This is different from anything else that I've done in marketing and clearly: a new expertise is required. To my surprise, everybody talks about social media but rare are the ones who can name a specific campaign. Also, everybody faces the same problem to convince clients to invest. A piece is missing: An award show to recognize excellence for the best campaigns and players.

Award shows bring attention and legitimacy to an industry. It secures clients and establishes parameters for better works. In some ways, it defines some standards and bring upfront the best players. It injects dynamism and it is an essential factor of growth to an industry. Imagine Hollywood without the Oscars!

Today, we launch The Bees Awards! They are the first and they are different:

1. For communication and marketing professionals: freelancers, pr agency people, advertising agency people, and brand managers, who are paid to leverage social media tools to accomplish a corporate purpose.
2. International: social media has no boundaries, but the world isn't a homogenous ecosystem. It's a great amalgam of cultures and we want to involve people from different part of the world to share our similarities and differences. Coming from a small market myself, I understand the importance of involving local players. In Montreal where I'm from, @michelleblanc might be more known than @chrisbrogan as a social media specialist. In China, @isaac is read in Mandarin by Chinese people. Local implementation is a reality and it has to be considered if you truly want to be international. One of our goals with The Bees Awards is to learn from every part of the world about social media. 
3. About excellence, not ego: if there's no awesome entry in a category... well, there won't be any winner. The Bees Awards won't have bronze, silver and gold awards. There will be one awardee per category and maybe not even. The jury has the responsibility to be the guardians of excellence and never let our industry compromise on quality and ethic. It has the responsibility to show a direction to the industry and inspire excellence. 

I hope that people will seize the opportunity to uplift our industry. I hope that other award shows will come in the market to add to the dynamism of our industry. There is room and many needs have to be addressed. I also hope that everyone will cultivate this passion for innovation and excellence; that people will never compromise on ethics and on quality. It's a shared responsibility that we have to protect our industry and prepare the conditions for its long term growth. 

I would like to thank everyone who has been involved so far (I will have other opportunities to go into details and would like to congratulate the first jury ever in social media marketing:

Liz Strauss, Chicago, USA (@lizstrauss)

Mitch Joel, Montreal, Canada (@mitchjoel)

Gary Goldhammer, Los Angeles, USA (@g24khamr)

Paul Hoffman, New York City, USA (@hoffmanpaul)

Helder Araujo, Sao Paolo, Brazil (@haraujo)

Jesus Hoyos, Mexico City, Mexico (@Jesus_Hoyos)

Ralf Rottmann, Dortmund, Germany (@24z)

Matt Rhodes,London, UK (@mattrhodes)

Johan Ronnestam, Stockholm, Sweden (@ronnestam)

Eric Maillard, Paris, France (@PRland)

Gaurav Mishra, New Delhi, India (@Gauravonomics)

Rajiv Dingra, Mumbai, India (@rajivdingra)

Andre L. Pan, Shanghai, China (@popoever)

Isaac Mao, Boston, USA/Shanghai, China (@isaac)

Li Ang Wang, Shanghai, China (@WebLeOn)

Gao Ming, Shanghai, China (@gaoming)

Toru Saito, Tokyo, Japan (@toru_saito)

Dave Duarte, Cape Town, South Africa (@DaveDuarte)

You are now invited to visit: The Bees Awards website and participate! 

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