Big Chip Awards 2009 nomination

Last week I got the news I’d been waiting weeks for – I had been nominated for a 2009 Big Chip Award.

As icky as I feel writing such self-indulgent posts, the whole point of me entering these awards was the hope that I’d get nominated and be able to use said nomination as a way to get noticed (and taken seriously) by more potential clients so if I were to put on a cloak of false modesty I’d be depriving myself of some much needed marketing (and potential revenue.)

I’ve followed the Big Chip Awards for a few years with great interest but I’ve never attended the ceremony nor worked for an agency that has been nominated (whilst I worked there).

In fact, it wasn’t until meeting last year’s ‘Best Freelancer’ Matt Booth that I found out I could nominate myself. Prior to that I had presumed that the judging committee simply picked whomever they’d wanted/heard of – hence why the same agencies kept winning year in year out.

My entry

Preparations for my entry began about a month ago, when I attended a Big Chip evening in Manchester at which the award ceremony’s organisers told us exactly how to enter and they detailed pitfalls of some entries and told everyone what they needed to have for successful entries. They also provided a free buffet which was surprising good.

My entry consisted of the following:

1. a quote from a client
2. a string of hyperbole and sales pitch from me
3. a list of the clients I’ve worked for

I do believe the first and last items where the most important elements: the quote I received was from a very well respected person from a very well respected agency, in the region, who have won their fair share of Big Chip Awards and I have no doubt this swayed the judges’ decision in my favour.

The client list is something that I always trot out when approaching other digital agencies for work as the mere mention of a popular creative agency is often enough to win you a job on the spot in an industry where everyone is looking over their shoulder at the competition and constantly checking out who is working for who and which agency has won which account.

Of course, this is all very political and truth be told I am firmly playing the game, I love to play at Wizard Slots; I am very careful about the agencies I approach for work as picking the right ones not only pays the bills but helps out my career too.

Finally, I also think this website may have had something to do with my entry being successful. Every now and again I’ll strike it lucky with an article and get ten or more comments and I can’t help but hope this gives the impression that I have a strong voice in the industry; whether or not this is actually the case.

The competition

In the category of ‘Best Freelancer/Micro-Enterprise‘ there are two other nominees: last year’s Winner Matt Booth aka Flash Temple and Vanilla Storm… make no mistake the competition is fierce.