11/23/2009 03:41:03 PM 
In response, to my last post on the Adweek poll debacle, @bigspaceship pointed me to one of the longest discussion threads in recent memory involving creative people.
Who knew they had the time?
Pulled together and encouraged by Ben Malbon over at BBHLabs, it's amazing to see the enthusisam for the debate from Ben, Ty Montague, Kevin Roddy, John Windsor and a host of others.
While the initial spark to the discussion might have been the Andy's Elect a Jury inititative created by Big Spaceship, the debate touches on a number of key issues around the evolution of creativity and the crowd.
Some highlights:
"If “technology” needs greater representation on this jury, what form should that take? Bloggers? Critics? “Creatives?” There’s a real debate to be had here about who is best qualified to judge the creativity of others."
Kevin Roddy
"Crowd sourcing is still in its infancy, sure, but it seems odd that so many of our debates on the subject seem to stop at the (clearly semi-heretical) use of the crowd. The best experiments surely strike a balance between FRESH inputs from the crowd, with RESPONSIBILITY for decision-making ultimately taken by a few."
Mel Exon
"We also wondered if people who were really active in social media would exploit that and run away with the election. we wondered if we would wind up with a 100% interactive and digital group of judges. That wouldn’t have been a disaster, but imbalance in any direction was something we wanted to try to avoid. The opportunity was certainly there. But clearly that hasn’t happened."
Ty Montague
"I, too, would like to see the award juries evolve to include more than art directors and copywriters and better represent marketing creativity today. At CP B, Technologists and UX designers sit in our creative department and play a huge role in guiding creative strategy and execution for the agency and our clients. I’d like to start seeing more people like Scott Prindle, Executive Creative Technology Director, CP B, John Mayo-Smith, CTO of R/GA, and UX leaders from around the industry appear more often on these juries. And I think that categorization is a good thing. What qualifies as great and effective marketing is changing before our eyes in real-time. And in the digital age, it just so happens that there are more people sitting at the creative table, from producers to technologists to UX designers to interactive strategists. Why wouldn’t the creative people making the work also be the ones judging it?"
Winston Binch
Posted by Ed Cotton
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