#unawards15 – the shortlist

Well that was fun.

Yesterday saw the end of our public vote and the announcement of the #UnAwards15 shortlist. I went slightly bog-eyed watching it all unfold but we now know the runners and riders in all 15 categories.

By Darren Caveney

Over 140 entries poured into the UnAwards15 from across the UK and from as far afield as Norway.

Central government, local government, NHS, Police, Housing, Fire, Higher Education, third sector and the agency world all took part and our 14 external judges have had quite a task in getting down to our final shortlist.

The standard of your entries this year has been high. We know this because some of our judges are hard to impress, But impressed they were.

Our love and respect for this fabulous comms, PR, marketing and digital community, which we all exist in, just grows and grows and thank you so much for supporting the #UnAwards15.

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#unawards15: a public vote, the shortlist and attending one cool event

The #UnAwards15. It's a chance to celebrate some fabulous work and people across our industry. There's lots to tell you so read on...

By Darren Caveney

Wow.

We are just getting our breath back from working our way through the mountain of UnAwards entries we’ve received. And we thank each and every one of you for that.

The standard of your entries this year is very high and it has been fascinating looking through your work - the challenges you face and the creative solutions you have found to tackle them. We’re impressed.

We have entries from as far afield as Norway. And, interestingly, the top four most popular categories were ‘best creative comms’, ‘best internal comms’, ‘best use of video’ and ‘best low cost/free work’. The creativity and sheer breadth of your work has been a real treat to be able to delve into.

Shortlisting...

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the real reason why you should enter the UnAwards

There are several reasons for us running the UnAwards 15. Celebrating the work and efforts of colleagues across comms, PR, marketing and digital is right up there amongst them, of course.

But for me it runs a little deeper than that.

By Darren Caveney

We run the UnAwards to support and – in our own way - fly a flag for folks across the UK and beyond who are working in difficult circumstances and still delivering day after day. To sing for the unsung, to recognise the unrecognised.

I hear – and I hear it way too often, I’m afraid – of some less than great behaviours by some organisations and the way they are treating staff. To a degree this is to be expected with the enormous and ongoing cuts to the public sector – with 350k people leaving local government alone in the past five years there is unprecedented change taking place.

But this doesn’t excuse shoddy behaviour.

Lack of recognition has been a theme in much of the staff survey feedback I have seen over the years too. Sometimes your achievements will be appreciated by others, sometimes they’ll not be. That’s a fact of comms life, as it is in life.

And for me, part of the UnAwards is flying back into face of this and celebrating what you do and do well. We’ve been at, and are, at your coalface so we know.

So the real reason that you should enter the UnAwards is to celebrate you.

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top tips for success in the UnAwards 2015

We know many of you are working on your entries and nominations for the UnAwards 2015. We thought it would be useful to share some top tips on giving you the best shot at success this year.

By Darren Caveney

You have six weeks to work on your entries.  Sounds plenty of time doesn't it?  But the deadline will be here before you know it.

We’ve all left award entries until the last minute in the past due to other competing work demands. But is that what your best work this year deserves? No, course not.

So use the time wisely and have a think about which of the 15 categories are a best fit with the activity and projects you are most proud of. Grab a coffee, sit somewhere quiet for 10 minutes with a pencil and a piece of paper and begin sketching out your ideas or a small mind map for your entry. Focus on the best way to make it stand out from the crowd.

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the UnAwards are open

The comms2point0 UnAwards 2015 are now officially open. How can you enter? how can you nominate and how can you attend them? Here’s the lowdown…

By Darren Caveney

So you’ve delivered some great work this year which has made a difference. And you might just feel like it deserves a little smidge of recognition. Well you’re in luck because the comms2point0 UnAwards have arrived giving you the opportunity to show off your best work.

It might be a social media initiative which delivered amazing returns or it might be a shiny new website which has made your online business purr. How about a campaign which has made a difference to your residents, patients or customers. Or a good old fashioned piece of great storytelling.

Whatever you’ve created this year there’s almost certainly a category amongst the 15 in this year’s UnAwards.

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the UnAwards are back

Following their huge success and popularity in 2014, the comms2point0 UnAwards return on 3 December 2015, even bigger and better than last year but still remaining true to their original ethos.

By Darren Caveney

The UnAwards are our opportunity to showcase great work and celebrate a hugely creative and dedicated community.

Why ‘UnAwards’, you ask? Well they’re a deliberate alternative to the £300-a-pop, black tie, swanky London hotel event awards machine which exists in our industry. 

That’s not a slight on these events – if you have been to one of them, and won an award in the process, you’ll have felt pretty good about the whole thing.

But for many the cost has become prohibitive. This is making the awards landscape a bit, well, ‘exclusive’.

That’s not how we like to do things. We’re more Sundance Film Festival than Oscars Ceremony.

The UnAwards are accessible to the entire comms, pr, marketing and digital community and, importantly, will recognise the contributions of colleagues across the sectors for their creative endeavours over the past 12-months.

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awards and that loving feeling

A smidge of recognition can spark all sorts of positive vibes into a team. So why do we so rarely do it?

By Darren Caveney

Last week I was fortunate to attend the UK Public Sector Communications Awards and together with a rather brilliant bunch of colleagues pick up an award. It was a reminder of how an award nomination or win can provide a welcome and invigorating dose of feel good factor. A little bit of that loving feeling, even to folks who have been involved in the industry for a long, long time.

I stopped entering awards a few years back for a number of reasons. You don’t need award judges to tell you when you’ve delivered good work, in the same way that you don’t always need a kick up the backside when you know you’ve made a mistake at work. You instinctively know these things and learn from them. But sometimes you work on a project that you know is so good it needs to be shouted about so that your colleagues can receive 15 deserved minutes in the spotlight.

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what’s your best work?

Wow, 20-years. 20 years working in the comms and marketing industry. That’s a good time to reflect on the best bits of work you’ve ever delivered.

By Darren Caveney

Yesterday I had the opportunity to present some day job work to a panel of awards judges. And it got me thinking about what I thought had been my best work ever. The projects which I’d enjoyed most, had delivered the best results, or just given a sense of satisfaction and achievement.

A few sprang to mind...

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winning at the unawards

The inaugural comms2point0 UnAwards were a brilliant opportunity to showcase and celebrate the outstanding comms and digital work which takes place up and down the UK. And whilst you are all winners to us, here is the official winners roll of honour...

by Darren Caveney

Following an inbox-busting 202 entries from 150 organisations, our team of external, independent judges and comms industry experts had a fight on their hands to select the winners, But select they did.

And of course you played your part too in the public vote, which saw us receive almost 2,000 votes.

Social media was simply buzzing with UnAwards chat - in just seven days on Twitter the UnAwards reached 489k accounts with over 2.5m opportunities to see. Just statistcial outputs, of course, but impressive nonetheless.

Here's an UnAwards Storify courtesy of Emma Rodgers.

Huge thanks to everyone who played a part and supported the Unawards. We're keen to get your views on whether we should run them again in 2015 so do get in touch.

Here's the full list of winners:

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#comms20unawards: whats your worst comms of 2014?

So, here we are almost at the end of the year. And what a year it's been. Some good. Some bad. For this comms2point0 unaward category we'd like to look at the really bad comms of the year.

by Dan Slee

Worst comms of the year... that's quite a category to have a crack at.

While the comms2point0 unawards are about celebrating the best we've also held one of the slots back as a kind of therapy session.

It's WORST COMMS OF THE YEAR. Something so bad and so awful that it makes you just knaw your leg off.

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not entered the unawards yet? here’s why you should...

The deadline for the comms2point0 inaugural UnAwards is upon us. November 12 at midnight is the cut-off point. In two minds? Let us persuade you...

by Emma Rodgers

You’ve thought about doing them but you haven’t quite got your act together. Here’s why we really think you should.

It’s super speedy to enter – you only need to write 400 words - you’d probably get that done in 60 minutes. That’s one hour – let me say that again – one hour to potentially win a good old bit of kudos for you, your team or the hard slog that you’ve done

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#comms20unawards: who should win the lifetime achievement award?

There's not long left now until entries to our inaugural UnAwards close. But who should win the tasty Lifetime Achievement award?

by Darren Caveney

When we sat down and came up with a long list of potential UnAward categories we felt that a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award category should be in there somewhere. And when we whittled it down from our long list of 372, down to our final list of 14, we still felt it should be in there.

It’s maybe a slightly funny-sounding award title, and if you think about BAFTAs, OSCARs and such like they seem to go to people who have been around for hundreds of years.

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announcing the comms2point0 unawards

We've been thinking for some time that we are in a rather privileged position in geting to see some of the very best comms and digital work being delivered across the sectors in the UK. So a while back we floated the idea of running some awards to highlight and celebrate the great things we know you do. There was a lot of interest. So, we got our shizzle together and organised some shiny new awards.

by Dan Slee, Darren Caveney & Emma Rodgers

We're rather pleased to be able to announce the comms2point0 UnAwards 2014. And they are going to be held in the ultimate month for celebrations - December.

Now we don’t mean those awards that cost a fortune to enter, require tedious and overly complicated 1,000 word submissions and then see you spending a fortune on attending a formal awards bash. We mean something a little different. Actually, very different.

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announcing the comms2point0 unawards 2013

Okay, who is up for it? We thought it may be an idea to stage our own awards. We'd like you to take part too.

by Dan Slee and Darren Caveney

Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to announce a whole new concept in the idea of comms awards.

Like you we've thought to ourselves about the good work that we've done that will go unheralded and that will never result in us having our picture taken next to a BBC Look North regional news presenter. 

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