Celebrating Excellence in AOL Journaling

Sunday, November 9, 2003

Subject: AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE
Time: 8:12:10 PM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

The original plan was to try and fashion the announcement of the winners after an awards show with a host and presenters. Since the voting results were viewable until the polls closed yesterday, there was no mystery of the emerging winners. I do have a snapshot of the poll results as they stood very early this morning. One race was so tight that there was barely one percent point between the top two journals.

It was exactly a month ago today that the idea for the awards was posted. The acceptance, support and fun have been phenomenal. It would take many paragraphs to thank everyone for all that has been contributed for this idea to become an event. Congratulations to the semifinalists. It was hard to narrow the choices down to one winner. Congratulations to the entire AOL Journal Community. I'd like to steal a quote from the author of On Whining Well. When I saw this in his journal entry today, I nodded in agreement as I read it:
"... this little community which is beginning to take on all the elements of living in a small town where everyone knows a little something about everyone else. It is very warm..."

Click here to view the list of finalists in this first member based awards program to celebrate excellence in AOL Journals.

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Subject: WHEW!
Time: 2:53:26 PM CST
Author: viviansullinwank
Mood: Happy
Music: ...the sounds of the sighs of relief!

Please join me in congratulating our winners by clicking on the green text to open the cards."It's time to celebrate and to say bravo!

The names of the finalists will be posted shortly!

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Saturday, November 8, 2003

Subject: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words!
Time: 9:10:35 PM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

And while I'm on the subject of pictures I just saw that five of our people's choice awards semifinalists have also recently been featured by the AOL You've Got Pictures (YGP) Community Leader in her blog. Check it out:

Andrea, Slo and Mia were amongst her picks for October 27th. Marica Ellen and Steven were amongst her picks for October 20th.

Congratulations to these five people's choice awards semifinalists on those YGP kudos!

TIME IS RUNNING OUT...if you haven't voted yet for the member-based awards program to recognize excellence in AOL journals!"

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Friday, November 7, 2003

Subject: COUNTDOWN!
Time: 11:55:28 AM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

Wow it's hard to believe the poll will close tomorrow! If you're planning to but haven't voted yet, I hope you can make up your mind by 11:59 pm Pacific time Saturday! What a fast week it has been. What a fast month it has been since the idea of the awards was first suggested.

I want to thank the awesome team that has lent their time and talent to make this such a wonderful event.

His1Desire

Slowmotionlife

AndreaKingme

gvpinnc

Franj1fla

Sepintx

I also want to thank everyone in this community and outside of it who has participated, supported, complimented and commented about the awards. There are a couple of things left to do. So please watch for more names added to the list within the next couple of days :)

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Subject: Another LOOK at the semifinalists and their work!
Time: 2:09:50 AM CST
Author: viviansullinwank
Mood: Happy

Unless you're new to this event, then you know who the semifinalists are for these awards. Hopefully you've also seen each of their awesome journals. Now, thanks to the talent and kindness of one of the nominees for Best Photography, you can take another look at each journalist! We're pleased to present the official pictures of each of the nominees! Please click on the View Larger link to view them.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Subject: Nominees take a stand voters speak out!
Time: 8:40:38 AM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

Wow I wrote previously that I wanted these awards to have some of the elements of the traditional awards we've seen on TV for years. Well, I'm more than getting my wish! Two of the nominees have said they're stepping down and encouraging everyone to vote for their competition. But according to the comments in those two journals, the voters demand their right to vote their heart and not have their options limited! Go voters!J!

Well, this is the people's choice awards for the best in AOL Journals! The people are making their wishes known!!JJ! Boy, I love the energy out here!! There is a lot of...how did SloMo put it...a lot of 'pimping' going on JJJ I've seen some really great self campaigning... Insight32 is even hypnotizing us J and I've seen some great journal entries and journal comments where people are supporting and 'sporting' their favorites!

Including today, there are 4 days left to vote. Who knows what will happen next!?! What a race! To the awards official photographer who has been clicking away, and the to the awards official graphics designer who is preparing to 'engrave' the winners info on each 'trophy'.....keep the camera clicking and keep the chisel going..the race is on and the heat is on!J To all of the voters.....vote your hearts...this is the people's choice awards J "

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Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Subject: What these awards are really all about. Part 1 of 2 parts.
Time: 8:52:21 AM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

We're trying to make the awards an enjoyable event that is fun and easy for everyone to participate in. The voting process is now going through its third iteration. Perhaps because this is the final poll it is drawing more interest and/or being looked at much more closely. The poll is a free application that receives and tabulates results.

Because it is free, it does not have all of the bells and whistles of a paid service. I wish we could say the results are always immediate and I wish we could say the poll is perfect. But even sophisticated voting networks like the ones this country uses for the presidential elections are flawed...the media took us in depth with that in the last election!!

While the experiments in previous polls have shown that the person voting will be able to view the immediate results, this poll was not set up to accommodate people simply trying to check to see what the current results are .. it is believed that if a person is constantly revisiting the results page simply to view them, that the system will bring up the results from the last time they checked .. or perhaps it merely takes up to 15 minutes for someone not voting, to view the results.

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Subject: What these awards are really all about. Part 2 of 2 parts.
Time: 8:52:00 AM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

The free polls are set up with a "results page" visible only to the creator of the poll .. it immediately tabulates any and all votes received. So I can only ask everyone to try and be patient and to keep in mind that this is supposed to be fun. One change was already made to show percentage of votes as opposed to number of votes because the perception of having to say 'I got 20 percent of the vote' instead of having to say 'I got 2 votes' seemed to be more digestible. The voting is a halfway through. The results may change since there are undoubtedly some people who haven't voted...new people are hearing about this daily!

What I had hoped everyone would take away from this is an opportunity to recognize the awesome journals in our community and find a way to say 'job well done.' We won't make any further changes to the poll..we'll just let it work the way it is designed. This is the first initiative of its kind in the AOL journal community. It is experiencing its growing pains like any new thing. Please don't expect perfection from it. But please do continue to expect it to be the enjoyable experience it has proven to be. Voting is part of this process but just a small part. The heart of it is recognition and fun!

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Saturday, November 1, 2003

Subject: We all have our own views. The People's Awards Celebrity Columnist is no different!
Time: 6:28:23 PM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

Even though cyberspace is not 3 dimensional, there's still an effort to add some elements to this member-based awards program that are normally present in real life awards programs. It can be very interesting sometimes to see what'is written about the nominees, their work/crafts and the general mood leading up to, and throughout an awards event. This awards event is no exception. We're trying to clean it up a bit..we don't want to use the term gossip columnist..so..Andrea Kingme is the celebrity columnist for the people's journal awards.

She'll be writing about the nominees all of whom are celebrities in the AOL Journal Community. You never know what she'll say, what or who she'll write about...so be on your best cyber-behavior and in your best cyber-clothes....you know how they like to rag on what the celebrities are wearing. Hmmm there just might be a celebrity photographer as well.

As you read through this journal, please note that everything in GREEN is a link. Please click each green word/sentence and/or paragraph you see. We don't want you to miss any web pages, blogs or music that may have been linked in (to get around the 2500 text limit) .

There are lots of hyperlinks throughout Andrea's gossip (on no I forgot we don't gossip in here)...well lots of her stories will be behind the links...so don't miss anything. The color green means click! Below is a 5 part story/article/column written by our own celebrity writer--OK take it away Andrea!

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Subject: Part 1 of 5 (written by Andrea posted by Vivian)
Time: 6:26:50 PM CST
Author: viviansullinwank

It's the dawn of a new day and the poll hasn't even been open for 24 hours yet. Do you know where your Best New Journalist is? This category is pitting two men, one who is currently on strike, one who is uncharacteristically quiet today, against a woman. Will freedom win out over silence?

The Best Photography category is one where the Journalers might have let their pictures do the talking for them. But what fun would that be, especially when one of the contenders has monk-like tendencies another proclaims humble surprise at other's interests, and the third is focused on homespun humor and warmth?

http://journals.aol.com/xzasporated1/RandomRamblings/
http://journals.aol.com/journalsrock/JournalsRock/
http://journals.aol.com/journalsrock/flagproject/

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