We're an Adobe Max Award Winner!
October 7, 2009 2:47 PM
We did it! Well, actually, YOU did it! The community of SmallWorlds rose up and spoke with a collective voice... and spoke really rather loud! Yes, the news is out:
SmallWorlds: Winner of the Social Computing Category
Adobe Max Awards!
In this year's Adobe Max Award competition, more than 450 entries were received from business, creative and application development professionals worldwide. The top 32 entries across all eight categories were identified as finalists by a panel of Adobe judges and industry experts. It goes without saying that we're extremely proud of the kudos we get as a result of our win. It means a lot to the whole SmallWorlds team to have their collective skill recognized by the industry. Being picked as a semi-finalist was an achievement in itself; the panel of judges are a well-respected and knowledgeable lot and to get on their shortlist definitely says something very positive about SmallWorlds and we were well pleased to be picked as one of the final four in the Social Computing category.
But for us, the real triumph has been the way in which the SmallWorlds community has come in to support us. It's this and this alone which has lead to this outcome. To all who took the time to cast your vote, thank you so much! It means a lot to us all. The whole team is walking around with giant unwipeable smiles on their faces, and feeling like the SW team just grew a whole lot bigger. We create this game, but it very much belongs to the community. In voting for SmallWorlds, you were voting for 'your place', one of your homes on the web. Keep reading to find out how to get your very own Crystal Star trophy - our way of saying thanks!
Ted Tagami - Our man on the ground at the awardsVP of Business Development for SmallWorlds, Ted Tagami, was on location in Los Angeles to accept the award on behalf of us all. He's spent the past two days at the Adobe Max event, representing SmallWorlds, seeing (and being seen by!) some of the top apps currently in the web space. Here's a photo of Ted accepting the award, on stage with none other than Mark Hamill of Star Wars / Luke Skywalker fame! You can see Ted receiving the award - he did a triumphant fist punch in the air and shouted out "SmallWorlds!"
Here's a short message from Ted:"A big shout out to all artists, engineers, and SmallWorlds citizens! I felt so proud to have represented SmallWorlds at the Adobe MAX awards ceremony. It became crystal clear from our first night at the show that we have developed a truly unique and engaging rich application that our industry peers both admire and adore. SmallWorlds was competing against some great applications, but in the end it was the SmallWorlds community who came through for us.
Chatting with other Flash and Flex developers I have begun to realize that the 'everywhere-ness' of the Adobe suite of tools enables SmallWorlds to easily collaborate with other developers, agencies, brands, and media companies. Our future looks bright. An exciting time indeed!"
Here's another shot from the event - look at that huge audience!
A few words from co-founder Mitch Olson
I managed to catch up with SmallWorlds co-founder Mitch Olson to get his reaction to the news. (Darren Green is currently away on a well deserved holiday but we heard that the mile wide smile has found its way to his face also!)
I'm absolutely thrilled for SmallWorlds to have been selected as a winner in the Social Computing category of the Adobe MAX awards against such stiff competition.
The words "Social" and "Computing" encapsulate the elements that make up our success. First of all a world-class team of Computing professionals who together create magic each and every day in the creative expression of their expertise. A big thank you to our fabulous team of artists, developers, operations personnel, journalists, support staff, producers, accountants, business development execs and the awesome crew of Moderators and Helpers.
And to our community of super SmallWorlds citizens who put the "Social" in "Social Computing"; a great big "thank you" to you all. This award would not have been possible without you. Thank you so much for coming and hanging out with us in SmallWorlds and for your passion and creativity and generosity - and of course votes - all of which are an integral part of our shared success today. SmallWorlds FTW!
Reactions from the SW Community
After news of the win came through I got right to work on this story. My excitement all got a bit much for me and so I had to put the story down for a while; I went off to Rachels Tea rooms to relax and cool my head a little! I had a simply lovely time in there chatting with lots of SmallWorlds citizens about our exciting win. Of course, I had my trusty notebook with me and took down a few comments to share with you:
Chalk Dust: "Wow, that's really good news! We won because SmallWorlds is amazing. The community really enjoys the game and likes supporting it!"
Tigerz Stripes:"SmallWorlds won cos it is by far the best game out there and I am so very excited for the team for achieving this huge milestone."
Count Big Bob the 5th: "I think its a great achievement for the whole of SmallWorlds! Lots of hard work well rewarded"
Blane Black: "I think this Adobe win is is the most exciting thing that's happened to SmallWorlds!"
Yes, there's a lot of excitement out there from the SmallWorlds community. Its a real time to celebrate for us all!
Get your very own Crystal Star Trophy!
Well citizens, there we have it. A true achievement for SmallWorlds as a business, and one which says something really important about SmallWorlds as a community - a community that knows how to band together and achieve something great!
Because we believe that this trophy belongs to us all, we've got a special item we'd like to gift to you all! If you make a visit to the Max Award Winner! space, you'll find a really easy mission in there called "WINNER of Adobe MAX Award". Complete it, and you'll receive your very own Crystal Star Award trophy - a crystal award for excellence. Its our way of saying thanks so much!
One trophy per SmallWorlds account.We look forward to continuing on this journey with you all on board. We just love continually improving SmallWorlds, making it better and better so that you want to keep on playing.
I'm off to give a little shine to my trophy once again. Thanks to you all!
~ Kent Kronkite
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Topic: 10/8/2009 We're an Adobe Max Award Winner! (Read 5443 times)