Swiss Blog Awards: cool down

OK guys, let's cool down. I'm writing this after many bloggers composed critical  or disappointed  posts and comments around the Swiss blogosphere in the last few days, since the organizers of the first Swiss Blog Awards announced the 14 finalists (5 in each of three categories, with one inexplicably getting a double ticket). "The awards for the friends of the friends" and other such statements have been sent around (there were also more thoughtful words, of course), and some even invited the sponsors to reconsider their support.

(Talking of financial supporters, a bit of disclosure: one of them is Namics, on whose Board I sit).

I've already written the other day about how the award's organizers designed a botched mechanism that, however you turn it, would automatically "exclude" bloggers from the French, Italian and Rumantsch parts of Switzerland from the final round (and indeed, there is none). However, I  believe that it was an oversight, a birth defect. They have recognized it and already committed to correct that in a way or another, transparently, next year (maybe by adopting the "federalist" approach that I suggested, or maybe not).

Ever since I agreed a few weeks ago to be in one of the panels at the May 5 awards ceremony, I've felt a lot of animosity around this event. Some of it is jealousy. Some is plain silliness. The organizers also did a few things that didn't increase their capital of sympathy (I'm told that one of them, for example, strongly asked for a free ticket to the LIFT conference in Geneva last February despite the modest registration fee, and when he was told no - because his request was groundless - he criticized the event on his blog). And some of it is just a reflection of the way this country works: I don't remember who said it (Denis de Rougemont?) but that sentence "the Swiss can live together because they don't understand each other" seems to be still very much actual. Many Swiss-Germans just dislike the Swiss-French, and vice-versa, out of an irrational reflex (and the same applies to the other linguistic groups). It was an interesting clash of realities to follow that discussion online yesterday and then open the Le Temps daily newspaper and read their interview with Beatrice Stoll, director of the Literaturhaus in Zurich:

Original version: "Les relations entre les deux parties du pays sont souvent entachées de préjugés malsains. Qui sont là parce qu'on ne veut pas les reconsidérer. Avec des manifestations comme celle-là nous pouvons aussi briser des barrières".
English subtitles: "The relations between the two parts of the country are often tinged with deleterious biases. They keep existing just because we are not willing to reconsider them. Events like this can help break these barriers".

Of course, Beatrice was not referring to the Blog Awards ceremony, but to a series of literature and poetry conferences featuring writers from different parts of the country that the Literaturhaus and its partners are putting together. But the same applies to the bloggy thing.

Let's be serious and modest for a moment. Most awards are gadgets. They're often not representative and the result of a fragile selection process. In 1995 I won the Swiss Media Award (that's a national prize for journalists covering technology) for a series of articles about the early days of the Web and how it was changing people's lives. For a moment I thought that my stories had been selected because they were just the best. They were good articles, certainly deserving of the award. But maybe, just maybe, they were not the best stories. There are many other elements that concur with the quality of the work in determining who gets an award, as I discovered over the years after I was invited to join the SMA's jury (I'm still a member of it). And that's true even for the best-designed awards, run by careful people (such as the SMA): timing, formats, process, zeitgeist, the quality of the competition at that specific moment in time (there used to be an Italian top skier a while back who was fabulous, but always ended up taking second place: he had the bad luck of skiing in the same years as phenomenal Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, who was just so much better than anyone else - and now Stenmark is still an icon among ski fans while nobody remembers the Italian guy's name, including me, although he was a truly great and deserving skier - see what I mean?) to communication (some works are just not entered into the award competition because the author or the publisher didn't know about it) and so on.

So, awards are necessarily imperfect (all of them, not only blog awards). But if awards multiply it's because they serve some purposes. Thinking generally, three in particular emerge. 1) the explicit purpose: to recognize achievement or excellence within a category or a group (think of the Oscar or the Pulitzer or the Nobel); 2) the implicit: to help define the contours of that group (this applies particularly to nascent communties of still-uncertain status and profile - like bloggers); 3) the unadvertised: to help give some credentials to the organizers or the hosts of the awards and make them "power brokers" and "connectors" within that group.

So all awards should be taken with a grain of salt, including this one. Are the 14 blogs selected for the final round of the Swiss Blog Awards really the best Swiss blogs? Clearly not. But they are good and deserving blogs, and could convince more people to nominate them within the scope of the given selection process (by the way, the organizers did not say how many votes the finalists received - for the sake of transparency, they should release those figures, right after the award ceremony so that the vote of the attendees doesn't get influenced). On May 8, when the jury of the other Swiss blog prize (the Souris d'or) will announce its nominees, we will see the obvious: a different process leads to a different outcome. I agree with what Pascal Rossini inspiredly wrote: "The best blogs are those that match our individual needs and passions". 

That said, I side with Beatrice Stoll and believe that the awards event in Bienne on May 5 is worth attending - to help "break those barriers". That's the goal of other events I'm involved in organizing (Swiss Talents for Innovation, for example). That's why I've invited the coordinators of the "Bloggy Fridays" in Lausanne (same evening) to convene instead in Biel/Bienne (the awards organizers did at least one thing perfectly: they chose a bilingual city for the event, and asked every speaker to speak his/her language), and people from Geneva to Lugano (the non-German areas of Switzerland) to do the same.

[tags: blogospherahelvetica Swiss Blog Awards]

Comments

[Alex Osterwalder]

To some extent I think the gap between French and German speaking Switzerland is exaggerated and hyped by the media. I lived and studied in Lausanne (French-speaking) with a lot of other people from the German-speaking part of the country and I never really lived any (cultural or personal) tension. However, it is true that I resent that in many Swissgerman media articles they speak of Switzerland while they actually only write about the Swiss German part of Switzerland (e.g. articles on Swiss housing prices, hotels, etc.). Well, now I live in Thailand and live an entirely different story ;-)

[Matthias]

Let's make it a gender issue, too: There's only one woman nominated. Or a xenophobia issue: They clearly excluded foreigners on purpose! Good lord, the committee must be racist: All the nominees are White Caucasian, they excluded all the other human races!

What I'm trying to say here: This has absolutely nothing to do with Swiss Germans "excluding" anybody, this has absolutely nothing to do with demographics. Or should I feel insulted because there are no 39-year-old, part-time-working parents of four children among the nominees? I guess I should. Sheesh. Get a grip and stop the whining already.

[Matthias]

P.S.: I'll do some Yoga breathing now :-).

[Steph]

Bruno, I agree with what you say here. In particular, I'm totally convinced that there was no "evil design" in the way things were planned and went along.

However, I'm not entirely with you (for the moment) when you say the organizers have recognized the mistake in their nomination process ("They have recognized it and already committed to correct that in a way or another, transparently, next year...")

When I hear Jan say this:

"the linguisic majority argument does not hold up imho. not at all, i must say. of course swiss germans are the numeric majority in this country. but lets have a look at bloggers and things look quite different."

"i am therefore still convinced, that had the a-list romandie bloggers pulled in their weight and mobilised their readers via their blogs we might easily look at quite a different picture right now, with 4 of the 5 being from romandie/ticino. and that would have been fine according to our approach."

I get the feeling he is laying the blame on the French/Italian-speaking bloggers themselves. If they did not get nominated, it is not because of a botched mechanism, but because we didn't do what we should have to be nominated.

I hope I'm over-interpreting Jan's comment about this, but for the moment I don't see the SBAW taking responsability for the linguistic disbalance in the nominees.

[Steph]

Sorry, forgot the link to Jan's comment I'm citing:

http://swissblogawards.ch/2006/04/25/and-the-nominees-are-best-swiss-blog/#comment-790

[Matthias]

"taking responsability for the linguistic disbalance in the nominees"

I have a very long list of other disbalances here (fair warning: satire)
http://blog.ch/blog/archives/2006/04/28/sbaw-sprach-und-frauenquote/

I had to retire from the team because of time constraints. That's why I'm not complaining even though there are a zillion things that could have been done better - with more people, more money, more time. But there weren't more people, there wasn't more money, there wasn't more time. All those people who are now wildly complaining about how things turned out should have joined the SBAW team months ago and put in as many hours as they did. A LOT of hours, that is. Are you up to the job next year, or will you twiddle your thumbs and start the blame game again after the fact?

Sorry. I guess I really should be more diplomatic. But seeing people complain after they did practically NOTHING to support the Award just pisses me off. I apologize for any inconvenience or emotional distress this comment may cause :-).

[Steph]

Matt: I'm not sure I get you right, here. Are you saying that if one does not have the time or energy to get involved in the organisation of an event, then that person loses his/her right to complain about it?

[jan zuppinger]

"I get the feeling he is laying the blame on the French/Italian-speaking bloggers themselves. If they did not get nominated, it is not because of a botched mechanism, but because we didn't do what we should have to be nominated."
yes, this is what i am saying, although i would express it in different words, and you did quote me here, so no need to repeat myself. however i dont think i was "blaming" anyone, but merely pointing out one further possible explanation here. i am convinced that if things turned out the way they did, it's because of a variety of reasons. but fact is, it only did work in the swiss german part of this country, because the A-Listers did participate and did mobilise their readership.

[Matthias]

Yes, Steph, that's what I am saying. You guys didn't have the energy to make this event a success, but all of a sudden you have a lot of energy to make sure the SBAW goes bankrupt and is boycotted by the Romands. I am very disappointed.

[Steph]

Pardon me, Matt? Where do you see me asking people to boycott the event?

If I were you I'd go and read this comment http://annedominique.wordpress.com/2006/04/28/occasions-sociales-fondues-et-autres-amenagements/#comment-97 I left yesterday encouraging Swiss French bloggers to be present at the SBAW, instead of drawing hasty conclusions about my position on all this.

And for the record, I don't support the request that was made to sponsors to withdraw support.

[jan zuppinger]

personal: i write here as jan zuppinger the individual, not jan zuppinger the organiser of the Swiss Blog Awards. what i am about to say is my personal opinion, and not at all the one of the organising comitee.

The organizers also did a few things that didn't increase their capital of sympathy (I'm told that one of them, for example, strongly asked for a free ticket to the LIFT conference in Geneva last February despite the modest registration fee, and when he was told no - because his request was groundless - he lambasted the event on his blog).

this is a rather vague statement, one that in its vagueness implicates the whole organising comitee of the swiss blog awards. my primary goal here then is to clear the name of the other guys in the OK. you may have guessed it, i am the "one of them" mentioned here. there was in fact a conflict between me and laurent haug in january of this year. a conflict that we were later able to settle over beers. it always takes at least two parties to create a conflict and i think when we hashed it out we were both able to acknowledge our sides of the conflict. so i am truely not sure why the issuse had to be brought up at all.

additionally, what is expressed here regarding this conflict is not correct. and it is not fair. i never lambasted (the word was changed since to "critisised" by the author) LIFT. i critisised its pricing policy, true, but i also pointed out its good sides.

most importantly, i never did so BECAUSE i did not get a free ticket. i criticised it, because it is my honest opinion, an opinion that i believe i should be free to voice. we do not live in gang-land after all. or do we? i am starting to have my doubts. the implication seems to be, that i "lambasted" the event in order to receive a free ticket after all. but that is not the case. on the contrary, i fully accepted that i would not receive a free ticket and moaned about it on my blog, which i believe i have every right to do.

it is my strong conviction, that events like LIFT should be free or at the very least be affordable to all; they should be financed by public funding and we live in a country where it is extermely easy to find public funding. at any rate, i could not afford to attend LIFT, and that is of course why i asked for a free ticket to begin with. what i asked for is an accreditation in exchange for blogging the event. i consider this to be a fair request. it was denied. nevermind and fully accepoted. but it would also mean i could not afford to attend. so i cleared my throat on my blog. point finale.

in other words, what giussani presents here is an interpretation of what happened, it is biased and it is based on hear-say "i am told..."; in that it is slanderous - hardly what you'd expect from an award-winning and internationally acclaimed journalist.

furthermore giussani uses this slanderous interpretation of a conflict that has long since been settled among those concerened, meaning laurent and me, to argue a point. he yet again points fingers at the failures and shortcomings of the organisers of the swiss blog awards and he does so in no subtle terms. and all this under the guise of wanting to "cool down" things?

please...

i, jan zuppinger, the individual, quite apart from the organising comitee of the swiss blog awards, believe it was a huge mistake to invite giussani as an expert to our award ceremony. experts should be at least capabable of something assembling objectivity.

[why do i react only now? i first tried to discuss this issue in an email exchange with giussani. when giussani did not edit his post i needed to take it public]

[jan zuppinger]

personal: i write here as jan zuppinger the individual, not jan zuppinger the organiser of the Swiss Blog Awards. what i am about to say is my personal opinion, and not at all the one of the organising comitee.

"The organizers also did a few things that didn't increase their capital of sympathy (I'm told that one of them, for example, strongly asked for a free ticket to the LIFT conference in Geneva last February despite the modest registration fee, and when he was told no - because his request was groundless - he lambasted the event on his blog)."

this is a rather vague statement, one that in its vagueness implicates the whole organising comitee of the swiss blog awards. my primary goal here then is to clear the name of the other guys in the OK. you may have guessed it, i am the "one of them" mentioned here. there was in fact a conflict between me and laurent haug in january of this year. a conflict that we were later able to settle over beers. it always takes at least two parties to create a conflict and i think when we hashed it out we were both able to acknowledge our sides of the conflict. so i am truely not sure why the issuse had to be brought up at all.

additionally, what is expressed here regarding this conflict is not correct. and it is not fair. i never lambasted (the word was changed since to "critisised" by the author) LIFT. i critisised its pricing policy, true, but i also pointed out its good sides.

most importantly, i never did so BECAUSE i did not get a free ticket. i criticised it, because it is my honest opinion, an opinion that i believe i should be free to voice. we do not live in gang-land after all. or do we? i am starting to have my doubts. the implication seems to be, that i "lambasted" the event in order to receive a free ticket after all. but that is not the case. on the contrary, i fully accepted that i would not receive a free ticket and moaned about it on my blog, which i believe i have every right to do.

it is my strong conviction, that events like LIFT should be free or at the very least be affordable to all; they should be financed by public funding and we live in a country where it is extermely easy to find public funding. at any rate, i could not afford to attend LIFT, and that is of course why i asked for a free ticket to begin with. what i asked for is an accreditation in exchange for blogging the event. i consider this to be a fair request. it was denied. nevermind and fully accepoted. but it would also mean i could not afford to attend. so i cleared my throat on my blog. point finale.

in other words, what giussani presents here is an interpretation of what happened, it is biased and it is based on hear-say "i am told..."; in that it is slanderous - hardly what you'd expect from an award-winning and internationally acclaimed journalist.

furthermore giussani uses this slanderous interpretation of a conflict that has long since been settled among those concerened, meaning laurent and me, to argue a point. he yet again points fingers at the failures and shortcomings of the organisers of the swiss blog awards and he does so in no subtle terms. and all this under the guise of wanting to "cool down" things?

please...

i, jan zuppinger, the individual, quite apart from the organising comitee of the swiss blog awards, believe it was a huge mistake to invite giussani as an expert to our award ceremony. experts should be at least capabable of something assembling objectivity.

[why do i react only now? i first tried to discuss this issue in an email exchange with giussani. when giussani did not edit his post i needed to take it public]

[BG]

This thing is getting totally out of hand, even more so for a post titled "cool down"... So just a few lines on the above, which actually answers itself, and then I won't address it anymore.
So here we have someone who claims his right to voice his critical "honest opinion" on his blog but believes others should be denied that right. Someone who worked entrepreneurially with his partners launching a national award (and they worked hard) but believes that the first task of entrepreneurs should be to get government subsidies and give away their product for free. And so on.
Let me also point out that the person in question was never named nor linked in my posts or comments, so he exposed himself voluntarily. Moreover, the disputed statement was not just hearsay, as I unfortunately implied when I wrote "I'm told" (a way to put it gently): as a member of the advisory board of the LIFT conference I had access to the information. Finally, a small info that the person in question didn't put in his comment: over the weekend he sent me an e-mail threatening me with legal action.
Maybe that would be a good idea, actually, so we could test for the first time in Swiss courts the limits of what can be said on blogs (although this would be a very weak case for something like that).
So what bothers him seems to be the "causality": the idea that he criticized the LIFT conference because he was denied the free ticket. Fine, let's take away the "because", and expose only the naked facts, in the name of "something resembling objectivity":
- on December 22, 2005 the person requests a free ticket to LIFT in the form of an accreditation in exchange to blogging the conference;
- the request is denied: this is a conference of bloggers and many of them will blog it, if everyone gets in for free who pays for the lunches and the auditorium and the wi-fi?
- on December 27, 2005 a post appears on the person's blog criticizing the conference (and, yes, also saying nice things like: they will have interesting speakers)
Again, this is just a chronology, not a causality.
OK, enough with this childish stuff, I've a long to-do list to attend to, including preparing for speaking at the Swiss Blog Awards on Friday.

[Matthias]

OK, colour me stupid, but why did you mention this LIFT'06 thing at all? What did it have to do with the Swiss Blog Awards in the first place? Just curious :-).

[Pascal Rossini]

Je ne comprends pas trop ce déchainement de passions et reglements de comptes autour d'une manifestation dont l'importance est très marginale par rapport à l'actualité en général. Sans doute est-ce un vieux débat national qui fait sourire à l'ère de la mondialisation, de l'internetisation et des ...blogs. Qui se souviendra des blogs primés dans six mois, personne, d'autres vont se créer, encore meilleurs, certains vont disparaitre.

Laissez-les en paix élire le meilleur blog dont la durée de notoriété sera aussi éphémère qu'une luciole.

[RDensi]

Matthias: maybe the Pulizer wouldn't be what it is if it was organized by Fox News... ;-)