Darrell and I just got back from what is surely a highlight of each of our 10 year + Internet careers, in New York City at the 2007 Webby Awards. We were there with our client, the United Nations Foundation, whose Nothing But Nets project has now become a model for not just how the UN wants to run its other campaigns but is used by many of my senior colleagues as an example of how best to tell stories, build community, engage people, and raise money ($6.4M and counting so far) online. The night was amazing, and we are all so proud.
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Naturally, we took lots of photos from the big apple and the gala parties (there were 3) themselves. They cover highlights of the evening, and our favourite memories were meeting other leaders and luminaries from our industry I can’t tell the whole story without starting with some celebrity sitings. Our fav’s were: watching the Beastie Boys on stage try to figure out what to say, seeing LonelyGirl_15 introduce Chad and Steve, co-founders of YouTube (and partying with them later), the Onion’s fake newsreel about the impacts of the whole Internet going down, and seeing David Bowie’s still shiny suit, straight out of the 80’s. He was cute.
The major highlight for me was meeting and dancing with our wonderful clients at the UN Foundation – for the first time! Shannon Raybold was great when she accepted the award, her 5 word speech was memorable "Malaria Kills. Nets Save Lives" (what’s a 5 word speech? ). We also hung with Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com (a 3 1/2 year old enviro blog that now has 1.2M visitors per month!), and fellow winners (andWeb of Changers) Matt Thompson and Andrew Boyd of "SaveTheInternet.com".
We’ll post more photos, stories, and commentary over the next few weeks. For now, it’s back to work after some very fun days in steamy NYC.
