The AIMIA Awards - a thinly disguised funding drive?

I got an email this morning advising me that the 13th Annual AIMIA Awards was now open to entries and suggesting I should enter TPN. A quick read of the terms and conditions of entry brings up this: "You must be an AIMIA Business, Corporate, Associate or Student member to enter the awards." The price to become a small business member? $660 + GST. The awards claim to be "Celebrating the very best in digital content innovation across all genres and interactive media platforms, the AIMIA Awards showcase the industry’s finest" but I'm not sure this is legitimate. I can't afford to spend $660 on being a member. So TPN can't even apply. I'm sure there are other Aussie internet start-ups which would find better ways to spend their $660 as well. If I'd raised Podshow-style $24 million, then perhaps I could afford it. Sounds to me like the "awards" are a thinly-disguised membership recruiting and funding drive.

Comments

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Maybe you should pull your sock pupet out of the draw and ask him! Hes on the board of AIMIA:
http://www.splatt.com.au/blog/archives/2006/06/aimia_board_results.html
;-)
Molly

[Angus Scown]

Cam, this is like many professional bodies. I am involved with both the Spatial Sciences Industry (SSI) and Australian Computing Society (ACS) and they both require you to be a member to win any 'industry wide' awards.

When I spoke with SSI about this it does seem a chicken and the egg problem. How do you get your awards to be seen of value if you can just buy membership and then nominate (at a fee). How do you get people to be involved in industry associations when they are flat out doing business?

We took the view that the awards are not for start ups. They are for established businesses who can afford to see the longer term benefit in being a member of industry associations. Nothing wrong with that, just wish they would advertise it as a 'best of our member's awards' rather than 'industry wide'.

It all depends on if you want to advertise within your industry or to a wider audience.

[Cameron Reilly]

Angus, seems to me then that these awards don't really recognise their "industry" but the "membership" and pretending that they recognise the "industry" is really a bit of false advertising? And any technology industry awards, which doesn't allow start-ups to get nominated, really seems a bit lame, especially seeing as most of the innovation comes from the start-ups.

[Rob Irwin]

I helped represent AIMIA in a PR context for a couple of years and IIRC my time on the account, there was over 500 companies and several thousand people involved, so it was a pretty decent "chunk" of the industry being reflected, it wasn't like a dozen people in a room handing each other gongs or something, Cam.

The issue you face here, however, is a real one. You're not really suited to the student or individual categories, but the business category seems to be a stretch. Now, as the jump between an individual and a business is so large (both financially and, I believe, AIMIA defines a business as a SME), perhaps there is room to petition for an SMB category instead?

My contacts within AIMIA are still probably quite sound. Would you like an introduction to do just that? Put forward a case that a categoiry exists between individual and SME?

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob... thanks for the offer mate, but I've got bigger things to worry about.

[Rob Irwin]

No problem, always happy to lend a hand if it comes up again... get you talking direct to the CEO, etc.