The ANDY awards to use crowdsourcing for electing jury

Under the direction of the 2010 co-chairs Ty Montague, co-president and chief creative officer of JWT North America, and Michael Lebowitz, founder and CEO of digital agency Big Spaceship, The International ANDY Awards will crowdsource their jury selection process for the first time. 

The launch of www.electthejury.com marks the opening of the jury selection process that allows the community to vote. The jury voting process closes on Nov. 15, and the ANDYs will announce the final jury selections soon after.  

A statement from the organisers says that the goal of Montague and Lebowitz for the ANDY Awards is “to expand its international scope to represent the best and brightest minds in storytelling, creative technology, big ideas and experience design.”

“Communications platforms have gotten so complex and advertising is going through unprecedented change because of it. But one of the things that hasn’t changed is the way that awards shows work. Our mission is to get more people from different disciplines actively involved in figuring out who decides what the best work in 2010 is,” said Montague.

Key among the objectives for the 2010 ANDYs includes increasing the number of digital creative leaders on the jury, expanding its digital communications capabilities, and developing new categories that allow for highly innovative work to be submitted.  “We felt that a truer evaluation of the work would be to pull people in with different perspectives from outside the advertising business. Our hope is that people will see this as an opportunity and feel compelled to participate,” commented Lebowitz. 
The first deadline to submit work for jury consideration is November 20, 2009.