One golden morning, a notification from CIRA (Canadian Internet Registry Assocation; cira.ca) was brought to my attention! In it laid the general guidelines for contestants to create a video that 'showed off' their .CA website. I skimmed thru it quickly to find the prizes...macbook, Ipod Touch, Flip Camcorder...who couldn't use one of those...?? I promptly organized a staff meeting, thinking, this was something we could do! What's not to love about rusticbenches.ca?? At the staff meeting, the 4 year old apprentice decided that he would be the star of the show - noone argued and a basic idea was hatched.
To make that part of the story shorter, see the end result here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlCrpPnrb9g
Suffice to say that it took a few hours over a couple of days ... we are amateurs, recorded it on a digital camera, have no knowledge of editing and/or editing software, but crashed the internet and manuals for basic information and put together what we thought was a solid effort for our skills. Clearly, we are woodworking artists and not video artists!
So, we entered the contest and patiently waited to see if we would get on the shortlist....NOT! Probably not even close. Seriously, some of the videos submitted were absolutely beautiful and creative - and some were real DUDS, and I'm not even talking about OURS! We were disappointed, but still went to work the next day....
In looking at all the videos, I came across one in particular - that actually made the shortlist, that I liked (and I didn't like many of the others except dringdring.ca), but for some reason, within a few minutes I saw that the entry was WITHDRAWN. First thought was, "how do we get that spot", and the second thought was, "what happened?" .. so clever, as I am - I asked! (not for the spot, but, what happened?) CIRA and the author both answered, surprisingly, because I thought my question would just hang out there in internet land. And, the answer made sense to me. Why do people have to enter all their information just to vote for the winner - why can't they have a choice : VOTE OR VOTE + ENTRY. The author didn't want to mobilize her troops, requiring them to give over their lifestory just to show support for her video. I praised her for her integrity .. I might not have even thought about it, I was so focused on the PRIZEs! Not soon after, I noticed a new fan on our facebook and twitter spots...very kindly appreciating the work of rusticbenches.ca and telling her friends!
Karma. End of Story. Karma rules.
You can choose to enter the contest here : showusyour.ca
