On Thursday night, the MacEwan School of Business Marketing Team won an Capital Award of Excellence for our magazine called  ‘Aspire’ from IABC Edmonton.

IABC is short for the International Association of Business Communicators, and is a very healthy organization in Edmonton. I have been involved with the association for many years, two of which on the board as the events coordinator. I have always wanted to win a Capital Award, but never felt my work would make the ‘cut’.

The whole team was out for the event — together at this event for the first time. When we entered the magazine, I thought for sure we would win an Award of Merit. Looking at all the submissions, and sitting in the audience seeing the calibre of projects winning Awards of Merit, I was a little worried we wouldn’t win at all. I so wanted my team to feel proud of the work they had done, and I really wanted them to come out to the event next year. No win, and I’d never see the whole team together at this event again.

When they got to our category of ‘ongoing tactics’, and our name was not on the screen for Award of Merit, I was a little crushed. Yes, I swore a little under my breath. Ah well, there’s always next year. Until the slide changed and there we were.

Congratulations to my team: Laura England, Stevo Basara, Jackie Paley with great guidance from the experts at Venture Publishing.

We love our shiny award.

I’ve dedicated this day to the art of the blog. As this is my first blog, please excuse my obvious lack of blogging skills.

I mean, I’ve got questions. What makes an interesting blog? Why blog?

I love the fact that ANYONE can now be published. I’ve always wanted to be published. Got a few articles I’ve been meaning to submit. I guess you have to actually submit them, though to be published. KInda like buying a lottery ticket to be able to win.

But I’ve always wanted to be published in “The Beaver”. That’s actually Canada’s history magazine — not what you might have been thinking.

But back to why blog? I’m actually blogging today as a social media experiment. I do marketing for Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, Alberta. We’ve got a bunch of students out today blogging as part of a contest. It’s called MacEwan Blog Camp. You can check this out at macewanblogcamp.ca – go online and vote for your favourite blog!

The winners can walk away with a great MacBook. Man, there are students here who can really use that — I wish I could give one to everyone.