KickApps & Ovation TV Win SAMMY Award

Ovation TV and KickApps won the SAMMY Award for Best Social Community for Ovation TV’s online community (www.ovationtv.com/community) for people that are passionate about art and creativity.

Ovation TV is a remarkable success story. In a very short period of time, they’ve cultivated an extremely active and vibrant online community that has resulted in some very impressive metrics. For more on the story, check out the presentation that Allison Kingsley, director of digital media, and Megan Smith, community manager, made at our seminar in Los Angeles on the 16th (we’ll have video of the presentation soon).

Here’s a short video of the acceptance speech (apologies that it’s a bit dark) by Chad Gutstein of Ovation TV and our very own Jeff Zaretsky:

We’re extremely proud to work with the team from Ovation and as Jeff says in the video, we’re only as good as our clients make us. In this case, I think you’ll agree that they’ve made us great! Congratulations to everyone at Ovation TV especially their digital media team: Allison, Megan and Jennifer Colley, Ovation TV’s digital media team’s Creative Manager who is really stretching the way the KickApps Apps Studio is used–check out this very creative ‘Community Tree‘ widget. Jennifer layered an image of a tree over an RSS feed of art that has been uploaded by the community. We’ve come to realize that the possibilities of the App Studio are endless in the hands of creative people like Jennifer. Very inspiring.

Update: Here’s the press release.

Also, I just had a conversation with Ovation TV’s Community Manager, Megan Smith, about the award and her job and wanted to share a few really interesting points that she raised.

Reflecting on what it takes to be successful: “Managing a community is really gratifying experience but it takes a lot of regular care and attention. It can be a slow burning process but it’ll forever change they way you view your customers and audience. It shapes how you plan for and build the future of your company.”

On goals: “It’s not all about numbers. The goal of any community should be to motivate your members to act well on your behalf without your guidance or prompting. You want to turn them into evangelists.”