A national award for this blog

I'm honored to say that this blog just won the Swiss national prize for the best themeblog, awarded by the Souris d'Or/Goldene Maus jury. The prize is given by the Milton Ray Hartmann foundation, and this year their focus was on blogs. Out of 160 candidates the jury picked five winners in as many categories:

Culture: Bands Magazine
Politics: Une voix pour la Boillat
Education: Le Semeur
Daily Life: Bondy Blog
Themeblogs: Lunch over IP

I'm a bit surprised and really gratified by this recognition, particularly because the jury (composed by top people in the Swiss new/next media sector and chaired by Wolfgang Frei of NZZ Format) has been working within a very rigorous framework, and chose 23 good an deserving nominees for the final round. The list of nominees actually shows that in a short time many interesting strong voices have asserted themselves in the public debate in Switzerland using the tools of blogging.
During the award ceremony, which took place in Zurich in the spaces of the Orbit-iEX fair, someone asked me why I blog: It helps me shape my thinking and give a tentative structure to my exploration of what's happening around us; it lets me test ideas with a small readership of interesting and smart people and engage in a dialogue with them; it also serves me well as an archive of information and insights that I can refer back to in my daily work; and, yes, it's a good way to gain exposure, too.

Here are the official presse release (in French and in German) announcing the winners, the jury's motivations (also in French) and the transcript of the whole event (in German). English translation of the motivations for Lunch over IP:

Lunch over IP could have prevailed in almost every category. Bruno Giussani, well-known in Switzerland for having launched the Webdo website [the first news site in the country], blogs with ease and experience. His posts are timely and show a high level of expertise in the social impacts of technology. This blog is a must-read not only for specialists.

Congratulations to all the winners and the nominees.

[tags: Souris d'Or Goldene Maus blogospherahelvetica]

Comments

[Peter Hadorn]

big congrats, that's a wise and well deserved choice :-)

[Raphael]

Normal Bruno ! Merci pour tout. You rock.

[Wayne Hall]

Terrific Bruno! Your comment on blogging "shaping" your thinking reflects my experience as well. Writing almost everyday for public consumption will reveal, sooner or later, what one really thinks. Congrats again.

[mara]

Congratulazioni! il giusto premio per tanto impegno e tanta capacità ma ciò che più conta sono le motivazioni della Giuria...
:-)

[Alex Osterwalder]

Congratulations - a merited award. Have a great weekend, Alex

[BG]

Thank you all for the kind words, happy weekend!

[Ellen Wallace]

I'm sorry I'm only now catching up on a backlog of unread blog news - this is terrific! I'm so pleased for you, but also for the rest of us, that this blog is being recognized for providing some quality thinking time. I really enjoy reading your excellent writing and being exposed to new ideas and information. Great that you have a big award, but even better than you have the rest of us simply appreciating your work. Carry on, please!

[crica]

As wrote Ellen before, great for the prize and thanks for the content ! Congratulations :-)

[Jens]

J'ai hésité longtemps de publier mon commentaire sur cette bizarre décision du jury à Zurich pour le Bondy-Blog, mais enfin voilà, pour ceux qui arrivent à lire Allemand:
http://www.blogwiese.ch/archives/294
Tout en haut, il y a un link sur le film "hier als Film" que Rebell.TV a tourné juste après. A la fin, on voit aussi les Frangines dans l'interview, alors allez-y le voir!
Merci pour la bonne soirées et la consolation de tout le monde pour tout le monde!
Jens

[zc]

Congratulations! I started reading your blog recently, and am finding it very informative and entertaining.