The Judge's Dilemma
Why Awards Could Do More Than Gather Dust
I've been asked to judge a few industry awards, the Learning Technology Awards among them, and each time I accept, there's a moment of mild panic. Not because I don't know good work when I see it, but because being asked to judge other people's efforts comes with a weight. Will I judge fairly? Can I justify my decisions? And perhaps more pressingly, will anyone look at the judging panel and wonder what on earth I'm doing there?
This could easily become a meditation on imposter syndrome, but there's a more interesting question lurking underneath: how might we get even more value from these awards than we already do?
Competitive awards serve important purposes. They create benchmarks, drive innovation, and provide recognition that can transform careers and organisations. Having judged several now, I've seen the quality of thinking and execution that makes it to the finals, and it's impressive. But I wonder if we're missing opportunities to expand what awards can offer our industry.
My hobby provides an interesting comparison. In miniature painting, alongside competitive events like Games Workshop’s Golden Demon, there are competitions like Monti Sansovino that use open standard systems. If your work meets the criteria for gold, you get gold. If twenty people meet those criteria, twenty people get gold. It's not better than competitive awards, just different, creating peer groups and recognising achievement against standards rather than against others.
Note: I am aware of some open standard awards in our industry, but they are not regarded in the same way as the competitive ones. Many people I speak to do not trust them or believe they are simply paid for award services. Right or wrong, an award is only as valuable as the industry perceives it to be.
What strikes me is that both approaches have merit, and there's room for more diversity in how we recognise excellence in L&D. More open standard awards could complement competitive ones, offering different pathways for recognition and benchmarking.
Note: For this to work, we would need an open standard that learns from successful competitive awards such as the Learning Technologies Awards, which utilise a fully independent judging system. Seperating any financial considerations from the judging process. This sounds simple, but the economics of running awards has always been a tricky thing to make work.
But here's what I think we're missing: the conversation that happens after the ceremony. We hand out the trophies, everyone posts congratulations on LinkedIn, and then we move on. What a waste of insight.
Judges see patterns across dozens of entries. We spot emerging trends, common challenges, and innovative approaches that could benefit everyone. Award entrants gain insights from the process itself. Yet these conversations rarely extend beyond the immediate participants.
Some organisations do this well. The Learning Network runs showcase events where winners share their projects. Learning Technologies creates a dedicated stage for presentations at their annual expo. But there's scope for more systematic sharing of what we're learning.
I'd love to see three things become standard:
more transparent judging processes that help entrants understand evaluation criteria,
more diverse award formats including open standards alongside competitive ones,
more structured sharing of insights from judges, winners, and organisers about trends and innovations they're seeing.
The judges' perspectives, winners' approaches, and organisers' observations collectively represent a significant source of industry intelligence. We're already doing the hard work of evaluation and recognition. The question is how we make that effort serve the broader goal of elevating practice across our entire field.