When I started my blog in June of 2011, I was a total neophyte. I had no idea what I was doing, except that I wanted to connect with the world. How about you?
Over time my blog site has evolved to encompass the things that I love and that interest me, and things that I want to share with others. I had no idea that there were blog awards until I was nominated for my first award, which was the “Versatile Blogger Award.” I went to the blog site of the person who nominated me and looked for the voting. There was nothing there. So, over time one of the things that I have noticed about these blogger awards is that a site is “nominated.”
So now let’s look at the word nomination. It means that one has been declared a contestant for whatever category that might be, but it is a nomination, and nominations need to be voted on. And in the world of blogging, for the time that I have been a blogger, no one is voting. So while there is a nomination there is no voting. So nomination is not correct wording for what is going on here.
What is actually occurring is that one blogger is “bestowing” an award on another blogger…So, what I propose is that all of us in the blogging world say what it is that we are really doing: We are “bestowing” awards. Don’t get me wrong. Nominations are great and I appreciate every one that I have received!
What is common to each of these “nominations” is that we thank the person who nominates us (including a link back to their site), tell all this information about ourselves and that we have to “nominate” a whole list of sites, anywhere from 5 – 15, if I have the numbers right. The reason for the numbers is to attract traffic to our blogs.
My dear friend, Conor Bofin, wrote a blog about this very same topic. It was brilliant! He actually took the time to figure out the odds. And he suggested a new award, called “The Two Chances Award.” Two Chances Award Again, it was brilliant!
So, today, I formally announce, that I, Barbara W. Beacham, of Life in the Foothills, am asking for the blogging world to make a change. I have created a new award: one that is bestowed and is not a nomination. I came up with this as I was thinking about the Oscars, and that is what blogging awards should be too: The Oscars of Blogging. But that name is taken! So the true name of this award is “The Master Blogger Award,” or “The Masters,” for short. Here are the criteria for this award, and the rules as well.
The rules for bestowal of this award are simple. All of the following criteria must be met by the blog site receiving this award. The blog site must be:
1) Inspirational – The blogs must inspire one in some way
2) Informative – The blog overall, must in one way or another impart information in a creative and captivating way
3) Imaginative – The blog must titillate the imagination, making you see, hear or feel the message they are trying to impart.
4) Insightful – The blog should capture the inner nature of what is being written about, photographed, et al…and this includes seeing intuitively.
The Rules:
1) The blogger bestowing this award must tell why they are bestowing their award based on the four criteria. All the criteria have to be met.
2) The blogger bestowing the award must do so in a post on their blog site and include “The Masters” award emblem. They must also include in their post a link to the site that they are bestowing the award to.
3) The site who the award is bestowed upon must write a post of thanks, linking their post back to the site who bestowed the award upon them.
4) They must pass on the award based upon the criteria and they must follow these rules.
To the blogging community: Let us make an award that celebrates excellence! An award that 78,000 do not get after 7 posts…Let us do something different!
Are you with me? ARE YOU WITH ME? PEOPLE, LET’S GET EXCITED ABOUT DOING SOMETHING NEW! (Sorry for shouting, but I wanted to motivate you!)
Stay tuned…Tomorrow I will launch the first of “The Master Bloggers Award.”
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