Phizzpop - a digital design showdown

We headed out last night to see the final of Phizzpop - http://phizzpop.visitmix.com/ a digital design challenge that pitches the creative and technical teams of 5 leading digital agencies togther from LA, New York, Austin, Boston, San Francisco and Chicago.

We headed to Maggie Mae’s a huge multi level bar donwtown, to see how each agency would tackle their final 15 minute pitch.  It included a team from AKQA so we ordered a beer and pushed our way to the front.

The teams presented their designs and concpets to a panel of 6 judges and a very packed an noisey room.  The pitches varied drastically in style and content and some of the poor guys looked totally terrified as they took to the stage and gave a live demonstration of what they’d spent the past 6 months developing.

All agencies were given the same brief - to develop and market a multiplatform system that engaged American voters in the political process, enabling them to debate issues together in realtime and then to develop the functionality that actually allowed them to cast their vote.

It was fascinating seeing the different presentation styles, how each agency had gone about tackling the creative executuion and getting their heads around all the usability issues. 

Our favourite, which also turned out to be the overall winner was from an agency called cynergy http://cynergysystems.com.  A very sharp and confident user experience chap took to the stage, totally blew away the crowd (and the judges) and presented an fantastic concept that stood head and shoulders above the rest of their fellow competitors.  Nice work boys…