#TopZedBrands judging process
To set things off we would like to thank all the good people that made nominations on both our Twitter and Facebook accounts. We are still overwhelmed with the level of support we received form everyone! We would also like to especially thank our Judges, Matthew, Patience, Luchi, Cathy and Joseph.
21st November was our nomination compilation D-day. Our team (spread across the globe in US, the UK and Zambia) had to sort out all the nominations ready for the 22nd of November, when our Judges would meet to finalise the top 10 #TopZedBrands list 2013.
The grueling days work of sorting out the nominations started with a spreadsheet (bearing in mind all organisers of #TopZedBrands are volunteers in full time work or education)! Let’s just say it was a late night!
We compiled all the names of brands that the public so eagerly put forward, filling it with all the nominations from our Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as entries from the November 10th Insaka Chat on Twitter which was dedicated to getting the public more involved in the nomination process). Some people clearly did not look at either our launch blog or guiding principles. Rules are important but we forgive them and hope that they eagerly vote when the time comes ;) At this point the final version was an impressive list of 119 nominations.
At this stage, these were not organised in any particular order. After the entries were made in our master spreadsheet, additional information was added. This was brand website, Facebook and Twitter account links — key information that would help our Judges find out more about the companies and brands. We all agreed that a company and brand that was nominated by the public needed to meet our guiding principles and the following criteria :
- Offered service
- Have strong brand partly defined by an online presence (website, Facebook or Twitter)
- This was about companies and brands, so personalities from the music industry, T.V and Radio, and personal blogs did not qualify
Nominations that were made and did not meet this criteria had to be removed from the nomination list. This proved to be a heart wrenching decision. Some popular brands, with no online presence, such as Kasama Coffee, and Zambia’s Pride, did not make the final cut. The final cut was a lit of 84 nominations. We strongly believed that we want to use #TopZedBrands to educate businesses and brands of the importance of service and an online presence that allows or strives for customers to interact with the brand.
Now on to the next phase. Voting starts on Monday the 2nd of December. The top 10 brands you can vote for will be announced Monday! All you’ve got to do is vote your favourite brands into the top slots!
This blog was written by Jacqueline Mubanga who you can follow on Twitter.
Follow the 2013 #TopZedBrands story
Update posted on 18/12/13