wisdom of crowds, importance of passion, why silence doesnt mean yes

i had never acted as a juror in Cannes before, but with a new "Creative Data" category i readily agreed.  We were chaired by LinkedIn star David Sable and my fellows jurors included data people such as Todd Cullen, Russell Marsh and Tash Whitmey as well as creative directors such as Todd Eslinger and Alexander Schill 

We had 700+ entries to review, half of which we each saw before getting to Cannes so that we could weed out some and still manage to manage to agree shortlists and winners in the 3 days we had

I cant say that the prospect of three full days in a dark windowless room filled me with joy, especially when david told us that we would be having lunch in that same room.  but i was wrong.  quite apart from seeing some wonderful work over that period and being inspired by what we can do with data to add huge value to people and to clients, i rediscovered some stuff about group dynamics.  3 things in particular :

Crowds really are wise and often make decision better how groups can make better decisions than individuals.  i came to cannes having seen some work that i thought was brilliant but it turns out that others didnt share my pov. and while there is still one piece of work that i loved which i couldnt get others to love too, and while there is one piece of work that others loved that i didnt - for the most part argument and discussion resulted in a better list than i would have come up with by myself.  our diverse backgrounds, experiences, work made for a better decision - all it took was a willingness for each of us to listen and to be genuinely open to changing our minds

Passion counts.  There were a  piece of work that initially only one of my fellow judges really liked.  by the end we had awarded it a Gold Lion.   how?  because people could see my passion for the work, because they were open to listening and because i finally managed to appeal to them (after a few wrong turns on my part) in a way that touched them.  and in the same way other jurors championed the work they were passionate about and got theirs awarded

Don't confuse silence for assent.  we voted electronically, secretly.  to win an Lion, an entry needed 7 votes out of a potential 10.  in many of our discussions, we had people arguing for a piece of work with not many arguing against.  and yet some of those people who didn't argue against, voted against.  it turns out - pollsters please note - that not expressing a strong pov doesn't mean that you don't have a strong pov 

so all in all a great 3 days.  didnt see the light of day for three days while others were having a lovekly time outside in the sun but i  learnt lots about great use of data and about myself.  and i would recommend the experience to everyone