Anthony Deaver

I almost forgot about this. Again.

With all the hoopla and tension around the MITX awards and being a finalist something got lost in the shuffle.

A couple weeks ago sam submitted AP to the Above the Fold – Tap that App! Contest. It’s part of their New Years resolution to evangelize and promote UX design and development. The winner gets actual usability testing from ATF. Awesomeness.

To be honest I didn’t really think much about it when he mentioned he had submitted it and I didn’t looked into it any further. Life kinda sucked at the time.

I bring all this up because on June 6th they announced the winners (yes, I’m that behind on this) and the First Place winner? None other than Accessible Places!

Woohoo!

So now we get to find out just how bad my UX work on the project truly is (I already have an idea ;) and we get professional advice on how to make a great idea work even better.

You listening Google? We are kicking butt and taking names! Make your offer now before you can’t afford us ;) (j/k)

My apologies to the ATF gang for the delayed posting. Hope not to keep up the trend (the MITX post was late too if that’s any consolation)

Yes, I’m almost a week late in writing this, and it’s for no other reason than I’ve been lazy :)

So, MITX Innovation Awards were last Thursday night. For those that don’t remember Accessible Places (the project started by Sam Bisbee and myself at the Boston.com Hack-a-thon) was a finalist in the ‘Best Doing Good’ category. The entire team was there including my wife who was the inspiration for the project.

The food was okay, first time I’ve ever seen ‘make your own take away’ boxes at an event like this. I got to see some friends I haven’t seen in a while and got to make a couple new ones. Also got introduced to Debi Kleiman, president of MITX which was very cool. Especially since she knew what AP was.

I was going to drag this out a little longer and go on abut the event and how exciting it was and all that but by now everyone already knows the results of the evening anyway. We didn’t win.

Anything.

I can understand not winning the category, especially considering what Gazelle has done since it launched, but I thought at least we’d get a ‘promise’ award since it was designed for companies that are under a year old and have a lot of *promise* (get it?) and potential. We have tons of potential. But it was not to be.

Was/am I disappointed? Of course. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. However there is one very important factor that almost got lost in all this.

The project.. no the idea is only 4 months old. 4 months. We were by far the youngest company there, hell we aren’t even a company yet and we were a finalist in the MITX awards.

Let me say that again for effect: AP is 4 months old and was a finalist for MITX.

That alone is a heck of an accomplishment and something to be proud of. And I am. Very proud.

It also means I didn’t have to attempt to get up and say anything in front of a ton or people (we all know the risks there). So I’ll say it here. Thank you to the judges and to all of MITX. Especially thanks to Project 11 and Boston.com for putting on the Hack day event.

Most important, thanks to my wife Becky. Without whom none of this would have been possible.