Thoughts and Reactions on winning a HDA

A couple of months ago I subtly mentioned that I had been chosen as a finalist for the first ever Hertfordshire Digital Awards. Well yesterday was the day of awards ceremony which was being held at the Holiday Inn in the picturesque town of St. Evenage, Hertfordshire. It was a well planned evening with a bunch of talks from various people from all corners of the industry and they even had a comedian show up and do a short set to provide us with a few chuckles after the free food and drink.

I was sat with three other companies at my table (two of which also managed to net gold and silver awards so bully for them!)  the first was asset.tv, the second birtchnells.co.uk and finally bespokeverse.co.uk who were all up for awards across different categories and were very much my kinda people.

I was up for awards in two categories Website: Marketing & Creative and Website: Small Business. Now to be perfectly honest and not to try and sound too overconfident but I was pretty sure that I was going to pick up at least bronze in the Marketing & Creative categories however shockingly I got nothing, ziltch, nadda it was an utter and total defeat.

I was pretty bummed out and down in the dumps after this as I had pretty much completely dismissed winning anything in the Small Business category. However as luck would have it I ended up taking the gold award and pipping several other companies to the post. Totally shellshocked and surprised I calmly frantically stood up almost tripping over my bag (that I hid next to my chair to make sure that no one would steal it) and made my way up to the stage to accept the award and give a short speech that I don’t really remember too much about… except mentioning that I sit around in my pants a lot.

So 9 months in as a Freelance Web Designer in Hertfordshire and thanks to the HDA’s I’m now a multi-award winning web designer which sounds pretty cool If I do say so myself.

I’d just like to thank everyone at the Hertfordshire Digital Awards and the sponsors Hertfordshire Mercury, Suit Recruit and the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership for throwing a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable evening. I’m sure I’ll be entering again next year!

If anyone needs me I’ll be on the sofa… in my pants.

Cheers!