KISS THE FROG WINS 1st FRESH Award at the inaugural FRESH Conference taking place in Copenhagen on January 15-17th.

The FRESH conference, organised by the Meeting Support Institute, and in 2012 sponsored by among others Wonderful Copenhagen and VisitDenmark, explores the ‘Design of Effective Meetings’ with a strong focus on the tools and services that can help meeting owners achieve their meeting objectives.

A total of 15 tools and services competed for the FRESH Award during the Conference's "Toolbox Learning Lab" sessions. The tools can be seen as forming part of the toolbox that the Meeting Architect draws from in order to perfect the design of meetings. The Toolbox Learning Lab is like a carrousel where small groups of participants rotate from table to table where a short educational presentation introduces them to each tool.

The participants at this year's FRESH Conference who took part in this learning carrousel also acted as the jury. Upon retuning to the main meeting room, all of them were able to vote, giving each candidate points on pre-determined criteria. The two learning labs generated a standardised score for all candidates and during the conferecne’s closing session, the winner was revealed. The jury consisted of 40 jurors with a great variation in backgrounds; from corporate and association planners to meeting designers, producers, facilitators, etc. The process was led by Elling Hamso, FRESH Award Chair and Miguel Neves, Vice Chair.

The tools and services participating in the "Toolbox Learning Lab" were:

1. What's on? A twitter wall / mobile information app TY
2. TheO A facilitation by Theatre group H
3. E-touches A meeting management system TY
4. Amiando A registration system TY
5. Simon Wadell A presentation manager H
6. Whales On Waves An Interactive iPad dinner game TY
7. Kiss the Frog Graphic Facilitation H
8. ABBIT interactivity Portable voting system T
9. Klewel Presentation Recorder TY
10. Synthetron Online, Large group brainstorm system TY
11. beMatrix Set construction system T
12. accord event server A portal server for multiple meeting tools TY
13. Eventdrive ROI based event management system TY
14. Live Online Events Online / remote participants moderator H
15. Meetovation Methodology for meeting effectiveness C

In the CHATTY categories of tools (Conceptual, Human, Art, Technical and TechnologY), there was, as can be expected, a dominant group of Technology tools (TY). The Human tool group, more specifically the Facilitation group was also well represented and to surprise of many a Human tool was the winner.

The inaugural FRESH award winner was Kristine Nygaard from ‘Kiss the frog’, a graphic facilitator. The jury found that from all 15 tools competing this tool had the best balance between potential impact on meeting results and easy of integration with current events.

The fact that a Visual Facilitation tool was the winner is of great relevance to won to all visual facilitators and also to facilitation in general. The fact that the FRESH award jurors, which cover a rich and varied mix of meeting professionals, chose Kiss the Frog as the winner suggests a good understanding of the fundamental value of facilitation and a confirmation that meetings are seen more and more as drivers of change.

Honorary mentions were also given to the Toolbox participant that came in 2nd; ‘What’s Up?’ represented by Gerrit Heijkoop as well as 3rd place participant; the Danish "Meetovation" concept 
represented by Anne Seeberg of VisitDenmark's Business Events Team.

For further information about the FRESH Award, contact:
Ms. Elling Hamso at elling@elling.no or Mobile +47 (90) 122 418.

For further information about Kiss the Frog, contact:
Ms. Kristine Nygaard via www.kissthefrog.dk, Mobile +45 (25) 21 85 73.

For further information about the Meetovation concept, contact:
Anne Seeberg at as@visitdenmark.com 

See the video of award ceremony at: www.theFRESHconference.com