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Intelligence
CASE Awards: A Look Back at Ten Short Years

Intelligence

CASE Awards: A Look Back at Ten Short Years

Oct 04, 2005By Michael Stoner

1995 doesn’t seem like it was too long ago, but in the history of the web, it was. Here’s some perspective: just ten years ago, there were very few people thinking about their websites as serious communications. At least, serious enough to enter in a CASE competition. In 1995, it was all about CD-ROMs: that’s where the action was. Some history, courtesy of files I’ve been cleaning up this weekend. 

CASE held its first judging for Interactive Multimedia Programs [sic] on 7 April 1995 at Pace University. There were 14 entries, which, ran the gamut from student recruiting pieces on floppy disks [remember floppy disks????] and CD-ROMs to a piece created for alumni and a database (!) from Oregon State University. There were two websites entered that year! We had to unplug a fax machine and dial out using a laptop with a 2400-baud modem to view them and I remember one of them didn’t load.

This was all pretty advanced stuff back then. Remember: this was long before development officers could type and even before the phrase “integrated marketing” had ever been uttered on most campuses.

There were no Gold Awards given in 1995-but Agnes Scott won a well-deserved Silver for a terrific CD-ROM and Tulane University won for a floppy-disk-based program called “Discover Tulane,” a really clever piece that probably used Flash 1.0. I still remember both pieces vividly: the Agnes Scott piece would compare well to most CD-ROMs produced today. Not as glitzy-not much, if any, video. But a well-thought-out interface.

For amusement, you can read the entire judge’s report here.

As best I can tell, the first CASE award for a website was given in 1997 to Mount Holyoke’s website about Mary Woolley—sadly, no longer available online. By 1998, websites were developed enough so that we were awarded 11 prizes, including two golds (one to the University at Buffalo, which would go on to win numerous awards in the next few years).

How times have changed!


  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?