A design competition for interactive agencies, sponsored by Microsoft, breezed into town on January 15 and got a rude shock: the most brutal sub-zero temps and windchills in five years. Nonetheless, about 300 brave souls huddled inside at downtown hotspot(!) Solera and saw five agencies compete for bragging rights and a free trip to the “South By Southwest” (SXSW) festival/conference in March for the final round of the competition. 
Microsoft had plastered us with messages like this one for months: “Join us on the PhizzPop Tour to watch the top agency talent as they show us their Expression Studio and Silverlight skills.” Get the picture? Uh-huh, yessiree, they’re trying to sell you software. But at least they’re out to make it entertaining. And no industry in the world likes a competition more than the ad industry. These folks live for this stuff.
(Side note on the Minnesota connection: You may find it interesting that the promotional talent Microsoft chose to plan and hype these events is none other than Minneapolis-based Gage Marketing. But, wait, there’s more. Did you know Microsoft maintains a development office here that’s focused in its Expression Suite product? The company recently announced it will lease new digs near downtown for this operation, headed by software industry veteran Doug Olson.)
As the Phizzpop about page explains, this Microsoft promotion includes both live events and an online competition. This year, the PhizzPop Tour is visiting seven U.S. cities — which, naturally, includes Minneapolis, as we’re one of the top advertising centers in the country. Microsoft touts the event as “a prestigious design competition combined with a social gathering for top web professionals, brands, designers, and developers. Watch the hottest agencies compete in an interactive design challenge in front of a panel of judges and YOU, the live audience.”
The latest tour began in November 2008 and continues through March 2009. In each location, agencies compete to design the solution that best solves a unique design challenge using Microsoft technologies. Before each event, the agency teams are trained in the newest Microsoft technologies. They’re then given a “design challenge” to solve. Each city’s local ad and creative community is invited to their respective event, where the competing agencies present their solutions to a panel of judges and the event attendees. The winning team from each regional event is flown to the SXSW festival in Austin, TX, to compete against each other for what the event promoters call “best in U.S. bragging rights.”
And the Winner in Minneapolis was … ?
So, five teams of three web pros were given the same business challenge and a few days to come up their own online solution using Microsoft technology. The winner, announced at the close of the January 15 evening event, was Zeus Jones, which had teamed with local development shop Sierra Bravo. 
Design team members were Christian Erickson, Chad Hancock, and Sierra Bravo’s Greg Wurm. As reported on the Phizzpop site, they “created a winning next-generation proof of concept that clearly demonstrated enhanced online browsing and cross-sell scenarios, as well as enhanced physical shopping experiences.” For more on what that was exactly, I guess you had to be there (and I wish I could have been). But, the winning entry will be available for viewing soon at this Phizzpop Tour Event Detail page, they say. Also, links to a video and photos of the Minneapolis event are coming soon, to be posted on that same page.
Other Minneapolis agencies competing in this year’s Phizzpop event in Minneapolis, besides winner Zeus Jones, were Colle+McVoy, Hanson, MOOV WorldWide, and space150.
Sierra Bravo is a Bloomington-based web development shop that, by its own words, “executes creative ideas online, including social media and Web 2.0 applications.” It was recently named to the Inc. 5000 and Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s Fast 50.
It claims to have made Phizzpop history by accepting invitations to join competing teams — the firm also partnered with the MOOV agency’s team. Tom O’Neill, Sierra Bravo’s VP of software development, explains: “Phizzpop lets Sierra Bravo publicly showcase our most essential capability: partnering with ad, marketing, and design agencies to make their creative vision live and breathe online. With our programmers on two different teams, we liked our chances.”
Sierra Bravo’s Jeff Klawiter worked with MOOV – even crashing on the agency’s office couch for two nights before Phizzpop, O’Neill added. Winner Zeus Jones had previously engaged Sierra Bravo for multiple web projects for its clients, according to the latter’s news announcement.
The Zeus Jones/Sierra Bravo team will be winging their way to the Phizzpop finals in March at the interactive portion of SXSW in Austin, TX, taking on regional champs from Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Francisco.