The winners of the 2010 Davey Awards have been announced by the International Academy of the Visual Arts today. With over 4,000 entries from across the US and around the world, the Davey Awards honors the finest creative work from the best small firms, agencies and companies worldwide. LEVEL was recognized with the following:

• Gold Award Winner in the Activism Category for LEVEL Studios | 2009 Holiday Campaign
• Silver Award Winner in the Tourism Category for San Luis Obispo Vacations
• Silver Award Winner in the Food & Beverage Category for Monster Energy

Congratulations to the LEVEL team!

179 Games, 1,611+ innings, 4,833+ outs and then some, this baseball season. I have to admit that, even as a die-hard, I missed some of those pre-season day games (forgive me). I did however see the last out which gave the San Francisco Giants their very first World Series Championship. And, as I watched the last strikeout of the season on my son’s 3rd birthday, I thought I would scream or hug my son or my father-in-law who is also a long-time Giants fan from the days at The Stick, but I didn’t. I was perfectly quiet. I sat down and watched. In awe of something bigger than a title or a trophy or a shiny ring made of gold. A Team. This Team. The 2010 Giants.

What can we learn? Was it a fluke? A perfect storm of events? Or, was there something more? Team building is something that we talk about a lot. I believe in team. Aristotle once said, “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” 1 plus 1 will always equal 2 whether you call it the whole or the sum so what does it mean? Maybe he’s talking about the 2010 Giants. Maybe he’s referring to something intangible, unquantifiable, unidentifiable. Something more. What can we learn? We can learn how to build a team. Those are the things we should be building our teams on. Those are the things we should be searching for when sitting across from a college grad in an interview. Do they have passion? Do they have that spark in their eye that is bigger than their diploma of suma cum whatever-ya-call-it and bigger than any class they took or book they read. Now, I know it’s easy to say, but how do we do it? If it’s so unidentifiable, how do we see it or find it? We don’t. You think Brian Sabean had any idea what he was doing when he crafted this season’s cast of characters? He didn’t. Sure, he hoped, but I’m telling you he had no clue how it would turn out. He believed. He had faith. He believed Burrell would hit 20 home runs. He had faith Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria would last the season.

Now, I’m not telling you to go hire the first guy or girl you meet because you think you saw something in their eye. It’s probably just an eyelash. But I am telling you to look past the experience or the bullet list of skills that everyone puts on their resume anyway. Look deeper. Look harder. Look at the person next to you and ask yourself if you can make them better. Ask yourself if they can make you better. Ask yourself if one person on your team complements another. That my friends, my comrades, my colleagues is where greatness will appear. Where the whole is truly more than the sum of its parts. Where all things are equal and all things are so uniquely different that it just works its mysterious magic and indescribable things happen.

Until next season…

Chris