John has a unique skillset that has allowed him to excel at overseeing and managing award show services. With a 20 year background in commercial post-production, John was a pioneer in delivering video on the web. In 2004, he was co-creator (with Scott Treude) of the cutting edge web-based digital asset management system, Nice Spots. The pair first entered the world of advertising award shows in 2007, building a brand new system for AICP.
Spending years in the high pressure business of commercial post-production taught John various skills that he utilizes daily. From a technical standpoint, John became proficient at troubleshooting, became an expert in video encoding and gained the ability to manage several projects simultaneously. From a customer service standpoint, John has become adept at navigating through a world of stressed clients and tempermental egos and gained the ability to convey complicated technical jargon into language anyone can understand.
After the successful launch of the AICP system, John and Scott went on to develop systems for AICE, TED, The ANDYs, AMP and ADC. It became readily apparant that every show was vastly different and necessitated building a custom system for each one. With each client, John and Scott gained more insight into the workflow and challenges of running a successful awards show. They bring this experience to each partner, which helps to streamline their workflow while maintaining the essential elements that make their show unique.
In 2013, John started AwardCore as its own company, coalescing all his technical and customer support experience to concentrate full-time on awards shows. This switch has been a dream come true, allowing John to focus on his passion for awards shows and the organizations and people that run them. John's approach is to partner with each show and become another member of their team. This includes providing support to show administrators and judges, quality control services for uploaded files and talking entrants off the ledge when they've waited until deadline day and don't have their files encoded properly. The software is an essential part of AwardCore's offering, but it's only one part of a greater whole.
Scott has a rich and varied background in technology and has been programming since the internet was in its infancy. His quest for knowledge and order in the universe initially attracted him to a career as a physicist. After graduating from the University of Maryland in 1992 with a B.S. in Physics, Scott worked for several years as a physicist for Teledyne Isotopes. During this time he developed simulations of thermoluminescent phosphors and radiation badge algorithms for the nuclear industry. Afterward, Scott shifted away from physics to focus on programming. He spent the next several years developing laboratory information management systems for clients such as Beckman Instrumentation, Teledyne Brown Engineering and American Environmental Network.
In 1999, Scott went to work for the Sci-Fi Channel/USA Networks as a web developer. During this time he created a content management system, developed a membership application and created 3D flash/shockwave games.
In 2004, Scott began working with post-production facility Nice Shoes (and John DiMaggio) to develop an online video library and asset management tool. Thanks to Scott's cutting edge programming skills, Nice Spots, which pre-dated YouTube, was way ahead of its time. It was one of the first online apps to automatically transcode video and allow collaboration via frame by frame annotating.
Scott took on the challenge of advertising awards shows by building a bespoke system for AICP in 2007. He followed that up a year later with a brand new system for AICE. Scott soon started his own consultancy, continuing to work on advertising awards shows with John as well as branching out into various different projects.
Scott was able to take advantage of his experience working with other clients and apply what he had learned to improve the existing award show systems and building new systems for TED, The ANDYs, AMP and ADC. The combination of his expertise in web development, mobile apps and cloud infrastructure has allowed him to meet the unique demands of each new award show system. He always stays on top of the latest innovations and advancements in coding to ensure his clients are getting the best possible product.