And everyone knows that if you poke a hornet’s nest with a stick long enough eventually the hornets come out and you’re liable to get stung. And in this case the stinging “hornet” in the room is that PDN was completely and utterly socially “Gamed” by some of the most well connected photographers on the planet. The results are so NOT what they intended that they spend most of the first page of their results article justifying why they didn’t scrap the entire thing. Their disclaimer:

We admit it: Our polling system wasn’t built to block the vote-early, vote-often strategy. The ballot we created had slots for 5 write-in candidates; many ballots listed the same name 5 times. People were prevented from voting dozens of times within the same day, but lots of people kept voting day after day.  Yes, we realize our survey methods were flawed. All we can say is: Hey, we weren’t electing a world leader here.

So why did they choose to make lemonade from all the lemons being tossed their way?

So the question was: Should we throw out the results? We decided, after some reflection, that the survey revealed how some photographers have harnessed one of the biggest innovations of the last ten years to build a community.

I say Kudos to PDN for ignoring the fact that they set out to do something else entirely and realizing that all the data they had collected was valuable beyond it’s original scope because herein lies the value of their survey. They had very clearly created a social networking popularity contest where photographers were not selected by their photographic talent. How absolutely telling that he who has the most followers wins. Sure that photographer might not have been in business for very long, they might not even shoot anymore and really a few of them, quite honestly, aren’t setting the world on fire with their work but that didn’t matter because they could control the vote via their forums, followers, groups and fanpages.  AMAZING! PDN unintentially showed just how powerful social networking is.

Criticize them all you want for daring to put a wedding photographers ahead of Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, David LaChapelle and Mary Ellen Mark but be sure to walk away from their list having learned the same valuable lesson that PDN was just taught. The rules of the game have changed. He who dies with the most followers wins. Oh and voluntary submission polls will hence forth be rendered useless by social media.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give credit where it was due. Here’s to the well connected wedding photographers who appear on this list for turning this survey on it’s end. Thus proving that beyond a doubt they are on the cutting edge of the social media sword.  Bravo!

See the PDN survey results article here. Tell us what you think below or join the DWFers who are letting lose in this thread. (login required)

UPDATE: It appears as though PDN has removed the entire rather lengthy comments section entirely. I stumbled upon this note left on fellow DWF photographers facebook page. I’m can’t find the original source. It’s a real shame because half of the educational value of the thread was found within the comments.

From the Editor of PDN
January 21, 2010
PDNOnline is now closing this article to comments. I had fully anticipated that PDN would receive its share of criticism for this survey. What I had not anticipated, however, was that photographers would abuse and insult their fellow photographers, and show so little regard for professional camaraderie. We are now working to change the comment system to require email verification. As you must realize if you read the article, your IP addresses are captured, so your comments are not anonymous. I urge readers to remain civil. Holly Stuart Hughes Editor

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