Recognizing the best

The world is awash in awards (say that three times fast, I dare you). Companies, media outlets, professional associations, even internal departments — everyone’s got a little slice of recognition to parcel out. With this wanton proliferation of prizes, many awards start to feel like marketing-driven publicity stunts with little beef behind them.

I recognize that I’m on dangerous terrain here, because InfoWorld runs a few awards programs of its own. Then again, I would argue that our CTO 25, Technology of the Year, Innovators, and InfoWorld 100 awards are the real deal. They’re highly targeted, concentrate on deep IT expertise, are judged by technologists with specific domain expertise, and have the heft of a 26-year-old publication that lives and breathes technology behind them.

In many ways, however, the greatest beneficiary is the magazine itself. Our awards programs provide a critical feedback loop between the publication and our readers, who represent the real world of IT. Here’s how it works: We search for worthy recipients and in the process, we get detailed input on the kinds of projects and technologies the IT community is considering. As a result, we give more substantial editorial coverage to these hot-button topics, ultimately encouraging (we hope) new enterprise implementations. End of loop — until it starts again with a new round of awards and projects.

All this exposition is my way of getting out the vote for the annual InfoWorld 100 Awards, which will be announced in November 2004. Nominate a worthy project, (or navigate from the Awards tab atop our home page) and fill out the online form. Please don’t delay; we’re accepting nominations only through the end of this month. As always, we’re looking for “real-world IT projects that use technology in smart, innovative, creative ways to meet business and technical objectives.”

We’re particularly stoked about the awards this year because last year’s entries yielded a bonanza of story ideas. This week’s cover story, “The SOA Puzzle: Five Missing Pieces” by Brent Sleeper, traces it roots back to 2003’s InfoWorld 100 awards. Although Web services-based service-oriented architectures had been on our radar for some time, the number of award submissions touting SOA integration projects made it clear that we needed to step up coverage of this key area. And we have, with a slew of Web services feature stories, piles of related product reviews, and a steady stream of news coverage.

This year’s nominees will likely feature other technologies and disciplines. I’m betting on a rash of VoIP ventures, a slate of innovative security and identity management implementations, and a continued onslaught of portal projects. But I could be wrong.

So surprise me; I like surprises.