Nominations are open for Net Visionary 2011: some new categories
The hallowed day has arrived. Actually it arrived on 27th June but I have been busy training my new colleague Vicki in advance of my departure from the IIA so apologies for not noting this sooner on the blog.
Nominations for the 13th Annual Net Visionary Awards are open!
You can go right ahead click on the image above to nominate your favourite online business in 14 different categories.
But before you dash off I thought I would draw your attention to our new categories.
We have done away with a few (sorry!), updated three (mobile app developer, social media & digital marketing) and created 4 entirely new categories:
- Best Open Data Initiative
- Best Breakthrough Brick to Click
- Best Cloud Service
- Best Rookie
We’re particularly excited about these 4 categories (yes, yes, of course, you’re all winners to us) because they reflect changing technologies, society and practices. We devised Best Breakthrough Brick to Click to recognise some of the amazing cases we’ve heard about over the last year and a half or so while running our 8 Ways series for Online Retailers (although nominees don’t have to be just retailers!). Best Rookie was devised to recognise not only graduates who are making a splash in online business but also those who have made a change to their career to get involved in any aspect of online business.
After the success of Open for Business it made perfect sense for us to celebrate Open Data Initiatives and we’re hoping the shortlist will be an inspiration to many other initiatives in the future. Best Cloud Service acknowledges some of the fabulous and innovative cloud projects that have grown up, many of them wholly Irish, in the last few years.
So now you are dismissed to go and nominate to your heart’s content. Nominations close 29 July 2011.
Congratulations to winning Spidery IIA Members
Last week saw the announcement of this year’s eircom Spiders awards at a star studded event in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel. Okay there was one celeb, Alan Carr, but many stars of online but I’m biased! I couldn’t make it this year: I was meeting with some rising stars at a Fingal County Enterprise Board Networking Event and giving them the skinny on Twitter for Business.
I was delighted when I got home and checked through my twitstream to see that some IIA members were among the winners this year. Congratulations from all of us here in the IIA to:
Strata3 accept their award from Independent Trustee Company
- Pay Less Tax won the Best Financial Services Website Category sponsored by CMC Markets;
- Hostelworld won in both the Best e-business Website (sponsored by WebFactory) and in the iPhone App category (sponsored by Arekibo);
- EventElephant were joint winners with Hostelworld in the Best e-business Website category with HostelWorld;
- Strata3 went home with the Spider for Best Web Design & Development Agency sponsored by Independent Trustee Company.
Check out the complete listing of winners on the eircom Spiders website.
Web Awards Backslappery
The Irish Web Awards return again this year and have moved to the lovely surroundings of the Mansion House on Dawson Street, Dublin 2. The hundreds of nominations have been whittled down to the shortlists which were announced this week.
A big congratulations to the IIA Members who made it this far. I’ll be there on the night rooting for you all! Maybe I should get a vuvuzela…
In a shameless bit of backslappery, two of us here in IIA HQ are up for awards for our own projects. My very own, The Rosie View, a podcast about what’s on the telly box with Rosemary MacCabe, is shortlisted in the Best Independent Podcaster category. Darren Byrne’s site Culch.ie, a pop culture blog run with a number of Ireland’s best bloggers, is shortlisted in the Best Web Only Publication and Best Entertainment Website categories.
Our boss Joan is inordinately proud of us and made me write this blog post. I swear.
We look forward to seeing you at this year’s awards. Tickets are on sale now and check out www.webawards.ie for more information.
IIA Conference – Early Bird Tickets on Sale
You have just one more week to avail of the great reduced rates for our Annual Conference.
Book Now and catch the early bird
A number of ticketing options are available allowing delegates to attend the Conference only, the Net Visionary Awards only, or avail of a 20% discount by attending both the Conference and the Awards. Full tables of 10 can also be booked for the Awards dinner also.
| 2010 PRICES | MEMBERS | NON-MEMBERS |
| Conference Only – Early Bird* | €195 | €245 |
| Conference Only – Full Rate | €245 | €345 |
| Combined Ticket** – Early Bird* | €325 | €395 |
| Combined Ticket** – Full Rate | €395 | €495 |
| Net Visionary Awards Only | €250 | €250 |
| Table (10) Net Visionary Awards | €2,250 | €2,250 |
* Early Bird tickets are available until 23 April.
** A Combined Ticket includes entry to the Conference on 20 May as well as a place at the Net Visionary Awards ceremony on the evening of 20 May.
BOOK EARLY to secure your place!
20% Regional Discount
Attending from outside the Greater Dublin area? Contact Irene to receive a further 20% discount voucher applied to your choice of ticket or to enquire about Charity and Student rates.
Don’t delay get your Net Visionary nominations in today
While there is no rush per se, nominations being open until 27th March, why not do it now before you forget? The next thing you know it will be Paddy’s Day and suddenly the 27th will be upon us and you will be cursing as you try and fill in 15 whole categories in one go. Do them at your leisure. Do one a day. Just do it!
Round two ding ding
More salubrious company for the IIA blog in the longlist of the Irish Blog Awards. Do you know, while I’m thrilled that the IIA is featuring, I am even more thrilled that so many members of the IIA are listed amongst these business blogs too. The IIA is all about the business of the internet and business on the internet so it’s great to see so many members getting this kind of recognition. Congrats to all longlisted in this category and in all the others too!
Best Blog of a Business – Sponsored by RedCardinal.ie
- Keith Bohanna
- IIA Blog
- Puddle Ducks
- Icecream Ireland
- Krishna De
- Tast.ie
- iFoods.tv
- Sabrina Dent
- Peter Donegan Landscaping
- Robin Blandford
- Curious Wines
- Worldwide Cycles
- eWrite Cork
- Fortify Your Oasis
- Brian Honan Consulting
- Blacknight Blog
- Niceday Designs
- Brightspark Consulting
- Nononsense Blog
- Argolon
- Cybercom
We’ve been nommed – hurrah!
And what illustrious company in the business blogs category in the Irish Blog Awards! We’re also delighted to see so many of our members being nominated for their business and, indeed, personal blogs. A nomination for an award shows that somebody sat down and chose you over all the other blogs they could have chosen for that category so it’s kudos no matter how the shortlists turn out. So a big thanks to whoever nominated us. It is a great reflection on us and all our guest bloggers.
You can see the entire list of nominations here. Do put some time aside before clicking on that link as you will find yourself being amazed, inspired and riveted to all that is going on in the Irish Blogosphere.
And that makes… Wow a whole lot!
We’ve just finished counting the nominations for the Net Visionary Awards and my how busy you have all been! We received more nominations this year in all categories (especially the new ones :p) than ever before. The judges are going to be busy between now and 29th September!
So a big thanks to everyone who took the time to nominate their Net Visionaries for 2008. The free-to-all aspect of the nomination and voting is an element of our awards that sets it apart from other online business awards and really allows your internet peers to give you the kudos you deserve and for you to get the kudos you have been craving, dreaming about, for which you have been preparing your thank you speech, for which you have dry-cleaned your gorgeous guna/ tux etc.
I don’t know about all of you but I am excited about the Net Visionary awards. Can I sustain this level of excitement until October 30th? Wait til you see me in Christmas mode! 
And I’m back!
After my very pleasant holidays in the wesht of France I have returned to the very pleasant news that nine new members joined the IIA so far in the month of August. I’m looking forward to welcoming them one by one here on the blog over the next few days.
Of course the most exciting thing that happened in my absence was that the nominations opened for the IIA Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary Awards. Already there’s been quite a lot of nominations but there’s always space for more. Nominations are open until Friday 12th Spetember so don’t keep putting it off – do it now! We even have some great opportunities left for sponsors so get in touch if you want to be connected with these long-running business awards.
We have 18 categories in total:
- Best Business Blogger sponsored by Newsweaver
- Best Business Podcaster sponsored by RTÉ
- Best Online Business Use of Irish NEW!
- Best Online Exporter sponsored by Tibus NEW!
- Best Online Financial Service sponsored by Data Electronics
- Best Online Trader Ireland sponsored by Realex
- Best Use of Social Media NEW!
- e-Government Award sponsored by Allied Irish Banks
- Educational Contribution
- Innovation Award sponsored by iQcontent
- Internet Entrepreneur sponsored by Dell
- Internet Marketer sponsored by The Irish Times
- Journalist Award sponsored by Elucidate
- Mobile Internet Innovation
- Social Contribution sponsored by IEDR
- Web Designer Excellence
- Web Developer Excellence sponsored by dotMobi
- Overall Net Visionary
The Overall Net Visionary is awarded by the Board of Directors of the IIA.
Obviously I had been thinking about the Net Visionary Awards a lot before I went on holidays but imagine my surprise when I went into the bank here on James’ St in July and saw a little promotional dangly thingy (Note to self: as marketing manager you should really know the technical terminology for that!) informing all their customers that Bank of Ireland had won Best Online Financial Service in the 2007 Net Visionary Awards. I know I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t resist taking a quick snap with my phone. If there was a Net Visionary Award for Best Business Use of Digital Photography (there isn’t) I don’t think I’d be nominated, do you?
Brand new shiny award for Brandmail
Congratulations to Brandmail, not because of their spanking new piece of silverware which they received at the All Ireland Marketing Awards for Marketing Innovation but for becoming the latest new member of the IIA.
There is no doubt that Brandmail’s product is innovative. Brandmail seek to protect their clients reputation by signing and sealing their email:
“When an email is sent, the SbS2.0 (TM) Writer “signs” that email using a cryptographic hash function. This cryptographic signature is the modern equivalent of a wax seal used by royalty to protect important messages – identifying who sent the message and verifying its authenticity. “
What an end user sees in their inbox is the sender’s logo with a Brandmail’s trademark secure icon beside it, the sender being a Brandmail client. It’s a simple yet effective way to boost trust and as Brandmail themselves say:
“A brand is more than a trademark, it’s a trustmark”
You should visit their site - they explain it so much better than I can with pictures. Their blog has some great posts as well.
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