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.