ARN IT Industry Awards Panel

Judging Process

Again this year, we have overwhelming support from the IT community and have appointed 60 judges on our panel: 20 from the distributor ranks, 20 from the vendor camp and 20 from the reseller community.

As a judge, you’re voting on a list of finalists from across select industry categories. Nominations for the award categories open on June 16 and close July 22. From there the short list panel selects the finalists for each award.

Again this year, the panel is made up of ARN’s President and Publisher, Susan Searle, Features Editor, Matthew Sainsbury, Associate Editor, Jennifer O'Brien, and Channel Dynamics’ Moheb Moses. Additionally this year, we are delighted to welcome ARN inaugural Hall of Fame inductee, David Henderson, to help in determining the short list.

In order to keep the judges’ process as transparent as possible, here’s some information on the steps involved.

A list of nominees is emailed to the judges, a process that is all done online in order to keep things simple and efficient.

The process is kept as objective as possible given judges don’t vote on their own category or tier, but vote for other elements of the channel. For example, distributors don’t vote on other distributors, and vendors don’t vote on other vendors.

Each award is comprised of a set of questions with select criteria. For the ARN vendor category, for example, the awards recognise high-achieving technology organisations for their channel efforts over the past year. These awards stretch across hardware, software, specialist and innovative technology players.

Vendors are judged by the ARN Judging Panel on delivering high-class and innovative product sets, innovative channel rewards, training and marketing programs and above-par support.

Judges are asked to nominate a ‘Winner’ and a ‘Highly Commended’. Judges make their selections based on the way nominees have responded to the criteria, along with their knowledge of the organisation in the channel over the last 12 months.

We have also appointed 9 judges to the new telecommunications awards category. Here's our line-up for 2011.

Distributor

• Paul Scanlan, IPL Communications
• Ben O'Leary, ICT Distribution
• Peter Masters, Express Data

• Sara Adams, Cisco
• Mac Lewis, Alcatel
• Keith Masterton, Telstra

• Dave Stevens, Brennan IT
• Geoff Horth, M2
• Ian Smith, Alphawest