As a guy who rarely wins anything, I’m pretty excited and honored to be named one of the Mass High Tech All Stars at tonight’s awards. It’s a big night for social media, in my eyes. My own award aside, look at the other categories that Mass High Tech finds worthy of awards. Telecom, education, electronics, life sciences, etc. They call it the “innovation economy,” and in that regard, I most certainly agree. Social media is definitely innovating, if nothing else.
It’s pretty amazing to me. Social media ranking up there with venture, hardware, energy, etc. Wow. We have quite a game ahead, if we all work at it. For those of us working to deliver repeatable value in social media, this is our sign that we can keep making a business impact.
Look at these other categories and the winners’ names:
Telecom: Justin Aborn, Chief Scientist, General Compression
Education: Abigail A. Barrow, Director MA Technology Transfer Center, University of Massachusetts
Social Media: Chris Brogan, VP Strategy & Technology, CrossTech Media <-- me! : )
Legal: Karen F. Copenhaver, Partner, Choate Hall & Stewart
Hardware: Alexei Erchak, Founder and CTO, Luminus Devices
Community: Trish Fleming, Exec. Director, MIT Enterprise Forum
Internet: David Friend, Chairman CEO and Co-Founder, Carbonite Inc.
Electronics: Peter L. Gammel, CTO and Vice President Engineering, SiGe Semiconductor
Information Systems: Foster Hinshaw, President and CEO, Dataupia Corp.
Venture: Paul Maeder, General Partner, Highland Capital Partners LLC
Networking: G. Robert Malan, Founder and CTO, Arbor Networks Inc.
Software: Michael Stonebraker, CTO and Co-Founder, Vertica Systems Inc.
Energy: Mitchell G. Tyson, CEO and Director, Advanced Electron Beams Inc.
Life Sciences: Susan Windham-Bannister, President and CEO, Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Distinguished Achievement Award: Robert M. Metcalfe, General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
With that in mind, I really look forward to meeting people tonight who have done innovative things, and I hope I make a few new friends at the event. It’s an honor, but more so, it’s an opportunity to see what might come next in a space that’s pretty new, and very much on a lot of people’s minds as they contemplate marketing spend for 2009.
Though I don’t see social media tools as marketing tools only, if that’s where we get our start, fine. I’ll be happy with that, too.
See you at the event?
Related posts:
Pingback: Social media role in delivering news events « Webnomena