The Irish Blog Awards team of judges have worked harder than Santa’s elves in Lapland.  The latter have a whole year to prepare and tap away with their hammers, while the IBA judges are restricted to a very short timescale in which to tap away on their keyboards, read, digest and make decisions.  So with much head scratching… the decisions were made and the Short Lists have been published.

If you are a regular visitor here you will be as pleased as I was to see so many who comment here have made it through to the Short lists.

The work is not finished.  Anyone listed in more than one category will now have to decide which one goes forward for the next round.  Well it is already too late to make that decision.  The cut off time was 3pm yesterday.  Failing to make the decision, the judging panel would randomly make the selection for the Blog owner.  Removing the excess names would reduce the numbers and again the judges adjust their thinking caps and this time the criteria will be a little different.

The judges are all volunteers and give of their time willingly each year.  We all read blogs and at times have difficulty keeping up to date with the latest postings.   Just imagine if you had to take a blog and work your way through it over at least six months.  The variety of topics are amazing and while some Blogs post once a week or less there are others that post once, or indeed several times a day.  The group blogs have several authors with very different styles.  Now multiply that one blog several times… lets imagine a judge gets a list of 10, 12 or even 20 blogs to work on… I imagine it is not an easy task.

So well done to all who step up to the plate and play their part.

Of course Damien, for whom the first quarter of the year means no sleep, is on hand to answer queries and hand out the headache pills.  Without him the Irish Blog Awards would not happen.  He organises and browbeats the Sponsors for each event.  They provide the trophies and gifts on the night, the hire of the event venue and all the the background items that we never think of, but are necessary to make the night the success we have come to know and expect.

I must give a special mention to: Microsoft Ireland’s Developer and Platform Group sponsors of the Best Personal Blog category in which I find my name.  There are some wonderful talented bloggers in there, I wish them all well for the next round.

Thank you everyone for your support.

* The logo is with thanks to kmcgraphics.com