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Zeichick’s Take: A tale of two awards


By Alan Zeichick
March 16, 2009 — 
Last week, SD West gave out the 19th annual Jolt awards. This week, reader nominations close for the 2009 SD Times 100.

As one of the creators of the Jolt awards in 1990, there’s a soft spot in my heart for what they represent. Each year, the Jolt award judges (and I was one for many years, until the award owners realized that I was nominally a "competitor") looked for the products that truly jolted the productivity of individual developers or of development teams. The top product in each category won the coveted Jolt award, while a few runners-up were given a Productivity award.

My hat goes off to the many judges who have maintained the Jolt awards during this period, but especially to the rest of the launch team: J.D. Hildebrand, Larry O’Brien and Michael Mulholland. (You can read J.D.’s first-hand report about the creation of the Jolt awards in “In Praise of 1990’s Best.”)

Who produces the Jolt awards? Over the years, ownership and stewardship has changed. At first they were given out by Computer Language. Computer Language was renamed to Software Development, of course, and then it was folded into Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Throughout that process, the Jolt awards were overseen by the appropriate magazine's editors. Today, since DDJ is no longer published, the awards are managed directly by the SD West show management team.

Of course, while yours truly is no longer associated with the Jolt awards, I’m happy that two of the learned judges are SD Times columnists. One of them is Jolt award cofounder Larry O’Brien. The other is Andrew Binstock, who presented the Jolt awards at last week’s SD West. Let’s have a big shout-out for Andrew and a heartfelt congratulations for this year’s Jolt award winners.

Changing the subject: You may still have time to submit a reader nomination for the 2009 SD Times 100. Yes, nominations were scheduled to close last Friday, March 13, but we all know that “Friday” often means “Monday.” Thus, we’ll actually close nominations at midnight tonight, Monday, March 16. Click here to learn more. The 2009 SD Times 100 will be published in our June 15 issue.

Alan Zeichick is editorial director of SD Times. Read his blog at ztrek.blogspot.com.


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