Awards Are Nice, but Relationships Rule

At the risk of having a Sally Field moment, I want to say "thank you" to everyone who voted for this blog in the recent Marketing Sherpa Reader's Choice blog and podcasting awards. It's quite and honor.

Winning an Honorable Mention (despite being up against Seth Godin) is the second-best thing that's happened as a result of lanching this blog. The best thing has been the opportunity to meet, or to get to know better, a lot of fascinating marketing people, directly or indirectly through this blog. Although traffic here hasn't been huge (at least not until the last week or so), I've been amazed and gratified by the caliber of my readers.

I've used this blog to introduce you to some of those people, such as Albert Maruggi, PR guru and head of marketing agency Provident Partners, who writes one of the best podcasting blogs on the planet. And there's Kelly Allan, operations and marketing consulting expert at Kelly Allan Associates; Yvonne DiVita, author, speaker, blogger, and diva of smart marketing to women online; Mike Schultz, a brilliant marketing of professional services at RainToday.com; Jay Lipe, author, consultant, and head of Emerge Marketing; and Ardath Albee, president of CRM extension software developer Einsof. There are also a number of other great bloggers I've had the opportunity to interact with and learn from.

But the most amazing person I've gotten to know professionally this year is Kirsten Chapman, head of technology marketing agency KC Associates. She is not only a brilliant marketer, but a truly extraordinary person: her talent exceeds her ego. For example, when I interviewed her for this blog, she insisted on providing a group photograph of her entire team in place of the traditional headshot. She's justifiably proud of the group of talented, experienced marketing professionals that she's assembled.

It would be nice to beat Seth next year, but I'll happily settle for continuing to expand my circle of online marketing friends, and introducing them to you here.

*****

Terms: Marketing Sherpa 2006 Reader's Choice Blog and Podcasting Awards, marketing blogs, podcasting blogs, professional services marketing, IT marketing agencies

The portal for Internet marketing strategy development: WebMarketCentral.com

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentral.com

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