The several faces in the IoT / M2M Awards

The translation in Spanish of “The Sound of the Music”, is “Smiles and Tears”, so now you can easily understand the reason behind the picture for this post.

If November and December were the preferred months for IoT/M2M predictions, January and February are months for present some of the most important IoT/M2M Awards. Here you have some recent awards:

• 4th Annual Internet of Things Awards // 22 Categories
• 2014 M2M Evolution Product of the Year Award Winners Announced
• Compass Intelligence Announces Winners of the 2014 Mobility Awards in Wireless, M2M, and Green Technology
• The winners of the 2014 M2M Evolution IoT Excellence Award will be highlighted in the first quarter edition of M2M Evolution Magazine
• Cisco Announcing Winners of the IoT Innovation Grand Challenge! #IoTWF
• Best M2M Solutions Awarded at Battle of the Platforms
• Titans of IoT
• https://www.innovationworldcup.com/hall-of-fame/?wc=9
• https://iotbreakthrough.com/winners/

The Organizers and the Nomination Process

When we read or hear “and the Nominees Are… “, we expect that the names reveal the companies or the people we believe they deserve the award at least in the major categories of nominations.

For most of us, the nominating process is not well known. It is a fact that we are not interested in the deadlines in which the nominations occur or in the guidance that is necessary for each nomination. For most of us to read all published information related with the nomination process is a tedious work. Let′s be honest, it is usual that when we are allowed to participate in the nomination, we give our vote to our company, friend or colleague, or the most popular. So why are we going to lost our valuable time in reading the rules of the nomination process or learning about the contribution, quality and impact of nominees to aspire to the award in the category?.

A characteristic of some nomination processes is that they allow check how the results go. Is it good or bad know in advance if our vote will count for something?. Do we lose the interest if we were wrong?. Do we try to influence others to follow us in our mistake?. There is not Perfect Nomination Process, but those processes that increase transparency, fight against voting manipulation, solve quickly technical issues and have a measurable selection criteria got my vote.

Note: do not worry about forget the nominations deadline for submit your vote, you will be bombarded with emails, tweets, messages and phone call to remember it.

My preferred Nomination Process: 4th Annual Internet of Things Awards // 22 Categories

The Awards Committee

The origins of the jury system are in 11th-century England. The concept was that people were entitled to a jury of their peers. Somehow, over the centuries, we turned that upside down.

Nominees expect their submitted work will be judged by an ethic committee. The choice of a committee is not easy as we have seen in movies or TV series. The organization of the awards have to convince national or international experts in the field of Machine-to-Machine communications and Internet of Things, avoiding to include employees of nominees companies or people recognized by the community by their dubious reputation for impartiality. And many times just can offer paid travel & expenses for their work during weeks.

And the most difficult task, the Organization must ensure that members of the Committee kept confidentiality and are not influenced.

We all expect that the Awards Committee after follow some pretty heated deliberation announce the winners they deserve the award. Although I do not remember a single award that has not ended in disappointment.

My preferred Award Committee: M2M Innovation World Congress 24 key players in the M2M ecosystem.

The heaven of Winners

If you are familiar with M2M and IoT Awards, you will be with me about the different degree of happiness and behavior when we hear or read the names of the winners.

If the winner is a mega vendor or he/she work for a mega vendor we feel that the organization and the Award committee was doing the easy way. The winners accept the award sometimes with indifference or little emotion using words they in their speech like “It is a great recognition to receive this award on behalf of the company /team , bla, bla bla”.

When the winner is an entrepreneur or startup we all move our attention to them. We want to know more about them. These winners touch the heaven during the speech. New opportunities and doors are immediately open to them.

My preferred Winners in 2014:

• Relayr (Berlin, Germany) is providing simple and inexpensive tools that will accelerate developers’ ability to take advantage of IoT and start programming for the physical world around us.
• PrismTech (Headquarters: Stirling, Stirlingshire) supplies the software platforms, tools and services that industrial customers need to deliver the performance, scalability, efficiency, flexibility and robustness they require.
• SigFox (Labege, France) global network is dedicated to providing long-range, low-throughput, cost-effective and energy-efficient connectivity that is perfectly suited for such two-way communication.

Potential winners in 2015: 2lemetry ; IFTTT; Thingful;

The hell of Losers.

The first image that comes to my mind when I think of losers of awards is that of Leonardo di Caprio. I think he is a great actor, with many records but the Academy never reward him yet. Will he have to wait for the honorary Oscar ?

Speak of losers is always a subject very subjective and controversial. For many new nominees being nominated is just being a winner. Of course not all, companies or individuals, can all keep in mind that is expected they win by a landslide. If this does not happen disappointment is greater. But such is life, a fair and transparent process and an ethical jury can blow the surprise.

My disappointing losers in 2014: Ayla Networks, Xively by LogMeIn , Libelium, Communication Service Providers, Mega IT Vendors because of “Much ado about nothing”

There is life after the Awards

What happens after the awards?. The world goes on, life goes on and both winners and losers have a big challenge ahead.

The organizers must accept criticism, continue to improve transparency and other aspects of the process, especially in search of the best members for Award Committees.

The Award Committee must consider whether they voted in conscience and if it was not so they must think about the benefit or damage that may have made the nominees.

The winners must continue to work hard to prove that it was not chance this award and knowing that from now expected much more from them. They should avoid complacency and keep focus on core business. The losers, once the ordeal, must be redone soon and work hard for next year. Not only live awards. Good work and satisfied customers is much better prize.

Summary

There are many reasons to participate in IoT / M2M Award Programs. Award programs give us a way to celebrate business excellence, they provide plaques to hang in the lobby and logos to post on the website. But award programs are about more than “look at me” self-congratulations. For relatively unknown companies IoT /M2M Awards present investment opportunity and project credibility. And for large organizations, IoT awards are a way of demonstrating publicly the right direction in the transformation of the company.

Looking forward to receive the IoT best blog award in 2015, see you in my new post.

Thanks in advance for your Likes and Shares

Thoughts ? Comments ?