We’ve got big news on the awards front here at VoiceCon: We’ve overhauled our Best of VoiceCon award, and we’re going to give it a much higher profile at VoiceCon Orlando 2010.

In the past, Best of VoiceCon has been voted on by attendees, but starting this year, Best of VoiceCon is going to be a juried award, in which my co-chairman, Fred Knight, and I will be joined by a panel of five judges to scrutinize entries. We’ll hold a preliminary round of voting to choose up to 6 Finalists, then we’ll hold briefings with each of the Finalist entrants, preparatory to a vote for the final Best of VoiceCon winner. It’s a significant time commitment on the part of the judges.

Our previous method of having the attendees choose the Best of VoiceCon wasn’t a bad way to do it, but we feel that this year and going forward, the entrants will be subject to much more intense and focused scrutiny than the average VoiceCon attendee had time to put into their votes in previous years. As a result, we believe that the new Best of VoiceCon award will be a major event for the industry, something that the Winner and the Finalists can point to as a meaningful recognition of the importance of their offered products.

VoiceCon Exhibitors who want all the specific rules and the online entry form can go here—and the deadline for entries is THIS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5.

I want to emphasize that the purpose of these awards is to recognize forward-looking, even revolutionary product offerings. We’re at an inflection point in the communications industry: A lot of the fundamental assumptions about architectures and elements of communications systems are being called into question. What will the future really look like in enterprise communications? Of course we hope that the whole VoiceCon event, conference and exhibition, will help you answer that question, but we especially hope that the new Best of VoiceCon award will become a lodestar for the migration.

Fred and I will be joined in the Best of VoiceCon judging by the following distinguished panel:

* Michael Finneran, President, dBrn Associates
* Marty Parker, Principal, UniComm Consulting
* Sorell Slaymaker, Communications Architect, Unified IT Systems
* David Stein, Principal, PlanNet Consulting
* Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group

We’ll present the award on the Wednesday morning of VoiceCon Orlando, March 24. Again, exhibitors and everyone else can get more info on the award at http://www.voicecon.com/bestofvoicecon/. I’m excited about the judging process and the award that it will result in.