This year’s Accountancy Age Awards dinner will be a red letter day (well evening) for us, with two of our customers up for three awards.
For the last two years (2006 and 2007), Goodman Jones has won the award for Best Use of the Internet by a Practice. As I’ve blogged before, we helped design and build their website, they use our online accounting solution, we encouraged their business systems partner Philip Woodgate to start blogging, and we got them in to using online tools like GoToMeeting. 
Oh, and by the way, my good friend Dennis Howlett was involved in the team effort helping us with the wording and positioning of the website. This year Philip Woodgate, and managing partner Larry Phillips have wanted to raise the bar even higher, so we’ve made some subtle but important design enhancements, and added some new things. They’ve also started using WordFrame to drive a practice blog and community area of the site where all of their partners and managers are encouraged to blog. We’ve just heard that they have been shortlisted for the Best Use of the Internet by a Practice award for the third year in a row, which is fantastic. Even better news is that they are also shortlisted as Best Medium Firm of the Year. I’m delighted for them – they are a great example of a forward thinking practice, using innovative ideas to work smarter with their clients.
Philip, Dennis and I are also involved with the Institute of Chartered Accountants online network project. We’ve built their communities using WordFrame to support their regions, special interest groups and faculties, as well as IT Counts – the community sponsored by Microsoft. I’m absolutely delighted that ICAEW have been shortlisted for the award for Best Use of the Internet by a Business. For us, having a customer up for each of these awards is pretty special. It is particularly important for the Institute, though, as I really don’t think they have got enough recognition from the industry or the press for the dramatic change they are trying to achieve. They are a 
professional membership organization with over one hundred years of history, and a certain, staid image in the mind of many people, but they are embracing web 2.0 tools and demonstrating technological leadership to the accounting profession – a position that needs to be applauded.
So, we’re trying not to get too excited and ahead of ourselves, but we are looking forwards to the 12th of November with anticipation.
