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Initial nominations have now closed, and we have already had a record-breaking number of companies nominated, including many new names. To see the full list of finalists, head to page 28 of this issue. And as ever, don't forget to vote - I know October seems a long way off, but it really isn't.

Elsewhere this issue includes a fascinating interview with AIIM's John Mancini; a true elder statesman of the ECM industry if ever there was one (though he might not thank me for describing him in that way!). John has always been evangelical in his zeal for the whole sector, and he maintains his enthusiasm in our interview, conducted after his rousing keynote at the recent AIIM Forum in London. We discussed the potential issues for organisations not preparing themselves for huge changes coming through as a result of technological advances.

There are three 'points of disruption' coming together to create a worrying scenario for ill-prepared businesses, says Mancini (see page 32 for full details), and a large part of the problem is that most businesses even now still don't grasp the importance of ECM and information management to how they work. As John Mancini says: "Someone commented to me recently that content management is seen as a 'niche discipline' within IT: that it isn't generally very well understood, and that IT people are usually more focused on the 'plumbing' associated with a system rather than what flows through that system. By and large I think this is still true: large organisations 'don't get' this world, IT functions 'don't get' this world. There is a huge education requirement there to get people to understand that this specific area of information management needs urgent attention."

The argument seems to be that for most IT managers - and even CIOs - the top priority demanding their focus and time is on what Mancini calls 'Keeping the lights on'. This short sightedness on the part of senior management is going to lead to some very large problems for all sorts of businesses. We'd love to hear if you agree with this viewpoint - feel free to email me at the address below.

Dave Tyler
Editor
david.tyler@btc.co.uk