Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) today announced that it is now accepting nominations for the second annual Forrester Groundswell Awards, which recognize excellence in accomplishing business goals with social applications. The global award winners will be honored at Forrester’s Consumer Forum in Dallas, on October 28–29, 2008. Forrester developed this awards program to support the principles of the Forrester book, Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies, published by Harvard Business Press in May 2008.

“Since the first Forrester Groundswell Awards were held last year, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of companies developing and implementing social applications to advance their corporate goals,” said Josh Bernoff, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester and co-author of Groundswell. “We expect this year’s winners to be some of the most effective social applications ever created.”

This year’s awards process also includes a unique element — the broader community will be able to evaluate the entries. All entries will be published online on the Groundswell Web site, groundswell.forrester.com, where visitors can rate and comment on the submissions. Forrester will take the community’s evaluations into account when selecting winners but will choose winning entries based on proof of business value, not which applications end up the most popular.

Forrester will choose winners in each of seven categories: Listening, Talking, Energizing, Supporting, Embracing, Managing, and Social Impact. These are the main goals Forrester recommends companies consider as reasons to use social technologies to interact with customers:

  • Listening — Find out what customers are really saying in order to understand them better.
  • Talking — Spread messages about a company.
  • Energizing — Get a company’s best customers to evangelize its products.
  • Supporting — Help customers support each other to solve each other’s problems.
  • Embracing — Integrate customers into the way a business works, including using their help to design products and improve processes.
  • Managing — Empower employees and managers within an organization.
  • Social Impact — Improve society with non-commercial applications.

Entries for the awards must be submitted via the online entry form by September 9, 2008. Any size company or organization can enter, and vendors and agencies can enter applications created on behalf of their clients.

More information about the Forrester Groundswell Awards is available at www.forrester.com/Groundswell/awards.html.