Today, Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) honored 16 Forrester Groundswell Award winners for excellence in effective use of social technologies to advance an organizational or business goal. The fourth annual Forrester Groundswell Awards were announced at Forrester’s Consumer Forum 2010 in Chicago and for the first time included winners in a Management division, in addition to Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) divisions. Winners in the International division will be announced next month at Forrester’s Marketing & Strategy Forum EMEA 2010 in London. The Forrester Groundswell Awards support and recognize the principles outlined in the Forrester books Groundswell: Winning In A World Transformed By Social Technologies (Harvard Business Press, May 2008) and Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, Transform Your Business (Harvard Business Press, September 2010).

“Once again, the entrants and winners for this year’s Forrester Groundswell Awards amazed us,” said Josh Bernoff, senior vice president – idea development at Forrester and co-author of Groundswell and Empowered. “We were particularly impressed with the diverse and effective social and mobile strategies that organizations are now using to reach consumers, business companies, and their own employees.”

This year, there were nearly 130 Forrester Groundswell Award entries. Winners in the B2B and B2C divisions were chosen across a number of categories – Listening, Talking, Energizing, Supporting, Embracing, Social Impact, and Mobile Application – that represent the strategic goals that Forrester advises organizations to consider when using social technologies to interact with their customers. Winners in the Management division were chosen across three categories: Employee Social Application, Innovation System, and Collaboration System. A detailed overview of each winning entry, along with the finalists in each category, is available on the Groundswell Web site. Here are the winners of the 2010 Forrester Groundswell Awards:

Business-To-Consumer (B2C) Division:

  • Listening: Godiva Sweet Success by Communispace
  • Talking: Secret by imc2
  • Energizing: U by Kotex by Organic
  • Supporting: TurboTax Widget For Free Tax Help by Intuit
  • Embracing: InterContinental Hotels Group and Chase Create A New Credit Card by Communispace
  • Social Impact: Blue Cross And Blue Shield Our Health Connects Us by Deutsch LA
  • Mobile Application: iPhone App With Car-Buying Tools by USAA

Business-To-Business (B2B) Division:

  • Listening: Adobe Uses eCairn To Discover Key Influencers by eCairn
  • Talking: POPURLS Brown Edition Delivered by UPS by Federated Media
  • Energizing: Spiceworks Users Spread the Word and Create SpiceRex by Spiceworks
  • Spreading: Threatpost by Kaspersky Lab
  • Supporting: developerWorks by IBM
  • Embracing: Embracing NI Customers for Software Development by National Instruments

Management Division:

  • Employee Social Application: The U.S. Department of Defense’s APAN Community by Telligent
  • Innovation System: Intuit Brainstorm: Empowering Employees by Intuit
  • Collaboration System: CEMEX Shift by CEMEX

“This year, we were happy to see such great entries for our expanded Management category, featuring the best collaboration, social, and innovation programs around the world,” said Ted Schadler, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester and co-author of Empowered. “The entries reflected the deep commitments that companies and governments are making in programs that empower employees to solve customer and business problems.”