Colleague Nate Elliott has gloriously announced Forrester's sixth annual Groundswell Awards. I've cut and pasted his announcement below. (Thanks, Nate!)

We want to recognize your good work in employee mobile, innovation, and collaboration or social projects. You'll find them in the Business to Employee (B2E) category. We're also very interested in the best B2C and B2B scenarios. CIOs care about all three, of course.

Submit your entry here by September 5th. We'll be making the announcements at our Digital Disruption Forum For CIOs And CMOs in October.

Good luck!

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It’s that time of year again! That is, it’s time to look back at the very best social programs your company has run in the past twelve months, and to prepare your entry to the Forrester Groundswell Awards. This year’s entries are due on September 5, 2012 – and you can enter using our online form. We’ll be presenting the awards at Forrester Forums in October.

We’ve been lucky enough to recognize some fantastic social applications since we started these awards back in 2007 – and we’d like for you to have a great chance of winning, too. To improve your odds, we recommend you focus on two key points:

1.       Enter in the right category. This year we’ve got 17 categories spread across three divisions: Business to Consumer, Business to Business, and Business to Employee. (If you’ve entered in previous years, you’ll notice that our two B2C divisions – North America and International – have been combined into a single global division; and that our Management division has been renamed Business to Employee.) Choose the division that best describes your program’s audience (B2C, B2B or B2E), and then choose the award category that best describes the objectives of your program (for instance, Listening, Talking or Supporting). If you’re not sure which category fits best, you can review the descriptions of each category on our FAQ page.

2.       Describe real business results. Even after six years, we still hear about programs that ‘doubled our Facebook fans’ or ‘exceeded the client’s expectations.’ But social programs should do more than that. If you want to win, you’ll need to show how your social applications impacted the business: What percent increase in brand awareness did your word-of-mouth program create? How many verified leads came from your LinkedIn group, and how did the cost-per-lead compare to other channels? How much revenue came directly from your branded community? Remember that you can include a link to any additional information you want, anywhere on the Web.

If you’d like some inspiration – and an idea of what kinds of entries do well – browse our past finalists and winners:

·         2011 Forrester Groundswell Award Winners: B2C North America, B2C International, B2B, Management

·         2010 Forrester Groundswell Award Winners: B2C North America, B2C International, B2B, Management

·         2009 Forrester Groundswell Award Winners

·         2008 Forrester Groundswell Award Winners

·         2007 Forrester Groundswell Award Winners

And now it’s up to you: You’ve got eight weeks to compile and submit your entries, and we can’t wait to see the great work you’ve done this year. Remember, entries are due on September 5 – no extensions! – and you can submit your entry here.