Well I'll be Bloggered...

If you’ll forgive me, today I’m going to hijack the TSG blog away from our usual type of posts. Because today is no ordinary day for us, and I’m going to make the most of it…

Last night an excited bunch of Team TSG members were proud to represent the company after we had been shortlisted for ‘Best Business Blog’ for the first annual North East Blogger Awards.

The awards ceremony, organised by local PR firm OPR, took place at the very trendy (read: too trendy for me) Lane 7 in Newcastle, otherwise known for its boutique bowling and the scene of my birthday last year where I invented a new sport called ‘Ultimate Table Tennis’.  But I digress…

The event was organised to celebrate the blogging talent within our region, and recognise a medium which has become a stalwart way to reach and build relationships with audiences in this digital age.

I’m proud as bloody punch to tell you that ‘Don’t Get Blogged Down By Technology’ emerged as the frontrunner, despite some very strong competition from the other shortlisted candidates in our category – uk.sageone.co.uk/blog and hairtrade.co.uk/blog.

Cue a lot of screaming, jumping up and down, and jumping on top of each other, by our delighted team.

And that’s what we’ve been trying to build with this blog – a genuine team effort, which has become a large part of TSG’s culture.

Over 30 people within our business contribute articles here, and that’s from our senior management team, supporting functions, sales, R & D, the engineers out in the field…the list goes on.

Most never had any previous published writing experience before they penned their first post, but their passion for what they do, and for technology, brings it all out.

We’ve also had Microsoft write a couple of guest posts, and last month one of our customers wrote a really helpful blog for anyone struggling to download iOS 8 on their iPhone.

I’m really keen that we introduce more guest bloggers who can say something a little bit different to what others in our industry are writing about, so if that sounds like something you’d like to do, please get in touch with us.

I’ve had some lovely messages from our bloggers saying how they have loved having the blog as an outlet, and it’s even given them more confidence as a result. But that’s one of the reasons why we set it up in the first place – to provide a platform for our talented team to offer insights into current and future technologies, and the impact that this has for both businesses and consumers.

We work in an industry which is full of annoying acronyms, meaningless jargon and cringeworthy buzz words – we just wanted to cut through all of that, and provide information for people which will help their business on a day to day basis, delivered in a very informal manner.

And we’ll continue to do that, and be ourselves as we do. But if you have any ideas on topics you’d like us to write about or just want to ask us a question, I can guarantee I won’t know the answer but I’m sure I’ll be able to identify which one of my talented colleagues will!

Lastly, I just want to say a big thanks to OPR for organising the awards ceremony and nomination process. It’s within every right that blogging, and the people who spend the time to write them, should be recognised and celebrated, so a massive well done to everybody else who was shortlisted. Thanks also to Benfield Motor Group who sponsored the business blog category.

Now’s not the time for complacency – I’m off to think about what to blog next. And eat some cake.