This year sees the second annual European security bloggers meet up and awards.
Held on the evening of the 30th April, during the week of Infosecurity Europe and BSides London, it made its debut last year and saw noted bloggers such as Javvad Malik, Sophos Naked Security and Thom Langford awarded. The nominations are now open for the 2014 awards and IT Security Guru asked organiser, and 2013 winner, Brian Honan about the awards.
Why are these awards held?
The awards are meant to be a fun event for bloggers to meet up and get to know each other better in a relaxed environment. The main goal of the event is to allow those within the security community, who share their knowledge via their blogs, to get to meet other likeminded individuals. The actual awards themselves are a fun distraction to the evening where those who do contribute to the community are recognised for their efforts.
What sort of people can enter these awards?
Anyone who blogs on information security issues and is based within Europe. The purpose of the meet up and the awards is to bring attention to the strong information security community within Europe so that others can see the good work being done. So, in essence, anyone who blogs, tweets, runs podcasts or video blogs and is based in Europe is eligible to be nominated for the awards.
Is there a strong blogger community in Europe?
There is quite a strong blogger community in Europe. The interesting aspect to Europe is the wide range of topics that people blog about and of course the different languages. We see the meet up event and the awards as a way to promote the good work many bloggers are doing.
Can bloggers offer something different from journalists?
Bloggers do offer something different from journalists. In the main I think the big difference can be in the expertise many bloggers bring to their subject matter. As these people live and work in this area they often have very different and incisive insights to those that journalists may have. Also, bloggers do not have editors to think about, so are much freer to write about whatever topics they feel are interesting to them and to their readers.
Vendors and journalists have opportunity to win awards, is this an effort to reward those who don’t get the acclaim?
Not at all. These awards are not meant to compete or replace any other award ceremonies. They are simply a way for the community to recognise and thank those who take the time to share their knowledge with the rest of us.
The nominations are currently open at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/infosecbloggerawards. To be nominated, the blog has to be based in Europe and as the event and awards are focused on those who have a blog, you must have your on blog to be able to nominate someone of the awards. You must also be a blogger to be able to register for the event.
