Whoever said life wasn’t a popularity contest was, well, wrong. The truth is, life is just one giant popularity parade right through the heart of mediocrity and up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art as we all fight and claw our way towards better things, like being named Homecoming Queen or owning a cat cafe and not letting anybody else in.

And as for business, well, that can simply be defined as ‘a person’s regular occupation, profession, or trade; commercial activity’… or ‘popularity contest’ (you can’t make money if people hate you…)

That’s why every year, we here at Connected run our Most Popular Awards – to identify those brands that resonate well with integrators.

We’re not saying the winners are the best brands, nor do they necessarily have the best product. What we are saying is that they’re striking a chord with their audience that is quite often hard to quantify.

In 2016, we have further extended the Awards to now comprise 60 categories. Most of the new entries are in the commercial space and in areas that aren’t as ‘sexy’ as AV, like ‘tools’ and ‘software’.

We’re also asking integrators to name their favourite commercial and NZ-based distributors, who they consider to be the most influential person in the industry (my last name is spelled S-K-E-L-T-O-N) and who their overall preferred manufacturer is.

We strongly encourage integrators from all across Australia and New Zealand to have their say.

Voting is open now, so to take part simply click here.