It may be said that I am just a teeny tiny bit competitive… There’s a reason the geekdaddy has banned me from ever playing Monopoly (seriously – you don’t just lose – you get ground down until you have nothing, whilst all the time thinking “if someone would just land on my hotel I can get back in the game!”). I’m still smarting from a certain Pictionary experience at Christmas. And if I play games with the kids I don’t make any allowances in order to let them win. I have a nasty feeling both my kids have inherited this streak, which can make life very interesting, and I’m sure won’t get any easier as they get older!

I want to talk about awards again. I know I wrote recently to explain why it’s really nice thing to vote in blogging awards, but I want to say something different this time. There are several different blogging award ceremonies each year, and I have to keep an eye on myself, as it is an area that my slightly competitive side can cause problems for me. Many of these awards have a voting element, and I have to be very careful not to irritate you, my readers, by asking for too many votes for too many different awards. I’ve only just removed one such “vote for me” badge from my blog. So when the Brilliance in Blogging awards rolled around, I was planning to play it low key. There are actually two voting rounds for these particular awards, and I didn’t push for votes in the first round. When the shortlists for the second round of voting were announced my competitive side scanned through the list looking for any familiar names, and I was delighted to see my name in the shortlist for the INNOVATE category.

INNOVATE is a new category in the BiBs this year, and one I’m really pleased to see there. It’s always great to see the new things people are doing in blogging, and the shortlists for these awards are a great way to discover new blogs. The category blurb says that this award

[…] is all about entrepreneurship: in your blog, your life, your words. This blogger is constantly innovating: Trying new things, pushing the envelope, reaching new heights. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. What counts is you tried and because of that we have too.

Innovation can mean different things to different people, but personally I think I innovate because I try new things. My blog is not just a written blog but features audio blog entries and video entries as well. Seperately from this blog I also produce an aspirationally weekly podcast with the geekdaddy called Parental Geekery, and we have just started live streaming our recording via YouTube as well. I also share my knowledge with anyone who wants to learn – I have recently spoken about how to make better videos at two different blogging conferences and will be speaking at the BritMums Live conference in June about how to do some clever things with your blog that you didn’t know you could.

There’s another interesting entry in the INNOVATE shortlist that I encourage you to check out – the Love All Dads podcast. If you’re not familiar with this weekly podcast I think you should give it a listen  – it’s a relaxed round table discussion between a small group of Dads, including one I know rather well. Yes, this podcast features the geekdaddy, which means I am up against him for the same award!

I don’t think I’ve ever been in direct competition with the geekdaddy before over anything. Ever. Well, unless you count our game of Taboo for the Andrex Washlets challenge a couple of months ago (which I won. Just saying…). So that ever so tiny competitive streak of mine has gone into overdrive. The second round of voting for the Brilliance in Blogging awards has just started, and this round will whittle the shortlist of 16 blogs down to just 6 Finalists who will go forward for judging. The winner of each category will be selected by judges and announced at the BritMums Live conference in June, which the geekdaddy and I are both attending (and speaking at).  I would love both of us to have the chance to have our work judged in the Final stage, and it would be amazing for both he and I to attend the glitzy Brilliance in Blogging award ceremony together as Finalists.

We want to be together… (Photo by Tim Arber)

So I’ve added the voting button below, and I would be really grateful for your vote in the INNOVATE category of the Brilliance in Blogging awards if you think I’m innovative. And if you don’t, please consider voting for the Love All Dads Podcast instead. Because they’re pretty innovative too 🙂