Only a few short weeks ago, I sat in my office combing through over 125 entries for the 2009 Best In Class Awards.  In our office we each painstakingly read and analyze every nomination in search of a short list of finalists for each award category — and 2009 was clearly the most difficult year for us, in terms of narrowing the field.  Others in our office also comb through that same list and then we all converge in the conference room to begin our annual ritual — a litigation process to lobby for our favorites and create the consensus list of finalists.

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