Are You an IT Action Hero? Aldon Wants to Know

June 2, 2009 Alex Woodie

Acts of IT heroism are rarely acknowledged outside the data center. Your superior skill set, situational awareness, and stick-to-it-ive-ness routinely save your company many times the meager salary they pay you as a programmer. You’re not in the habit of nominating yourself for employee of the week, but now that Aldon has announced its IT Action Hero Awards, you can take off that cape, remove the mask, and take a short respite from your day-to-day routine of sheer, unrepentant awesomeness to get the recognition you deserve.

Unveiled yesterday, Aldon’s 2009 IT Action Hero Award is designed to honor and reward application development pros who have accomplished “mind-blowing” acts of programming, involving “code-defying” tricks, according to the vendor. Think of the paradigm-busting originality of Dr. Frank’s TIMI combined with the raw talent displayed in Jack Black’s “Wonderboy,” and you won’t be far off of the level of genius we’re talking about here.

The one catch: You’ve got to be user of Aldon’s application lifecycle management (ALM) software. ALM is designed to make development tasks easier, hence the ability to unleash mad superhero IT skills (or is that skillz?).

“We are extremely proud of what our customers are doing with application development–their innovation, hard work, and outstanding project achievements,” says Matt Scholl, president and CEO of the Emeryville, California-based software company. “We hear about your amazing results all the time. Now we want to reward you.”

The top award is a Nintendo Wii + Fit. Second place gets an Apple iPod Touch, and third place gets a $50 gift certificate at Amazon.com. Interested IT action heroes can nominate themselves, a colleague, or a development team at www.aldon.com/com_itaction_hero. The deadline to enter is June 19.

This isn’t the first time Aldon has tried to entice compelling IT stories out of the woodwork. You will remember the “Turkey Awards” last fall that sought the worst IT development nightmares and the most compelling turnarounds. The IT Action Hero Awards is along those same lines.