Editor's Blog: On the agenda in September

September is one of the busiest months at silicon.com. Not only is it the end of summer - so all of a sudden a torrent of 'news' is released by some of the biggest players in tech (see end for some tips on that front) - but we are building up to our annual CIO Forum on 26 September and putting together another Agenda Setters special report.

Last year was the first time I hadn't been involved in either editing or chairing the Agenda Setters project, which has been up and running for a number of years. (Don't be fooled by imitations, I should add.) But this week I took part in the debate which leads to this annual list of 50 tech power brokers.

I can't possibly say what the results are for this year - partly because our editor for the project, Sylvia Carr, is still collating everyone's votes - but I can talk about the quality of those prospective Agenda Setters and indeed our judges.

Those assembled in the room, sharing a heartening mix of expertise on subjects as important as software, networks, outsourcing, China, India and IPR (to name but a few), sensed a shift in tech away from the big vendor execs towards more 'bottom-up' influencers. It seems the creator of the next big collaborative platform is just as likely to shape our futures as that Silicon Valley CEO with hundreds of millions - or more - in stock.

This won't be the biggest news to many of you but I'm looking forward to this shift being translated to named individuals. We'll see, come the final list. As a participant from a previous year of the project said: "It's a game." It is - but a very interesting one.

Agenda Setters 2006 will launch on 26 September and I'm grateful to all those who made it possible again this year. It's a real litmus test, with the caveat that it's about individuals rather than companies, technologies or trends.

And my footnote on that deluge of 'news' come September? For one, I refer to 'news' that way because it isn't news if it's only the organisation pushing out the info that calls it news. But apart from that, the general feeling seems to be there's no point releasing anything until September. Maybe there's a fear no one is around to read, listen to or watch any stories. Maybe the fear is that no journalists are at work to write or record them.

My advice is simple: if you're looking to punt something to the media - and clearly I'm not expecting Watergate-style leaks but something more middling - then catch that last week of August. Chances are you can get a top-of-site/front-page lead.

Only 51 more weeks left to execute on that one then. I should probably stop handing out such advice.