We have just heard today, totally out of the blue, that Salt has been shorlisted for the Cambridge Evening News Business Excellence Awards 2008 in the Small Business of the Year category!

We are so thrilled, particularly given the other companies who are in there: I won't list them all and there's no link to the article in the paper as yet, but they include The GeoInformation Group - an aerial mapping company that provides images for Google Earth and telecoms companies, and is about to float on the stockmarket; OrthoMimetics, which has developed a devise similar to cartilage and bone for repairing common sports injuries - the outcome of a £3.25m project; Nujira, which raised £10m to develop an international company which saves the cell phone industry money by making them more energy-efficient.

There are ten companies shortlisted in total and it is a breath-taking list. The write-up in the newspaper on Salt explains how we set up years ago with no money and no hope of ever borrowing any, and how our area of publishing is tough but we love it, have won awards and carved out a niche for ourselves. Everyone on the list has offices, money and staff except us - but we're in there, it's great!