Hang up your "I'm busy, so don't bug me" sign and kick your old-fashioned desk phone off the hook, folks, because it's time to engage your grey matter and decide who to vote for in the inaugural Light Reading Readers' Choice Person of the Year Award. (See Light Reading's Person of the Year: The Finalists.)

For the first time we're letting you decide who will receive a gong at our annual Leading Lights Awards, which will be presented at a special awards dinner on October 15 in New York City, following the first day of our Ethernet Expo. (See Turn On Your Leading Light.)

From our list of 13 finalists, we will hand the prize to the person who gets the most votes between now and September 28, the date the Person of the Year poll will close.

And believe me, this is no easy choice.

Having sifted through your submissions, which included the sublime (our finalists, plus many other worthy entries), and the ridiculous (the CEO of Puppet Greetings Entertainment, "Where Puppets Say It Best"), we compiled a shortlist that'll demand some serious deliberation before you vote.

The list contains some familiar names: Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) exec and now Joost CEO Mike Volpi; BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) CTO and all-around entertainer Matt Bross; Infinera Corp. (Nasdaq: INFN) CEO Jagdeep Singh; and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) head honcho Carl-Henric Svanberg.

It also includes some individuals that may be new to you, such as Daniel Graf, CEO of decentral.tv , Tech Mahindra Ltd. 's chief executive Vineet Nayyar, and Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) executive VP Kim Perdikou.

You can find out about all the shortlisted folk, and more about some of the "interesting" entries we received, by reading our report, Light Reading's Person of the Year: The Finalists.

To cast your vote for Person of the Year, click here.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading