Your opinion matters as much to me as ours. So, who do you think should be the 2017 Newsmaker of the Year?

Making our annual selection didn't come easy to the Crain's team. Managing Editor Mike Lee started the process by requesting nominees from the reporting and editing staffs, with each list ranked in order of preference.

Mike then came to a newsroom meeting with a spreadsheet listing the nominees: three dozen or so names in the news from various walks of life in metro Detroit. CEOs. Philanthropists. Technologists. Sports figures. Educators. Manufacturers. Politicians. Developers.

Then we debated the list, knowing we had to winnow it to 10.

Who made the most news in 2017?

Who had the greatest impact?

Do bad actions that make news qualify for the list?

Do we generously interpret the term "newsmaker" to include people who didn't generate an inordinate amount of headlines but are otherwise deserving of recognition?

Working with Crain's corporate leadership, this is the list we revealed in last week's issue:

Mayor Mike Duggan, who won re-election in a landslide and has insisted on public-private cooperation in Detroit's long climb back to health.
Martha Firestone Ford, the 92-year-old owner of the Detroit Lions credited with breathing life back into the mediocre franchise.
Dan Gilbert, the billionaire founder and chairman of Quicken Loans Inc. and Rock Ventures LLC who has his finger in almost every downtown pot.
Vinnie Johnson, majority owner and chairman of Piston Group, which closed on the $175 million acquisition of a Takata Corp. unit.
Wright Lassiter III, president and CEO of Henry Ford Health System who oversaw groundbreaking on a major outpatient cancer center and won the right to be the Pistons' official medical provider and medical manager of a 175,000-square-foot sports performance center.
Rip Rapson and La June Montgomery Tabron, who overcame institutional rivalries to commit $50 million toward tackling one of the greatest challenges to Detroit's future: improving early child education. Rapson runs the Kresge Foundation, Tabron runs the Kellogg Foundation.
Matt Simoncini, who announced his retirement as Lear Corp. president and CEO after 11 years in the Southfield auto supplier's C-suite, a turnaround artist and charismatic champion of Detroit. His second act is eagerly awaited.
Dug Song, CEO of Duo Security Inc., who grew his cybersecurity firm's customer base from 8,000 to more than 10,000 in 100 countries and raised a venture capital round of $70 million, the largest ever Michigan.
Art Van Elslander, the founder of Art Van Furniture who sold his Warren-based company and launched a new firm to make targeted investment and acquisitions. He donated $20 million to the Solanus Casey Center.
Deirdre Waterman, the mayor of Pontiac who has led the city out from under the thumb of an emergency manager system to lure prominent companies to the Oakland County seat.

While we didn't set out to do so, we had created a list that reflects one of the themes driving progress in recent years: the willingness of powerful men and women to set aside ego and work together. Gilbert and Duggan are teammates on the Amazon bid. Rapson and Tabron joined forces to improve schools. Each person on the list is a selfless force for change.

After settling on our top 10, Crain's named Simoncini its top newsmaker of 2017 and invited him to speak Feb. 8 at the annual Newsmaker of the Year luncheon title-sponsored by Deloitte, one of the biggest events and biggest honors in the Detroit business community.

So what do you think? Was that the right pick? Would you choose somebody else?

Again, our choice is no more important to me than yours: For the first time, Crain's is conducting a "Readers' Choice" poll. To vote, visit crainsdetroit.com/readerschoice.

We're keeping the winner secret until the luncheon at Motor City Casino, when we'll reveal and honor the readers' choice. Who's it going to be?