Important Changes Made to The 2016 American Business Awards

Posted by Michael Gallagher on Mon, Nov 23, 2015 @ 02:49 PM

We make changes to every Stevie Award program every year: categories are added or dropped, fees are raised (and occasionally lowered), entry requirements are tweaked, the schedule is adjusted, and so on.

2015 American Business AwardsIt's rare, though, that monumental changes are made.  But we've made some really important changes to The American Business Awards for their 2016 (14th annual) edition, and if your organization is in the U.S.A. and you're considering submitting nominations to the ABAs, you need to be aware of these changes.

The American Business Awards are the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., with categories to recognize achievement in every facet of work life, from management to marketing, human resources to new products and websites.  There are two early-bird entry deadlines for the 2016 edition - November 19 and December 16, 2015.  The final deadline for submissions is February 18, but late entries will be accepted through March 16 with payment of a late fee.  Get your entry kit here.

That schedule itself is one of the big changes for the 2016 ABAs, because it's significantly different from entry deadline schedules of the past.

Here's a summary of all of the changes, large and small, we've instituted for The 2016 American Business Awards.  Contact us if you have any questions about any of these topics.

Eligibility Timeframe

  • Eligibility for the 2016 ABAs extends from January 1 2015 through March 16 2016, the last day that late entries will be accepted.  Nominations should cite achievements during this eligibility window. Videos, publications, live events, and other media premiered since that date are eligible to be entered.  There is no eligibility timeframe for app and web site entries - it doesn't matter when apps and web sites were first published.

New Categories

Late Fee Increased

  • Entry fees have not been raised from 2015, but the late fee charged for entries submitted after the final deadline has been raised from $45 to $55 per entry.

Shipping Fees Lowered

  • The shipping fees which are payable if awards won are not accepted at the awards banquet (see the explanation in the terms and conditions of entry here) have been lowered: to $30 per Gold Stevie Award trophy, and $7.50 per shipment of Silver or Bronze medals, regardless of the number of medals won.

Schedule Changed

  • The ABAs again feature four entry deadlines, including early-bird deadlines in November and December 2015.  But the two deadlines in 2016 have been moved up to earlier in the year.  While those deadlines used to be in late March and late April, the final deadline for 2016 will be February 18, and the last day that entries will be accepted with payment of a $55 late fee is March 16.

Pre-Announcement of Awards

  • The most significant change for the ABAs in 2016 is that we will announce all of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements before the awards banquet.  In the past we pre-announced Finalists, and Finalists did not know whether they had won Gold, Silver or Bronze until the evening of the awards banquet.  In 2016, we will announce all of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners on May 2, and then present the awards during a gala banquet in New York on June 20.

Format of Awards Banquet

  • Because we will now pre-announce all Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners in the ABAs, all Stevie-winning organizations that attend the June 20 awards banquet in New York will be called to the stage to accept their awards and make an acceptance speech.  In the past, only Gold Stevie Award winners were called to the stage.  As in the past, attendance of the banquet is not required to win.

Number of Awards Banquets

  • There will be only one ABA awards banquet in 2016, on June 20 in New York.  In 2012-2015 there had been two banquets each cycle.

New Websites

  • We have a new mobile website for the ABAs, and we invite you to check it out at mobile.stevieawards.com/ABA.  A new desktop website will debut in January 2016.  Among the features of the new site will be the ability to schedule text-alert reminders about the entry deadlines, and the ability to add multiple points of contact to your entry-submission account.

Again, contact us if you have any questions about these changes to The American Business Awards for 2016.

Get the ABA Entry Kit

Reviving Traditional Culture in a Modern World, from a Stevie Award Winner

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Wed, Nov 18, 2015 @ 02:20 PM

TORII HALL in Osaka, Japan, won the Silver Stevie Award for Services Company of the Year–Japan in the Company/Organization Awards categories of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.

The 2016 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards is now open for entries.  Find out more here.

We talked with Torii Kosho, the Founder of Torii Hall, about winning a Silver Stevie, his views on the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards; and what plans the management of Torii Hall had for improving awareness of Japan’s traditional culture in 2016.

1511ToriiHall.jpgAs Torii Kosho explained to us: “Our ‘Kamigata Culture Revitalization Forum,’ which received the 2014 Stevie Award, has been promoting traditional Japanese cultures of the Osaka region, both domestically and internationally, for some time, and will continue to delve deeply into this culture until the end of this year.”

Editor’s Note: Kamigata is a region of Japan including the cities of Kyoto and Osaka; it is also the term used to describe a prolific period of urban culture in that region from the 17th-19th centuries.

Kosho further explained: “The Forum is a cooperation between enterprises, the government, and the people of Osaka; and includes Waseda University in Tokyo, which has the largest theater museum in the East. The aim is to revitalize and preserve the cultural power of Kamigata, which in the past has originated several forms of traditional Japanese entertainment, such as kabuki theater.”

Introducing Traditional Japanese Culture to Paris

We asked Kosho what benefits his organization had experienced through its efforts to heighten international awareness of these traditional cultures.

Kosho explained that members of Torii Hall were invited to a jazz concert in Paris, France, in March 2014, shortly before the Asian-Pacific Stevie Awards ceremony the following month in Seoul, South Korea. “I have been thinking since then that Montmartre in Paris and Minami in Osaka have a lot in common: they are both downtown areas and cradles of culture and art,” he explained. Following the trip to Paris, an exchange of video letters started between elementary school children in Paris and Minami, Osaka. Consequently, Kosho told us, “We are planning a special performance of Bunraku (a traditional form of Japanese puppet theater, which also originated in Osaka) for the schoolchildren in Paris in 2016 to commemorate this interaction.” This gesture takes on even more significance in light of recent events.

Kosho feels that the Kamigata Culture Revitalization Forum has been successful in raising awareness of such art forms as Bunraku and Kabuki theater, both of which are now registered as a cultural heritage by UNESCO.

Editor’s Note: UNESCO established its lists of Intangible Cultural Heritage with the aim of ensuring the better protection of important intangible cultural heritages worldwide and the awareness of their significance.

International Friendship

Osaka Minami, which is where Torii Hall is located, is an international area, and 42% of students at the South Elementary School nearby are foreign, coming from 15 different countries. The country with the largest number of students is the Philippines, with more than 30 students.   2016 marks the 60th anniversary of friendship between Japan and the Philippines. On March 30, 2016, in cooperation with the consulate of the Philippines, the children will travel to an elementary school on the Philippines’ Bataan Peninsula.

“I met some people from the Philippines who were attending the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards ceremony in Seoul, and when I mentioned to them that I support Filipinos, especially single mothers, in Osaka, I received a lot of praise,” said Kosho. “The feeling that this gave me at the time made me realize the value that this friendship event in March 2016 will have for our two countries. I would now like to plan a Bunraku performance in Manila to commemorate the anniversary.”

Continued Kosho: “The people who live or work in Osaka are largely unaware of the fact that the popular tourist destination of Dotonbori is the place where Kabuki and Bunraku first started. I think that winning our Stevie Award has been effective in letting those people know that.”

Another Anniversary

2015 is also the 400th anniversary of one of the main attractions for visitors to Osaka, the Dotonbori Canal, that was completed in November 1615. This November, Torii Hall held a special multi-religious memorial service to commemorate the event.

“We forget the differences between Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity,” Kosho commented. “We ride together on a boat and pray for those who sacrificed their lives during open-cut construction of the Dotonbori canal, yet some of them might have been workers who had apostatized Christianity. I believe that we stand today upon foundations that were built by those who lived here during the past 400 years, including both Japanese and Europeans, and upon the traditional cultures such as Bunraku and Kabuki that flourished here. We should give thanks for that.”

Heightening Awareness of a Rare Disease

“Torii Hall will continue its role as a traditional cultural platform in 2016,” Kosho concluded. “At the same time, we also have plans to reach out to the community. We will launch a Kansai Branch of the Sakura Association to support the patients and families of an incurable form of porphyria that has recently been discovered. There is, as yet, no known treatment for this rare disease, but we can express our deep compassion for those who suffer from it–and help them avoid becoming isolated–by encouraging people with this disease to come and talk about their experiences.”

About Torii Kosho:

Torii Kosho was born in Osaka. He grew up as an heir to the traditional ryokan hotel Kamigata in Sennichimae, Osaka. After graduating from Konan University, he worked for a department store before starting work on the Torii building in 1989. With the completion of the Kamigata building in 1991, he opened TORII HALL, of which he is now the director. Kosho entered the Buddhist priesthood in 1994. He founded the Sennichizan Kosho temple of the Shingon Yamashina group in 2012 and became a chief priest.

About TORII HALL:

TORII HALL is a theater with 100 seats on the fourth floor of the Kamigata building. It retains the atmosphere of yose (a Japanese style of comedy theater), and is designed like a traditional storyteller's house so that microphones aren’t needed during performances. ‘TORII yose’ is a showcase held on the first day of every month. It provides a place to train young rakugo (a traditional Japanese sit-down comedy) artists. It is also used as a venue for seminars, plays, and music events. To find out more, go to www.toriihall.com/.

Topics: company awards, Asia-Pacific, Japanese Awards, Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards for Women in Business Announce Winners in 12th Annual Competition

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Mon, Nov 16, 2015 @ 09:50 AM

Shining a spotlight on women executives, entrepreneurs, and organizations run by women, the Stevie® Awards for Women in Business announced the results of its 2015 competition on Friday, November 13.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition produced by the creators of the prestigious International Business Awards and American Business Awards. The Stevie is widely considered to be the world’s premier business award.

With more than 400 businesswomen and their guests in attendance, the awards were announced at a gala dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Nations represented at the event include Afghanistan, Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Croatia, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the U.S.A. and Venezuela. The presentations were broadcast via Livestream.

Find the event photos here.

More than 1,300 nominations from organizations and individuals in 26 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 160 professionals around the world participated in the judging process to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

Grand Stevie Award trophies were presented to the five organizations that submitted the best body of entries to the competition, in their own names or in the names of one or more clients. Winners were determined by the number of Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards won in the competition. The Grand Stevie Award winners are:

  •             DP DHL, Worldwide (#1)
  •             Digital Risk, Orlando, FL U.S.A. (#2)
  •             iFinance Canada, Toronto, ON Canada (#3)
  •             Accenture, New York, NY U.S.A. (#4)
  •             Pink Elephant, Burlington, ON Canada (#5)

Notable Gold Stevie Award winners from this year’s competition include:

  •     Virtual Legal Pty Ltd, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, Startup of the Year - Consumer Services    
  •     Sunshine Farzan, Head of Marketing and Communications, MetLife Hong Kong, Female Executive of the Year in Asia, Australia or New Zealand    
  •     Stephanie Mitelman, President, Founder and Inventor, Senseez Pillows, Montreal, QC, Canada, Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Consumer Products
  •     Kate Barton, Vice Chair EY, New York, NY U.S.A., Woman of the Year - Business Services    
  •     Axonify, Waterloo, ON Canada, Management Team of the Year – Business Services    
  •     I Change Her Life, Lahore, Pakistan & Istanbul, Turkey, Community Involvement Program of the Year
  •     Pivot Point Marketing, Larkspur, CA U.S.A., Communications or PR Campaign of the Year - Marketing - Consumer Services
  •     Ooredoo, Doha, Qatar    , Smartphone or Tablet App of the Year
  •     Kanchan Naikawadi, Director, Indus Health Plus Pvt Ltd., Pune, Maharashtra, India, Female Executive of the Year – Health Products and Services
  •     Owl's Brew, New York, NY USA, Company of the Year – Consumer Products

The 2015 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflect a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award include AMN Healthcare Services, Inc., AT&T, Cisco Systems, ClearPeople, Collectively, Creative Lodging Solutions, DHL Express, Digital Risk, Just for Pets Pty Ltd, Kim Flynn Consulting, Luvo, Inc., Lynn University, Roshan, Stride, and Synchrony Financial. For a complete list of Stevie Award winners and more information, visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

Entries for the 2016 edition of the awards will open next May.

About the Stevie Awards
The Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards.

Topics: stevie awards for women in business, women awards, company awards, company of the year, Startup of the Year

Who's Coming to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business This Friday?

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Wed, Nov 11, 2015 @ 06:44 PM

More than 400 finalists and their guests from around the world will gather this Friday, November 13 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City for the 12th annual Stevie Awards fror Women in Business. These are the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run.

Grand, Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced. More than 1,400 nominations from organizations and individuals in 26 nations were submitted to the awards this year for consideration in categories including Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others. More than 160 professionals around the world participated in the judging process to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

The awards will be broadcast via Livestream at 7:30 pm ET via the Stevie Awards’ Facebook page

On your mobile device, watch the awards presentations on the Stevie Awards for Women in Business website.

Here is the list of organizations that will be represented at the event this Friday:

11mark

24Notion

6SensorLabs

97th Floor

Absolute Assistance - Virtual Assistant

Academic Achievers

Acorn: An Influence Company

Adello

Advanced Care Australia Pty Ltd

AECOM

Aflac

Allconnect

ALOM

Amadeus North America Inc.

AMN Healthcare Services Inc.

Amobee  

AT&T  

Autoscribe Corporation

Behringer

Beta Soft Systems

Blanks Boutique Inc

BMC Software

BrightPoint Security

Çalik Enerji

Cast & Crew

CBIZ Inc.

Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership, Babson College

Cisco Systems

Classloom

Collectively

Company

Consultants 2 Go

Cree-Con Construction Inc.

Crocon d.o.o.

DemandLab LLC

Dental Assisting National Board Inc.

DHL Express

Digital Air Strike

Digital Risk

Dignity Health

Dr. Kate Siner Inc.

Dream it. Code it. Win it.

EMC

Enterprise Community Partners

EY

Fabric Innovations

Family Development Foundation

FIS

FocusVision

Goodwin Group PR

Hemsworth Communications

HGS

Hillstone Networks

Hy-Performance Fluid Power Pty Ltd

I Change Her Life

iFinance Canada Inc.

Improving Enterprises

Indigo Interactive

InMoment

Irving Levin Associates Inc.

iTalent Corporation

Ixia

Jacobson Strategic Communications

Jones Publishing (Citywealth)

Just For Pets Pty Ltd

Karrikins Group North Sydney

KC Projects

KeenAlignment

Kim Flynn Consulting

Level 3 Communications

Lightwave Inc

LimBionics of Durham

LiquidPlanner Inc.

LLORENTE & CUENCA

Lynn University

Lyons Consulting Group

MalikCo

ManpowerGroup

Mcor Technologies

MELILEA Internatioanl (Taiwan) Limited

Métier

New Family Organization

NF Global Corp

NuCompass Mobility Services Inc.

NurseWise

PharmaLogics Recruiting

Phenomenal PR & Events

Pink Elephant

Pivot Point Marketing

PMFTC Inc

Precision Marketing Group

Proforma SI

radius financial group inc

Rapid Allweiler Group

Red Hat

ReneSola America

REP Interactive

Resilient Systems

Resolute Forest Products

Restoration of Appearance and Function Trust

RevenueWire Inc

Rita Trehan LLC

Roshan

SABIC

Selling Energy

Senseez Pillows

Silverlink Communications

Simple Mills

SOPHIYA Corporation

Source Intelligence

SpeakerBox Communications

SpendWell Health

SPLICE Software

Strategic Medical

Stratus Interactive

Stride

Sungard Availability Services

Swiss Post Solutions

Synchrony Financial

Thai Island

The Art and Craft Gallery

The Luminations Group LLC

Tourism New Zealand

UPMC Health Plan

US Embassy Connect to Success Program

Valerie Herskowitz Palm Beach Gardens

Wells Fargo & Company

Women on Top Business Coaching

Word & Brown General Agency

Working Solutions

World Financial Group

Your Architect

YWoman

ZippedMe

ZON

Zuora Inc.

ZYTO Corporation

Photos and videos from the event will be available next week.

 

Topics: women awards, Women in Business, Awards for Women

Stevie® Awards for Women in Business to LiveStream Presentations on November 13

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Wed, Nov 04, 2015 @ 10:05 AM

The 12th annual Stevie® Awards for Women in Business, the world’s top honors for women entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, will be presented on Friday, November 13 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. More than 400 nominated women and their guests from around the world will attend.

The awards will be broadcast live via Livestream at 7:30 pm ET via the Stevie Awards’ Facebook page

On your mobile device, watch the awards presentations on the Stevie Awards for Women in Business website.

The pre-show from the red carpet will air live from 6:00 – 6:30 pm ET on the Stevie Awards’ Periscope. Follow “TheStevieAwards” on Periscope to tune in. The pre-show will feature interviews with Stevie Award Finalists from around the world.

More than 1,400 entries were submitted to the Stevie Awards for Women in Business this year by organizations and individuals around the world in more than 90 categories including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Startup of the Year, Women Helping Women, and Women-Run Workplace of the Year.

Among the leading contenders this year with five or more Finalists are Accenture, Chicago, IL; AT&T, Dallas, TX; Collectively, San Francisco, CA; DHL Express Worldwide; Digital Air Strike, Scottsdale, AZ; Digital Risk, Orlando, FL; iFinance Canada Inc., Toronto, Canada; Jacobson Strategic Communications, Philadelphia, PA; LLORENTE & CUENCA, Madrid, Spain; Ooredoo, Doha, Qatar; Pink Elephant, Burlington, ON, Canada; Red Hat, Raleigh, NC; Roshan, Kabul, Afghanistan; and Synchrony Financial, Stamford, CT.

For a complete list of Finalists by category, visit http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

About the Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com, and follow the Stevie Awards on Twitter @TheStevieAwards

14th American Business Awards Opens for Entries

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Tue, Nov 03, 2015 @ 12:38 PM

The Stevie Awards, organizer of the world’s premier business awards programs, has issued the call for entries for The 2016 (14th Annual) American Business Awards. All organizations and individuals in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations to the ABAs. More than 3,300 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted in 2015 for consideration in a wide range of categories.

Nominations are accepted in various category groups including management awards, public relations awards, marketing awards, new product awards, HR awards, IT awards, web site awards, and more. New categories for 2016 include Minority-Owned Business of the Year and Veteran-Owned Business of the Year.

There are two early-bird entry deadlines this fall, November 19 and December 16. The final entry deadline is February 18, 2016, but late entries will be accepted through March 16 with payment of a late fee. The entry kit brochure is now available.

For the first time, Stevie Award winners in The American Business Awards will be announced before the gala awards banquet. (To date, Finalists were announced about a month before the banquet, and they could attend the event knowing they had won Gold, Silver or Bronze Stevies, but not which, until the presentations.) In 2016, all Stevie Award placements will be announced six weeks in advance of the event, and winners can choose to come with full knowledge of what they’ve already won.

Because of the change of format, the schedule for the ABAs has been compressed for 2016. In the past entries were accepted as late as the end of April, but in 2016 the last day for the submission of entries will be March 16. Judging will be conducted by more than 200 professionals worldwide in February – April. Stevie winners will be announced on May 2, and the awards presented on Monday, June 20 in New York. As in all Stevie Awards competitions, attendance of the event will not be required to win.

The People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products will return in 2016 as a feature of the ABAs. All new products and services nominated in the competition will automatically be included in the worldwide public vote that will open on May 3. Nominated products and services will thus have the opportunity to win two Stevie Awards: one determined by professionals in peer-adjudicated judging, the other in a popular vote by the customers, employees, fans and followers of nominees.

About the Stevie® Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 10,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 60 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

Asia-Pacific Stevie® Awards Issues Call for Entries for Third Annual Competition

Posted by Maggie Gallagher on Mon, Nov 02, 2015 @ 01:42 PM

The Stevie® Awards has issued a call for entries for the 2016 (third annual) Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the only business awards program to recognize achievement in business throughout the entire Asia-Pacific region. 

The early-bird entry deadline is December 3.  The final entry deadline is January 27, 2016, but late entries will be accepted through March 23 with the payment of a late fee. Complete entry details are available at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com.

The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are open to all organizations in the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region. The categories have been redesigned to focus on recognizing innovation in all its forms, wherever and however it is achieved in the workplace. Nominations will be accepted and judged in seven languages – Chinese, English, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay and Thai - in the following category groups:

Judging of nominations will be conducted from February to April by more than 100 executives around the world. Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners will be announced on April 20. The winners will be celebrated during a gala banquet on May 27 in Sydney, Australia. Some of the Asia-Pacific region’s most distinguished companies have won Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards in the past two years including Cisco Systems, Crocs Singapore, Delta Airlines, DHL Express, Ford China, Globe Telecom, MetLife Asia Ltd., Sony, and SYSPRO Software, among others.

Judging committees for the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards are now being formed. Those interested in participating in the judging process may also apply at http://Asia.StevieAwards.com.

Review the Entry Kit Brochure