Business Awards Program to Celebrate Excellence Worldwide at Paris Event

High-achieving organizations and executives around the world have been announced as Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie® Award winners in The 11th Annual International Business Awards, the world's only international, all-encompassing business awards program.

Nicknamed the Stevies from the Greek word "crowned," the awards will be presented at a gala event on Friday, 10 October at the Westin Vendôme Hotel in Paris, France. Tickets for the event are on sale now at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA. 

Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie winners were selected from more than 3,500 nominations received from organizations and individuals in more than 60 nations. All organizations worldwide are eligible to compete in The International Business Awards, and can submit entries in a wide range of categories, including management awards, company of the year awards, marketing awards, public relations awards, customer service awards, human resources awards, new product awards, IT awards, web site awards, and more.  

More than 250 executives worldwide participated in the judging process this year.

The top Gold Stevies winners this year are Weber Shandwick, worldwide, with eight, and Quality Systems, Inc. (USA) with seven. Accenture (USA), Akbank (Turkey), LLORENTE Y CUENCA (Spain), MSLGROUP worldwide, MWW Group (USA), and Plasenta Conversation Agency (Turkey) are winners of five Golds each. Winners of four Gold Stevies are AT&T (USA), CallidusCloud (USA), Jack Morton Worldwide, Maras Group (Australia), and Oxford City Football Club (USA). 

Among the winners of three Gold Stevie Awards are Advanced Bionics (USA), AECOM (USA), ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller (United Arab Emirates), DHL Express worldwide, Globe Telecom (Philippines), Kanyon (Turkey), Odea Bank (Turkey), PS Communication (Denmark), and StarHub Ltd (Singapore).

A complete list of all 2014 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners by category is available at www.StevieAwards.com/IBA.

 “The entries we received this year were some of the most noteworthy we have ever seen,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards.  “We congratulate all of the winners, and we look forward to recognizing them for their achievements at our gala event in Paris on 10 October.”

Next week the winners of the Best of the IBA Awards, five best-of-competition prizes, will be announced.

For high-resolution photos of the Stevie Award trophy or International Business Awards logo, visit http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/iba/press/172_701_3120.cfm. Other information and resources for press are available at http://www.stevieawards.com/pubs/iba/press/172_701_3121.cfm

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The sixth program, the new German Stevie Awards, will open for entries on 18 August.  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 on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

The following professionals participated in preliminary judging of The 2014 International Business Awards, the worlds top business awards program, in May-July.  Their average scores determined the entries that were eligible to be included in final judging.  We thank them for their time, insights and support.

Dr. Mamdooh Abdelmottlep, Founding President, International Police Sciences Association, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Nicole Y. Adams, Translator & Consultant, NYA Communications, Brisbane, Australia
Hazem Adawie Senior Manager-Corporate Performance Management Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Bora Aksoylu, Event Manager, NIKE Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey
Shadi Al Hroub, Creative Director, Freelance, Amman, Jordan
Ahmad Alhai, Drilling Services Automation Project Manager & RTOC Project Member, ADCO, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Mahmoud Alhayek, Quality Expert, Abu Dhabi Police, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Dr. Mohammed A. Alkhozai, Director, Bahrain Management Society, Manama, Bahrain
Amal Al-Najjar, HR Manager, Fluor Kuwait, Kuwait
Col. Mohammed Alreeh, Ministry of the Interior, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Ani Atanasova, CEOPixelhunters, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dr. Christina Augustine, Global Strategic HR, Virtusa Corporation, Chennai, India
Heather Barton, Head of Human Resources, American Institute for Foreign Study (UK) Ltd, London, United Kingdom
Israel Bonequi, Creative Director, Birds Nest Foundation, Montreal, QC, Canada
Ted Bridgwater, President, Foresight Corporate Communications, Toronto, ON, Canada
Oana Bulexa, Managing Director, The Practice, Bucharest, Romania
Connie Bullock, Director, Marketing, NuCompass Mobility, Manassas, VA , USA
Mark Burton, CEO, International Armoring Corp., Centerville, UT, USA
Peter Bush, Doctor, Response Ambulance Services, Port Talbot, United Kingdom
Jorge Cachinero, Director Corporativo de Reputación e Innovación, Llorente y Cuenca, Madrid, Spain
Venkata Rajesh, Cheerla    Group Senior Manager - HR Strategy, Policies & Compliance, Etisalat Group, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Tore Claesson, Director, Tio Agency, New York, USA
Sally Clubley, Senior Consultant, IHRDC, Stourton, United Kingdom
Dorothy Crenshaw, CEO, Crenshaw Communications, New York, NY, USA
Kate Darcy Hohenthal, Founder, The Birthday Club, Manchester, CT , USA
Karla Davis, General Manager, Plantation Resort, Surfside Beach, SC, USA
Saraida De Marchena Kaluche, President and CEO, Markatel, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Lelanie de Wet, Web Content & Social Media Manager, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa
Teresa DeFelice, Account Executive, RCI, Orlando, FL, USA
Danielle Di-Masi, Managing Director, The Interactions Lab, Coogee, Australia
Richard Dixon, Owner/Administrator, Home Helpers and Direct Link of North Texas, Keller, TX, USA
Sheryl Dobson, Director of Customer Contact, J2 Global, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Michal Dunin, Managing Director, WebTalk, Warsaw, Poland
Stacey Edmonds, Founder and MD Lively, Lively Coogee, NSW, Australia
Rochelle Ekanayake, Managing Director UK/SRI LANKA, MrPierce Studios International Asia (PVT) Ltd, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Kristina Garcia, Managing Director, German State of Hessen U.S. Office for Economic Development, New York, NY, USA
Sergio García, Creative Director, Doctor Jekyll, Barcelona, Spain
Manoj Gautam, Om shiva, shakti herbal company pvt. Ltd, Kathmandu, Nepal
Constantinos Grivas, CEO and Founder, Swiss Nutraceuticals MIKE, Athens, Greece
Naresh Gupta, Associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services, Gurgaon, India
Danita Harn, VP of Operations, Harn & Associates Bookkeeping Firm, Woodstock, GA, USA
Robin Harris, Principal/Creative Director, Harris Design Inc., McLean, VA, USA
Aida Hernandez, New Business Development, Marco de Comunicación, Madrid, Spain
Jesse Hertstein, Senior CSR Specialist, Amway, Ada, MI, USA
Jamie K. Holt, MBA, President/CEO, JMK Notary And Services, Miami, FL, USA
Giles House, VP Marketing, CallidusCloud, Pleasanton, CA, USA
Yvonne Howie, CEO, NSW, The CEO Institute, Neutral Bay, NSW, Australia
Richard    Hu, Senior Editor, China Advertising, Beijing, China
Elif Ildeniz, Employer Branding Project Leader, TOFAS-FIAT, Istanbul, Turkey
Echo Ilott, Director, Boost Marketing, Bournemouth, United Kingdom
Leo Indarwahono, Public Health & Educational Executive, The Indonesian Business Coalition on AIDS (IBCA), Jakarta, Indonesia
Petr Jares, Member of the Board, Etnetera, Prague, Czech Republic
Parag Jaripatke, Senior Systems Administrator, AOL Inc., Dulles, VA, USA
Monika Jaslowska, Senior Head of Brand Public Relations Department, Polpharma Biuro Handlowe Sp. z o. o., Warsaw, Poland
Beverly Jensen, President/CEO, WomensMedicineBowl.com, Greeley, CO, USA
Özgür Karaçak, Managing Partner / Founder/ Creative Director, SesliHarfler Digital Advertising Agency, Istanbul, Turkey
Hakan Karamanli, IT Manager, GARANTI TEKNOLOJI, Istanbul, Turkey
Samitha Karunarathne, CEO, Aryans Engineering (Pvt) Ltd., Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia, Sri Lanka
Mazin Khoury, CEO, Middle East, AMEX (Middle East) B.S.C. (c), Manama, Bahrain
Elzbieta Krawczynska, Quality Specialist & Trainer, Bank Zachodni WBK S.A, Poznan, Poland
A.J.Lawrence, CEO, the JAR group, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Andreea Leonte, Senior PR Consultant, MCCANN PR, Bucharest, Romania
Chris Litherland, International Snr Director HR, Intermec by Honeywell Heinsberg, Germany
Ke Je Tony Liu, Greater China Partner, Creative Chairman, MC Saatchi aeiou, Shanghai,  China
Denis Looney, Vice President, Marriott Vacations Worldwide, Cork, Ireland
Anil Machado, Managing Director, Tnell, Sieradz, Poland
Morag Malloy, Managing Director, Fission Creative, Paisley, United Kingdom
Kristin Marcell, Vice President Public Relations, SmartMark Communications, Newtown, PA   USA
Wessam Massoud, Programme Delivery Manager, Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Center (ADSIC), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Chris McConnell, Senior Manager, Accenture, Chicago, IL, USA
Colin McKillop, Chief Executive Officer, Butcher Enterprises, Windsor, ON, Canada
Jennifer, McQueen, Managing Partner, Ausnindo-Asia/Pacific, Croydon, VIC, Australia
Jeremy McWilliams, Managing Director, Bang TV, London, United Kingdom
Ronald Meske, President, Training Systems Design, Camarillo, CA, USA
Eric Mosely, CEO, Globoforce, Dublin, Ireland
Rajesh Kumar Mudiakal, SAP Project Manager, CMC Limited, Mumbai, India
Motomasa Murayama, Professor, Tokiwa University, Mito City, Japan
Rajiv Noronha, AVP, Location HR Leader & Head -Org., Effectiveness, Tata Consultancy Services, Bangalore, India
Charles Olsson, Managing Director, Stockfeed Purchasing Pty Ltd, Crestmead, Australia
Pierluigi Orati    Head of Country Analysis, SENEL SPA, Rome, Italy
Diego Otero Rodríguez, Creative Director, Suigeneris Communications SL (A Save Your Numbers Holding), Barcelona, Spain
Alper Afsin Özdemir, President, Krombera Digital Marketing Agency, Istanbul, Turkey
Cem Cabbar Özdemir, Creative Director, Project House, Istanbul, Turkey
Parveen Panwar, CEO, PMI 5, Media LLC, Los Altos, CA, USA
Anne Patterson, VP Client Delivery, FreeFlow, Kerry Ireland
Katarzyna Pawlikowska, Managing Partner, Garden of Words, Warsaw, Poland
Guy Perry, President, CEO & Founder, Salt Lake Running Company, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Donald Pillai, International Marketing Executive, Bumbo (Pty) Ltd, Rosslyn, South Africa
Churchill Dass Prince, Founder & CEO, Sales Intellect Company, Chennai, India
Rammesh Rajagopal, Senior Manager IT, Cisco Systems Inc., Morrisville, NC, USA
Fanjarivo Rakotonirina, President, Tropical Items Madagascar, LLC, Boulder, CO, USA
V.S. Ramachandran, Senior VP, Emarat, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Mohamed A. R. Rashed, Director of Strategic Planning, Ahlia University, Manama, Bahrain
Dennis Reno, Vice President, Customer Experience, New Relic, San Francisco, CA, USA
Pamela Robinson, CEO, Financial Voyages LLC, Atlanta, GA, USA
Linanne Sackett, Principal Investigator, Verizon Next Step Program, Albany, NY, USA
Prof. Dr. Mohamed Amr Sadik, VP - Curriculum Development, INTEX, Cairo, Egypt
Sasan Saeidi, Managing Director, FP7, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Göktug Sahin, Lecturer, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey
Hande Sarantopoulos, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Director, Kale Group, Istanbul, Turkey
Gauri Sharma, Head of Business, Modest Inc, Chicago, IL, USA
Keira Shein, Partner, WilkinsonShein Communications, Stevenson, MD, USA
Pelle Sjöqvist, Creative Director, Dahlheim & Sjöqvist, Stockholm, Sweden
Asuncion Soriano, Vice President, INFORPRESS, Madrid, Spain
Leslie Stretch, President & CEO, CallidusCloud, Pleasanton, CA, USA
Julian Stubbs, Senior Lecturer, Marketing (retired), The University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom
Begum Susar, Digital Marketing and Design Assistant, Vice President, ING Bank Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey
Andrzej Szczepaniak, Deputy Director, Bank Zachodni WBK S.A, Srem, Poland
Pinar Tuba, Temizkan, HR Senior Consultant and Co-Active Coach, Elemental-Value (official provider of The Coaches Training Institute-CTI), Istanbul   
Meera Tenguria, Founder & Director, Aarrohan Communications, Mumbai, India
Wailaya    Tiningsih Bravyanto, Corporate Relations, PT Unilever Indonesia, Tbk, Jakarta, Indonesia
Han Tjan, VP Corporate Communications, Daimler, New York, NY, USA
Aigerim Tulepbergenova, Business Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Eugene, OR, USA
Noel Unciano, Research Specialist, Industrial Technology Development Institute, Taguig City, Philippines
Aykut Ustun, Group Manager - HR and Management System, Opet Petrolculuk, Istanbul, Turkey
Rob Vandenberg, President & CEO Lingotek, Draper, UT, USA
Kirti Vashee, Vice President, Enterprise Translation, Asia Online, Santa Monica, CA , USA
Nicole Vaughn, Account Supervisor, Fleishman-Hillard, Inc., St. Louis, MO, USA
Vincent Verdi, Art Director, CUNY-TV, Staten Island, NY, USA
Robyn  Vogels, Founder, Managing Director, Personnel Relocations, Cheltenham, SA, Australia
Mike Voznick, National Business Consultant, Harn and Associates, Smyrna, GA, USA
Clara H.Y. Wang, Account Director, KAI Communications (China&UK), Beijing, China
Floor Wijburg, CEO, W & I Consultants, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Silvana Xhaferi, General Secretary, Albanian-British Chamber of Commerce and industry, Tirana, Albania
Mimi Young, Principal, Behavior Design, New York, NY, USA
David Zapata, President, Zapwater Communications, Chicago, USA                            
Joseph Zitzelberger, Director of Manufacturing Development, PACCAR Inc., Chillicothe, OH, USA                                                                                                                          

ValueSelling Associates, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, USA, is a sponsor of the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world’s top sales awards and customer service awards. Find out how to enter the 2015 competition here.

The following article by Julie Thomas, CEO of ValueSelling, was first featured on the ValueSelling Associates Blog in Jul. (You can also read about this year’s successful salespeople in the Sales Individual Awards categories on the Stevie Awards Sales & Customer Service website.)

It’s a commonly accepted notion that buyers often don’t like salespeople. It’s your job to overcome that initial barrier by recognizing that a successful sales relationship hinges on your personal relationship with the customer.

Trust and rapport are essential in encouraging potential buyers to share their challenges and allow you to explore different solutions. People buy from people, so a sales relationship becomes more difficult if two people can’t communicate effectively.

The greater the trust and rapport, the easier it is to get the client to share their perspective, including their personal motivations, and to listen to how your products can create value for them.

Selling Is a Multilevel Communication Process

We trust people who appear to have the same model of the world as we do. We trust people who understand our problems. Whether you are building trust and rapport, persuading, or negotiating, selling is a multilevel communication process.

But active listening is a difficult skill to practice. We are often more comfortable talking and tend to believe that the best way to sell is to make a perfect presentation. Even when we aren’t talking, we are thinking about what we’re going to say next. Every moment spent thinking is one spent not listening. We run the risk of missing buying clues or critical information. We are in danger of missing lost opportunities.

Active listeners always ask themselves these questions:

• Did I hear what they said?
• Do I understand what they said?

5 tips for honing your active listening skills:

• Give your full and undivided attention to the person who is speaking and, whenever possible, make eye contact.

• If you are speaking with someone on the phone or VoIP, avoid distractions and the temptation to multi-task by emailing or texting. The person on the other end of the line can always tell!

• Don’t interrupt the speaker.  No one appreciates being interrupted; when you interrupt someone, you are sending the following message:  “What I have to say is more important than what you are already saying.”  Pause to gather your thoughts and respond thoughtfully. Pay attention to any lag time or delay if you’re using Skype and time your responses accordingly.

• Clarify and confirm. Use breaks in the conversation to confirm what you heard and clarify what you understood. Trust and rapport are built through this process. Confirmation is critical to demonstrate your listening skills and abilities.  Asking follow-up questions and testing your understanding are very powerful and simple ways to prove you are listening.

• Provide nonverbal feedback. If you are having a conversation in person, then nodding, appropriate facial expressions, and occasional verbal affirmations reassure the person you’re speaking with that you are actively listening.

While speaking well is important, our ability to listen, learn, and understand is essential. Active listening can be practiced on anyone, anywhere in an organization. It’s really about the quality of the conversations you have. The better the questions you ask, the better the answers. The more you listen to the answers, the better the conversation, and the more effective you will be as a sales professional.

About Julie Thomas

Julie Thomas, President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, is a noted speaker, author, and consultant. In a career spanning more than 24 years, she credits her mastery of the ValueSelling Framework® for her own meteoric rise through the ranks of sales, sales management, and corporate leadership positions.

Julie began her career at Gartner Group. In 1999, she became Vice President of Gartner’s Sales Training for the Americas, which included successfully managing the training of new hires in the ValueSelling process.  In 2003, Julie acquired ValueSelling Associates with the support of ValueSelling CEO and co-founder Lloyd Sappington. Since then, Julie has led the company to become an industry leader in competency- and process-based training for escalating sales performance.

Julie is a sought-after speaker at industry events such as the Selling Power Sales Leadership Conferences. She is a guest lecturer at both Babson University and the University of Michigan. In addition, Julie is on the advisory board of the eWomenNetwork Foundation Advisory Council and is heavily involved in her local public schools as well as the San Diego Children’s Hospital Auxiliary.

She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

About ValueSelling Associates

ValueSelling Associates, based in Rancho Santa Fe, CA, is the creator of the Value Selling Framework®, the sales methodology preferred by sales executives around the globe. Since 1991, ValueSelling Associates has helped thousands of sales professionals increase their sales productivity. Offering customized training to FORTUNE 1000 companies, mid-sized businesses, to early stage startup organizations, ValueSelling Associates’ proprietary sales training tools and consulting services deliver measurable results. Clients turn to the experts at ValueSelling Associates for classroom and online training and consulting services that yield immediate impact, repeatable strategies, and sustainable results to sales productivity.  For more information, go to www.valueselling.com

The Stevie® Awards have announced the ten executives who are chairing the specialized final judging committees for its 11th Annual International Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the world.

All organizations - public and private, large and small, for-profit and non-profit - are eligible to submit nominations to The International Business Awards.

The ten committee selections are based on the categories that will be judged

COMPANY/ORGANIZATION AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Kim Dong-soo, Ph.D., Director
KOBACO (Korea Broadcast Advertising Corp.), Seoul, South Korea

Dr. Kim joined the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) in1979 and served as vice minister from 2007-2008.  During his 30 years at the MIC, he designed and implemented Korean policy for information and communications technology (ICT), and is especially credited with developing ICT services in Korea. Dr. Kim is one of the world’s pioneers in ICT services.

More recently, Dr. Kim has worked as a senior adviser at the law firm of Gwang-jang in Seoul, providing policy and legal consulting services in ICT, Media, and Broadcasting for governments and private enterprises. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors at the KOBACO (Korea Broadcast Advertising Corporation).

Dr. Kim was awarded the Hongjo-geunjeong Order (2003) and the Geun-jeong Merit Medal (1988) from the Korean nation for his successful leadership and development of the national informatization policy. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Administration from Cheong-ju University and a Master’s Degree in public administration at Seoul National University. He also earned a Master’s Degree in policy science at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). In 2008, Dr. Kim received a Doctorate in public administration at Sungkyunkwan University’s College of Information and Communication Engineering.

MANAGEMENT/INDIVIDUAL AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Sinta Kaniawati, Director, Unilever Indonesia Foundation
PT. Unilever Indonesia Tbk., Jakarta, Indonesia

Sinta Kaniawati started her career in the corporate world in 1990 when she joined Unilever Indonesia as a management trainee. She built tremendous skills in market research, marketing for national and international brands, and customer development, and was assigned a senior position at Unilever Indonesia Foundation in 2007. Unilever Indonesia Foundation focuses on improving health, hygiene, and nutrition; reducing environmental impact; and improving livelihood through sustainable socio-economic programs with the community.

Since 2009, Sinta has served as a Board Member of Indonesian Business Links and is a former executive team member of the Indonesian National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction. She was named Secretary General of the Indonesian Global Compact Network in 2010, and again in 2014; and she is a member of The International Society of Sustainability Professionals.

Sinta Kaniawati was born in Bandung, Indonesia. She completed her degree at Bogor Agriculture Institute. Despite a busy professional career, Sinta has a wide range of interests.  She loves music and is active in a variety of social organizations such as Bina Antarbudaya (the Indonesian Foundation for Intercultural Learning), and Toastmasters International.  She is also an enthusiastic leadership and communications trainer. Sinta is a LEAD Indonesia Fellow (cohort 15) and has been a presenter at The Climate Reality Project.

She is married with a young son and daughter.

IT/NEW PRODUCT & PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Christine K. Buck, Global Brand Manager
Accenture, Chicago, USA

As Global Brand Manager for Accenture, Christine is responsible for developing and executing Accenture’s global brand strategy, developing brand programs, and overseeing key initiatives related to strengthening and protecting the Accenture brand.

Christine brings over 17 years of sales and marketing expertise in the financial services and software industries to Accenture, along with deep international expertise. Prior to joining Accenture in 2012, she was the International Marketing Director for Morningstar, Inc., a global investment research and technology firm. In this leadership role, she successfully developed and led global marketing and sales operations across 26 countries in EMEA, Latin America, Canada, and Asia-Pacific. She was appointed to serve on several corporate committees, including the corporate social media steering committee, which was responsible for establishing Morningstar’s global strategy and policies.

Before joining Morningstar in 2005, she served as a regional Sales Program Manager at Bank of America Global Finance managing key technology client accounts such as Oracle, Netscape, and Software AG. Christine began her career in Dublin, Ireland, working for Microsoft Corporation as a Software License Analyst for the Benelux market.

Passionate about giving back to the community, Christine is involved in many civic and charitable organizations. She is the Vice President of the A.N. and Pearl G. Barnett Family Foundation of Chicago. She launched a pilot research program in 2011, in coordination with the Anschutz Medical School in Denver, to develop a vaccine for Multiple Sclerosis. She is a Luminary Circle member of StepUp, the national women’s organization, and served as a Director for the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education from 2003 to 2011. 

Christine graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in French Studies and in Anthropology.

MARKETING AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Luke D'Arcy, Chief Marketing Officer
Momentum WW, New York, NY

Luke D’Arcy joined Momentum as Marketing Director in 2003, helping the agency grow its profile and new business performance nationally and internationally with wins like Bacardi, BMW MINI, Kraft, and Intel.

A marketing professional for the past 18 years, Luke began his agency career as New Business Director for network agency Euro RSCG, twice seeing the shop win Marketing Week’s Agency of the Year award, and picking up wins like Microsoft, Diageo, and PepsiCo with assignments across 40 countries.

In 2006, Luke became a Partner of leading global independent agency Iris Worldwide with 14 offices around the world. He led the global new business, PR, and marketing of the agency, culminating with international account wins like Hertz, Volkswagen, Shell, and ING. This period also saw the agency twice voted UK agency of the Year, APAC Agency of the Year, and one of The Sunday Times Top 10 places to work.

A call from Virgin proved too good to pass up and Luke moved client side as Partnership Director for Virgin, helping Sir Richard Branson and the team raise £40 million in six months to launch the Virgin Racing team and build the brand in the competitive world of Formula 1.

Luke rejoined Momentum in 2010 as a member of its European Board. He was promoted to the global role of Chief Growth Officer in 2011, and to the global board as Chief Marketing Officer in 2013. Recent agency wins include Diageo, US Postal Service, Unilever, GoDaddy, United Airlines, and Porsche.

Luke sits on the 4A’s New Business Committee, is an IPG business mentor, and is also an international industry speaker on topics like sport, shopper, and agency growth strategies.

HUMAN RESOURCES AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Adrian Harvey, CEO
Elephants Don't Forget Ltd, London, United Kingdom.

On Independence Day (July 4^th) 2011, Adrian Harvey and the former Eon Finance Director, Dan Gray, formed Green Giraffe Energy Bankers, a specialist advisory boutique focused on the renewable energy section, as a vehicle that would allow them to pursue their passion for doing great business. They also found the time to write and publish their first business self-help book: The Elephant in the Boardroom.

The fact that employees forget as much as 80% of what they learn in training within the first 30 days has cost businesses in the UK hundreds of millions of pounds every year. Adrian and Dan saw that what was needed was a low-cost tool that continually assessed actual employee knowledge levels, identified knowledge gaps, and automatically retrained what had been forgotten, thereby ensuring employees had the knowledge they needed to excel.

On March 4, 2013—after 18 months of R&D and testing—Adrian and Dan launched the knowledge-retention company Elephants don't forget. The star of the business is an intelligent employee knowledge-retention App called “Nelly.” Companies utilize Nelly to optimize the effectiveness of their L&D spend.

Recently, the pair set up Panama Green Fuels (PGF), based in Panama, Central America, as a Social Enterprise. PGF is destined to transform the lives of thousands of rural Panamanians. Part funded by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Dan and Adrian are creating the bio-infrastructure necessary for Panama to 'grow its own diesel' and at the same time regenerate thousands of hectares of degraded land. The Panamanian-based management runs the day-to-day business operations leaving Dan and Adrian free to concentrate on Elephants don’t forget and a niche contact center optimization software, Motiv8 Solutions.

On being appointed Chair of the Human Resources Awards Final Judging Committee in The 2014 international Business Awards, Adrian commented: “This is a relevant and much-needed recognition forum. I would recommend it to any organization that believes they have best-in-class capability in any of the judging criteria.”

CREATIVE/CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS & PR AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Jon Dobinson, Chief Executive
Other Creative Limited, London, United Kingdom

Jon Dobinson founded other in 1997 and it has grown to become one of the UK’s most exciting and innovative creative companies: working on important international campaigns for multinationals like Unilever; helping charities and not-for-profit organizations raise over £65m in funds by effective creative communication; and developing innovative new services like the creative research tool PreProven.

While developing other’s capabilities in interactive TV advertising through its subsidiary Phosphorus, Jon chaired conferences on the future of television in New York and London, and contributed to the development of the European Union’s Television Without Frontiers directive, which controls the regulation of TV across the EU and EFTA.

Prior to founding other, Jon was a Creative Director at major UK agencies. In 1989-1993, during a period freelancing, he was Secretary General of the International Society for Human Rights in the UK. In this capacity, he helped to bring the issue of human rights abuses in the former Yugoslav republics to global attention, making front page news around the world and contributing to the early deployment of UN peacekeepers in Kosovo—a move now recognized as having saved countless lives.

Jon is an awarded member of D&AD. He has won a number of Gold Stevies in the Creative and Communications categories of The International Business Awards, most recently in 2014. His work has achieved similar recognition from other international awards organizations including the New York Festivals, the Rev Awards, the Telly Awards, AFDESI, and the Digital Awards. Last year, other also won in several categories of the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, including a Gold Stevie with Unilever for Best Global Campaign, and a Bronze Stevie for Most Innovative Company.

Jon lives just outside London while at work, and at Dinan in France when he can slip away. He has two children, Lucie and William, and Lucie recently joined other as a writer.

On being asked to Chair the Creative/Corporate Communications & PR Final Judging Committee, Jon told us he was “delighted to be invited to chair one of the judging panels for the International Business Awards and to help in giving recognition to outstanding people and results in business from around the world. The International Business Awards stands alone in celebrating the best achievements from the world of global business.”

CREATIVE MEDIA (WEBSITES/APPS/LIVE EVENTS/VIDEO) AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Masahisa Tsukada, CEO
DIPLO Data Service Inc., Osaka, Japan

Masahisa Tsukada has been involved with the planning and distribution aspects of establishing MODRIC Inc. in Japan for 10 years. Until 2000 he was also the founding director of Izumi CATV Inc. (a third sector company) at Izumi Cable TV (Now J:Com Kansai Inc.).

Currently, Mr. Tsukada is a corporate group board member for a number of companies, including DIPLO Data Service Inc., Mainichi Inc., and LICENSE JAPAN Inc. He is also a program evaluator for J:Com Kansai Inc., a special advisor for Izumi Young Entrepreneurs Group (Osaka prefecture), and he is a member of the Izumi South Rotary Club Japan.

 

CREATIVE MEDIA (ANNUAL REPORTS & OTHER PUBLICATIONS) AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Rachel Deutsch, Principal/Creative Director
The Design Channel, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA

Rachel Deutsch has worked in the branding, advertising, and marketing communications field for over twenty years, working for local agencies and later running her own agency. She has been responsible for strategizing numerous award-winning campaigns for local and national organizations in education, technology, healthcare, and government markets. Rachel is currently Principle and Creative Director at The Design Channel in Washington DC.  Some of the accounts she has worked on include CareerBuilder, Blackboard, Children's National Medical Center, Howard University, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Wright Manufacturing

 

CUSTOMER SERVICE/SUPPORT AWARDS CHAIR
Chair: Steve Bujouves, Director of Support
FreshBooks, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Steve Bujouves is the Director and Head of Support at FreshBooks, a cloud accounting specialist for small business owners. Steve is passionate about providing extraordinary experiences for customers and also championing the positive and fun Support Team culture at the company. 

The FreshBooks mission is: Execute on Extraordinary Experiences Everyday. Based in Toronto and founded in 2003, the company’s aim is to allow small business owners to save time on paperwork so they can spend that time on doing things they love with their family and friends.  Steve has been with FreshBooks since its early days and has helped to scale Support from a small (but mighty!) group to a large team that handles over a quarter of a million customer cases a year. 

Steve’s focus is on ensuring the highest level of quality and service for FreshBooks customers. His tenure at FreshBooks has enabled Steve to experience rapid growth first-hand. He learned early in his career that one of the biggest factors in a highly functioning Support Team was the culture and personal development of the team itself. Steve is focused on maintaining a healthy culture of growth and development, which promotes exceptionally happy team members and, in return, exceptionally happy customer experiences.

Steve mentors and advises several start-ups. He was honored to win the Gold Stevie Award for Customer Support Manager of the Year in the 2014 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and was able to lead his team to win the 2012 and 2013 Front-line Customer Support Team of the Year and the 2014 Customer Service Management Team of the Year.

KOREAN-LANGUAGE FINAL JUDGING COMMITTEE CHAIR
Chair: Hung Ki Kim
President
Korea Business Communicators Association, Seoul, South Korea

Hung Ki Kim is a full-time Instructor at the Korea Broadcasting Advertising Corporation Training Institute, Hangyeore Cultural Center, Hangyeong Academy, and the Korea Magazine Institute. He runs a Public Relations Course offered by the Korea Productivity Center, and he is a professor on a course for Chief Communications Officer and Administration Publicity at Gangwon-do Officials Training Institute. Other PR courses in which he is involved are run at the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, the National Institute of Professional Administration, the Central Election Management Committee Training Institute, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology Training Institute, Busan Human Resources Development Center, and the Gyeonggi-do Human Resources Development Center. Kim has also been an Instructor at the Faculty of Communications and Media of Sookmyung Women’s University, and a visiting professor at the Department of Advertising Creation at Cheongju University.

Kim is an advisor to the Korea PR Association, and he is a member of the Korea Advertising Society, Korea Association for Advertising and Public Relations, and Korea Free Literary Persons Association. He is also a consultant to the Seoul Government, the Korean National Tuberculosis Association, the Road Traffic Safety Authority, the Korean Academy of Nursing, the Presidential Social Integration Commission, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, and the Ministry of Environment Public Relations (Evaluation).

In addition to being a judge for The International Business Awards, Kim has also been a member of the Moscow International Advertising Festival judging panel.

Final results of this year's IBA will be announced on August 13.

Missed your chance to enter this year's International Business Awards?  Here's a solution...

Once a month in this space we highlight apps and websites that we think might help to make your workday a bit more productive or enjoyable.  Here are this month's suggestions.

Repic

Get early access to this new app that lets you see people's reactions to photos you send to them.

Dragon Dictation

An app that allows you to speak and instantly see the text transcription for everything from email messages to blog posts on your iPad™, iPhone™ or iPod touch™. FREE

eFax

The fax may become a popular tool again with this app which enables fax-sending from your iPad, iPhone or Android.  From $12.95.

SugarSync

An app that allows users to share and continuously back up files in real time, providing access to files and folders anytime, anywhere, from any PC, Mac, iOS, or Android device. From $18.95.

Have a favorite app, blog, or website? Nominate it for our app awards or website awards in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business.

All Female Entrepreneurs, Executives and Employees Worldwide Are Eligible to Be Nominated; Entry Deadline August 27, 2014

The Stevie® Awards for Women in Business have issued the call for entries for its 11th annual competition. Entry kits and complete details on the competition are available at http://www.StevieAwards.com/Women.

This year the Stevie Awards for Women in Business will honor women in more than 80 categories including, among others, Entrepreneur of the Year, Executive of the Year, Maverick of the Year, Mentor or Coach of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award, Employee of the Year and Most Innovative Company of the Year. The awards are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards and International Business Awards.

All female entrepreneurs, executives, employees, and the organizations they run, worldwide, are eligible to be nominated.

The entry deadline is August 27 and late entries will be accepted through September 24 with payment of a late fee. Winners of the 11th annual competition will be announced at a gala awards dinner at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York on November 14, 2014.

Award category groups for the 2014 competition include Company Awards, Public Relations Awards, Marketing Awards, New Product Awards, Event Awards, and more.

Many Stevie winners over the years have commented on how their win has positively impacted their business. Niamh Barker, founder and managing director of Britain’s The Travelwrap Company, said: “Winning the Stevie Award was an enormous achievement for me and my business and continues to prove beneficial to our operations every day. I had no idea of the impact that winning this award would have on our business until I checked my e-mail from my hotel room the next morning and online orders had flooded in from across the USA. We now have a growing and loyal customer base in America via online and retail outlets. The Stevie Awards have definitely helped elevate our U.S. presence.”

Winners of the 2013 Stevie Awards for Women in Business included, among others:

•     Eileen Howard Boone, President of CVS Caremark Charitable Trust, Woonsocket, Rhode Island
•     Chandra Clements, Director of One Legacy Pty Ltd, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
•     Sharon Virts Mozer, Founder and CEO of FCi Federal, Leesburg, Virginia
•     Irene Corpuz, Consultant and Operations Advisor of CMI, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
•     Elise Foster Vander Elst, Executive Director of Asia Arts Projects, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
•     Linda Carolyn McCall, Founder & CEO of EasyJet, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom
•     Daina Middleton, Global CEO of Performics, Chicago, Illinois
•     Mitchell Theresia Gouw Ranzetta, Partner of Accel Partners, Palo Alto, California
•     Weili Sandi Smith Levya, President of Ultimate Accounting vCon,  Plano, Texas
•     Women Presidents Organization, New York, New York
•     Vaco Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
•     Cenergy International, Houston, Texas

The 2013 Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award winners reflected a diverse group of large and small organizations from around the globe. Organizations that won more than one Gold Stevie Award included Accenture, Child’s Play Communications, Final Salute Inc., CVS Caremark, FCi Federal, Influence and Co., Laserfiche, other, Pivot Communications, TalkSession, Inc., and VerticalResponse.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are judged each year by women entrepreneurs, executives and luminaries worldwide. Last year more than 240 professionals participated in the process.

About the Stevie® Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in six programs: The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. 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 on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

Rockwell Automation in Singapore won a Silver Stevie Award in the Company of the Year Awards categories of the 2014 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards.  (The 2015 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards will begin accepting entries this September from organizations through throughout the 22 nations of the Asia-Pacific region. Get your entry kit here.)

Rockwell Automation (RA) is the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information. Its Asia Pacific Business Center (APBC) in Singapore serves as the company’s global development headquarters

We asked Co Gia Nguyen, APBC’s Vice President & General Manager, what winning a Silver Stevie at the 2014 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards had meant to him and his team.

“Winning this award is a testament to the effectiveness of the Rockwell Production System. This allows our leaders and employees to work together efficiently, achieving process and production excellence in our manufacturing facilities to better fulfill our customers’ needs,” he told us. “It also serves as a well-earned recognition and appreciation of our team of research and development, engineering, and manufacturing experts at APBC.”

Delivering Results

The business center was established in November 2005. Currently over 600 employees work at APBC on the following RA automation-control product lines: CompactLogix™; SLC™; Distributed Input/Output; Micro Controllers; PanelView™ Component; and Component Drives.

Nguyen praised the hard work of his team. “The team has worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to help the company leverage its end-to-end integrated supply-chain-management process,” he told us. “This award acknowledges Rockwell Automation’s ability to deliver innovative products that command customer loyalty and drive actions, results, and accountability for a competitive edge.”

Positive Brand Awareness

In addition, Rockwell Automation wrote and distributed a press release announcing their win. Nguyen told us that it received “significant coverage in many of the top-tier industry publications across Asia—driving positive brand awareness among our target audience.”

Continued Nguyen: “The Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards have provided a platform for good exposure for Rockwell Automation’s brand—not only with the panel of judges and other Stevie Awards winners, but also among our partners and customers, thanks to the media coverage we gleaned through the prestige attached to the awards in the U.S. We believe that by building more brand awareness of the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the competition’s clout in this region will grow incrementally, adding greater benefit to companies in this region.”

Looking to the Future

The APBC’s research and development, engineering, and manufacturing experts are conveniently located near machine builders in Asia-Pacific, a market vital to RA’s growth.

We asked Nguyen what new technologies he thought would most affect his customers in the future.

"Rockwell Automation’s vision is to leverage technology to transcend industrial business barriers and add value to the connected enterprise, as well as to the industrial ecosystem," he told us. “New commercial technologies will seamlessly connect people, processes, devices, and data so industrial operations can be integrated, optimized, collaborative, sustainable, and secure.

“The evolution of a smart, Internet-enabled architecture that transforms data into practical knowledge will lead to sustainable competitive differentiation with enhanced plants and supply networks.”

Improved Operations

Nguyen explained that, in a connected enterprise, plant personnel could capitalize on the business value of possessing the right information at the right time with visibility into production data and supply-chain information.

“The convergence of new technologies that securely connect plant information with enterprise IT systems results in greater productivity, better utilization of assets, and improved decision making,” he added. “By bridging the gap between production and enterprise networks, Rockwell Automation shows how the connected enterprise enjoys intuitive and improved operations, as well as a lower total cost of ownership.”

A More Secure Environment

Nguyen noted that as the historical disconnect between enterprise and production networks is bridged, manufacturers, producers, and utilities will need to understand potential security risks and best practices for developing a more secure environment. As he put it: “Rockwell Automation helps companies protect their industrial control and information systems with effective security strategies.”

Sustainability

With more industrial firms seeking sustainability, automated real-time reporting and monitoring allows on-demand viewing of data that can be transformed into actionable information. “With an eye on energy savings, Rockwell Automation can help operations managers and business leaders design, monitor, and control their energy usage,” concludes Nguyen.

About Co Gia Nguyen

Co Nguyen is Vice President and General Manager of the Rockwell Automation (RA) Asia Pacific Business Center.  He is the head of this legal entity located in Singapore and is responsible for its profit/loss and for managing all relationships and interactions with the Singapore government and other related agencies.

Nguyen joined Rockwell Automation in October 2007. Prior to accepting his current position in October 2010, he was the Business Director responsible for the Distributed Input/Output and Small Controller businesses located in Singapore.

Nguyen has had extensive general management, product development, operations, and account management experiences and has worked for multi-national companies such as Johnson Electric, Honeywell, General Electric, AVX Tantalum and ITT Cannon.  Nguyen also had strong multi-cultural experiences having lived and worked in the United States, Brazil, and Hong Kong. 

Nguyen received his Bachelor of Science, majoring in Mechanical Engineering, from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

About Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and information, makes its customers more productive and the world more sustainable. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs about 22,000 people serving customers in more than 80 countries.

The National Field Support division of TELUS Communications in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, won the Gold Stevie for Support Department of the Year in the Support Awards categories of The 2013 International Business Awards.

(The 2014 International Business Awards is still accepting entries.  Review the entry kit here.)

According to Mark Klotz, Director of TELUS Communications’ National Field Support, winning a Stevie Award represented an international acknowledgement of his team’s formidable accomplishments, and has contributed to further success in three areas. “First, the team achieved an all-time high team-engagement score, 7% above the ‘best employer’ index that we benchmark ourselves against,” Mark reported.

“Secondly, it elevated our already amazing culture to a level where front-line agents are driving unprecedented levels of continuous improvement. Lastly, it greatly benefited our customers, because the hope of being recognized by the Stevie Awards for a second year in a row has driven my team’s desire to push the envelope on all our key metrics.”

Providing Technical Support
The TELUS National Field Support (NFS) department trains specialists that capture and resolve anomalies that prevent orders from automatically provisioning in the myriad of complex systems.  They repair these anomalies to meet the customer needs prior to their due date.

These specialists also provide technical support to field technicians by aiding the installation and repair of TELUS products and services for consumer and small business markets in a timely and responsive manner.

The Pressures of Constant Change

Communications service providers are under continual pressure to optimize operational costs, gain agility, and offer superior services to customers. The business of providing voice, data, and TV services requires specialized skills on advanced provisioning systems in order to provide customers with the best possible service in a highly competitive telecommunications industry.

Making Life Simpler for the Customer
The constant evolution of technologies also puts pressure on the team to proactively evolve their skill sets. This evolution has enabled NFS to remain the support team of choice.

We asked Mark what changes in technology he thought would most affect telecommunications customers in the future.

“I see the integration of services, applications, and content as one of the biggest changes coming down the pike,” Mark observed. “This will allow customers to take advantage of more flexible and personalized services and will make their lives simpler than ever before.”

Driving Continuous Improvement

Setting extremely high standards has enabled the National Field Support Department to answer 91% of customer calls within 20 seconds with an average speed of 15 seconds. All calls are directed to a live agent, and 99.6% of all proactively resolved orders meet the service level agreements, demonstrating the TELUS commitment to the customer. Any orders not meeting the level required are handled in real-time by an agent to maintain customer commitment.

As Mark puts it: “The high quality training, the 365-days/year availability, the stringent service level agreements, and the ‘no phone call goes to voice mail’ policy have made the NFS team into a premier support team.”

Enhancing the Customer Experience
Mark reports that his team continues to challenge the status quo and bring forward innovative ideas to help enhance the customer experience. Says Mark: “Despite the unremitting evolution of technologies and processes, the team continues to deliver high levels of success.”

Staying Organized
Mark’s favorite business app is Evernote. “It helps me stay organized using ‘notebooks’, which can include images, photos, and notes,” he told us. “I can seamlessly sync Evernote on my Windows, iOS, and Android devices. There are also several other useful apps that integrate easily into Evernote.”

Inspired By Change

Mark is excited about the future. “The constant pace of change and emergence of new technologies inspires me every day,” he told us. “With that change comes the challenge to constantly prepare and anticipate methods and processes to integrate new technologies with existing ones while making it seamless and transparent for our customers.”

About Mark Klotz:
Mark Klotz has led the National Field Support team through the optimization of office locations and the implementation and integration of the outsourced portion of the team. He is the department’s biggest advocate of change and has instilled within his leadership team a culture of constant evolution.  His thought-provoking challenges continue to raise the bar for the department. Mark brings to the team experience from Information Services, and from Consumer and Business Marketing, Marketing Communications, Channel Management, Strategic Planning, Sales Incentive Management, and Call Center Operations.

About TELUS:
TELUS is Canada’s fastest-growing national telecommunications company, with $11.4 billion of annual revenue and 13.3 million customer connections. In support of its philosophy to “give where we live,” TELUS, its team members, and its retirees have contributed more than $350 million to charitable and not-for-profit organizations and volunteered 5.4 million hours of service to local communities since 2000. TELUS was honored to be named the most outstanding philanthropic corporation globally for 2010 by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, becoming the first Canadian company to receive this prestigious international recognition.

Today we've opened voting for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products, a feature of The American Business Awards in which the general public can vote for their favorite new products and services. 

Voting is now open at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com

Voting concludes on 11:59 pm on Friday, August 8. The winners of the crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards will be announced the week before the September 12 awards banquet in San Francisco, California and presented their awards at the event.

There are 42 categories in which the general public can vote for their favorite new products and services of the year. Some of the categories this year include:

Business-to-Business Products
Consumer Electronics
Health & Pharmaceutical Products
Software - Cloud Infrastructure
Software - Web Services
Business-to-Business Services
Consumer Products
Financial Services
Media & Entertainment
Software - Collaboration/Social
Software - Relationship Mgmt
Telecommunications Products
Transportation

Anyone can vote one time in any or all of the 42 categories.

Make your voice heard, vote now at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com

Suzanne McDonald is CEO of Designated Editor in Newport, Rhode Island, USA and winner of the Gold Stevie® Award for Upstart of the Year in the management awards categories of The 2014 American Business Awards, the top business awards program in the USA. 

(Join the mailing list for the 2015 ABAs and you'll be emailed the entry kit as soon as entries open again in October.)

We asked Suzanne McDonald to explain how she came to found her company. “When I started in the Social Media business, I had been a successful journalist. By 2006, with the looming end of print as we knew it in the form of magazines and newspapers, it was clear to me that print would ultimately coalescence with New Media. Even though it was early days for this trend, I chose to jump the journalism ship and set a course for the new world of Social Media, which is where I believed the future of journalism lay.

“Since then, I have become an expert in New Media—the area of marketing information, rather than brands themselves—that includes every aspect of social media, plus everything that is crucial to have a powerful and fully integrated marketing platform and results. This can include face-to-face networking or it can include branding. It all depends on the client.”

Bringing Social Media to Educators
Suzanne explained how she had started providing services in New Media to universities. “In the past year I have become one of the national leaders in the movement to bring social media—really New Media—into university settings. I have spearheaded this movement because I saw—and still see—what happens when young people use Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and Instagram, but have no idea how to use these tools cohesively to become useful, usable, and effective in a business setting.”

Continues Suzanne: “I believe students must learn these key tools in college and/or graduate school, and then bring their tool-based skills and strategic know-how to the workplace. Doing this, I believe, will make finding jobs a lot easier. There’s nothing like results to prove your value in the workplace, big or small, and today’s metrics-linked communications and marketing makes this entirely doable.”

Top 10 Tips for Students & Businesses
Suzanne has some useful advice for both businesses and university students, the most fundamental of which is: Be sure to get the New Media guidance you need as you move along your online journey. Following are the ten areas where Suzanne feels both businesses and university students need help:

1. The Campaign Counts.  Whether you are a giant global company or a college student or administrator, you must build a comprehensive and consistent focus for your social media/New Media work—and that focus needs to be a “direct hit” with your target audience. 

2. Know your Target Audience.  Believe it or not, most companies—no matter their size—haven’t taken the time to pinpoint their actual target audience. Do it! An often-seen example: Your audience is B-to-B and you are posting some or all C-to-B. 

3. Share Cautiously. The number-one problem in the world of New Media—whether you are a business executive or a student learning the New Media ropes—is oversharing. If you are putting out too much information, some of it will ultimately be detrimental to your image or your cause. And once it’s up, it can be difficult to remove (although this is one of the fastest-growing areas in New Media jobs). If you’re not sure what to post and when, get the expert advice you need first.

4. Ask Yourself: “Are We Boring our Audience?” This may seem like part of the two items above, but in the world of New Media, it very much stands alone. Avoid putting information online that is not of interest to your target audiences. Do that and you risk losing them. Example: Many companies I work with pack their online arenas with press releases that few people care about. My constant advice: Revise those press releases to resonate with your target audiences.

5. Be Smart about SEO.  As noted above, before you post online, make sure that the post is a perfect fit for your target audience. Avoid posting just for search engines (e.g. the press releases). Have a perfect fit first. Then, if you get great SEO to boot, even better.

6. Know Where to Find Your Audience! Yes, you’ve already segmented your key target audiences, but after doing a nice job, you’ve fallen into the next big New Media trap: you’ve forgotten to find out WHERE your audience exists online. Example: Your audience is primarily female, and you really need to be on Pinterest (largely female) but you’re on only Facebook.

7. Know Your Metrics—and Metric Tools.  Are you analyzing what you have done so far and seeing where you succeeded and where you need to refocus or retool? Example: A participant in one highly successful university-based project I ran used Google and Twitter to analyze the results of a campaign and came up with very little. I stepped in and instead compared them to similar campaigns at other universities and— guess what—they came up near the top, which is where they belonged.

8. Know Your Top Influencers. Be sure you know—and know well—who is following you on Facebook; who is following you on Twitter; and who the influencers are on both. It’s easy to get this information, particularly on Twitter, so use it.  An influencer response can yield big results—if not the first time, then certainly over time—and it’s your job to know who the influencers are.

9. Build New Media Relationships. This is an adjunct of the item above, but it also stands on its own as a key aspect of New Media: build relationships with your top influencers and stick with it until you get New Media placements.

10. Be Pitch Perfect! Where do I see companies and university students/administrators miss the mark most often? Call it “off-pitching.” Example: You’ve found an influential fitness blogger who is vegan, and yes, he or she reaches millions—but you work for a snack food company. Don’t pitch that blogger. Instead, look for influencers who are a perfect match for your product or idea or point of view. One “off-pitch,” and the influencers may never work with you again.

According to Suzanne, these suggestions should be looked on as a tune-up for businesses and university leaders. As she puts it: “Be sure to get the help you need, even if you are working with an agency. You need to know all relevant aspects of New Media, and it is sometimes the case that so-called ‘experts’ give you what they know, not what you need to learn.”

Suzanne’s conclusion: “Whatever it is, take the time to learn the fundamentals in order to be able to ask good questions!”

About Suzanne McDonald
Suzanne McDonald is a revolutionary in New Media who started her company, Designated Editor, with the express purpose of educating clients on every aspect of New Media. This includes social media from Google+ to Twitter, as well as WordPress, blogger outreach/strategy, fully integrated marketing, and face-to-face events/networking.

McDonald’s objective is to combine all New Media into a consistent whole, and to do it affordably and thoroughly. By so doing, she has become the leading purveyor of New Media expertise in New England. McDonald's "techie" forum in Newport, Rhode Island, reaches nearly 1,000 business leaders, and her business has doubled in size each year since it began.

About Designated Editor
Designated Editor is New England's leading purveyor of New Media expertise at affordable rates, encompassing every aspect of New Media including Social Media. Founded in 2006 by Suzanne McDonald, Designated Editor is New England's leading source for techie forums, business-to-business networking for technology pros, and for global clients needing one-stop-shopping for a world that has become treacherous to navigate. As of 2013, Designated Editor is a leader in the movement to educate university students nationwide in New Media. For more information go to www.designatededitor.com.