We're expecting more than 300 women entrepreneurs and executives, and their guests, to attend tomorrow night's Stevie Awards for Women in Business in New York.  They're coming from all of the U.S.A. plus Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

A PDF of the awards dinner program is now available on the awards web site.  Look for photos to be available starting Saturday, and video clips of the presentations sometime next week.

Here's the list of organizations that will be represented, as of this past Monday:

Accenture   Chicago IL

Accessibility Partners  Silver Spring, MD               

Advocacy & Consulting for Education  Wayne  PA     

Alacare Home Health & Hospice  Birmingham AL

Anisa International, Inc.  Atlanta GA    

Apps of All Nations LLC  Lynchburg VA       

Artitudes Design Inc.  Issaquah  WA       

Assurant Employee Benefits, Kansas City, MO      

Axis Teknologies  Marietta GA

Backup My Info  New York, NY          

Bhava Communications   Berkeley CA

Big Fish Nation   Solana Beach CA

Bistra Ilkova  Sofia  Bulgaria           

Bloomberg TV  New York NY             

Bowling Green State University   Bowling Green OH

Brickfish  San Diego  CA        

Campus Apartments   Philadelphia PA

Cbeyond  Atlanta  GA           

CFO Publishing  New York NY

CIGNA  Hartford  CT           

Citrix Online San Barbara CA               

Competence Call Center  Vienna, Austria            

Cvent  McLean, VA            

Decipher  Inc. Fresno  CA             

Designs by Lolita  Providence  RI              

Elite Editing  New York, NY                 

EmpowHER/HW  LLC Scottsale AZ         

emTRAiN  Sacramento, CA         

Everything Everywhere  London United Kingdom  

EXIT Realty Corp. International Mississauga ON Canada

EyeMail Inc.   Marietta GA

Farbman Group  Southfield  MI        

Felice Keller Productions  Los Angeles  CA       

GradeGuru by McGraw-Hill Education  New York NY           

GroundFloor Media  Denver CO       

Health Revenue Assurance Associates  Inc.(HRAA) Plantation  FL                               

Henkel AG & Co. KGaA   Dusseldorf Germany   

HJMT COMMUNICATIONS  LLC  Westbury  NY    

Holland America Line  Seattle  WA           

IntelePeer  San Mateo  CA

InterContinental Hotels Group Atlanta GA       

International Dance Supplies Ltd  Newton Abbot  Devon  England                              

International Financial Data Services Canada  Toronto  ON  Canada                                 

ITM Group  Inc. Ft. Lauderdale FL           

Kahosha, Inc.  Tokyo Japan

KeyBank Cleveland OH            

Kryon Systems  Tel Aviv  Israel            

Leading Women  Charlestown  RI        

Love to Swim and Tumble School San Antonio TX     

Loyalty Factor, LLC  Portsmouth NH

Luminex Corporation  Riverside, CA        

Marketing 24/7  Inc.  Trussville  AL    

Martopia  Saint Charles IL

Medicard Finance Inc.   Toronto Canada

Melilea International Group of Companies  Kuala Lumpur  Malaysia                           

Mom Central Consulting  Newton  MA         

MorrisAnderson  Chicago  IL      

MotherNet KK  Osaka Japan          

MWW Group  East Rutherford  NJ           

Northbound LLC  Sunnyvale  CA          

Nu Skin Enterprises  Provo, UT         

ODEL Limited  Rajagiriya  Sri Lanka           

Parties That Cook  San Francisco CA

Pediatric Therapeutic Services, Inc.   Conshohocken PA

Penmac Staffing Services  Inc.  Springfield  MO       

PetRays Veterinary Telemedicine Consultants  The Woodlands  TX                                  

PK Walsh  Needham MA

Plus Relocation Services  Minneapolis MN

Purry Communications Group Los Angeles CA   

R&J Elliott Incorporated  Normal  IL        

Renu Mobile  Boston  MA           

RockYou  Redwood City CA

Sanofi-Aventis  Istanbul  Turkey       

Savoir Media Co.  Belmont MA

SelectMinds New York NY             

SheTakesOnTheWorld.net  Kitchener  ON  Canada    

Smart Reader Worldwide Sdn Bhd   Kuala Lumpur  Malaysia                               

Softtek  Monterrey Mexico

South Miami Center for Women & Infants  Miami  FL   

SPARK Publications Mathews NC   

SpellSpace, Inc.  Lake Arrowhead CA

Spoilt Rotten Hair & Beauty Studio  Smeaton Grange Australia                           

Staff Management  Chicago  IL              

Teach For America  Miami FL

TechnoDyne LLC  Wayne NJ

Tenrehte Technologies, Inc.  Rochester NY The Ad Club  Boston MA

The Henker Group   Easton MD

TIBCO Software Inc.  Palo Alto  CA            

Trevena  Inc.  King of Prussia  PA       

Vantage Communications  San Francisco  CA       

VerticalResponse  San Francisco, CA         

What's On? Event Planning  Harrington Park Australia  

WildlyWealthy.com Mooloolaba QLD Australia         

Womenetics  LLC  Atlanta  GA        

Women's Intercultural Exchange  Charlotte NC   

Now that we're coming to the end of 2010 and we look back over the Stevie Award winners for the year, it's apparent that Weber Shandwick truly is the agency of the year for its haul of pr awards.

The agency won the Stevie for Public Relations Agency of the Year in The 8th annual American Business Awards back in June in New York.  You can read the full-text of their Stevie-winning nomination on the ABA web site.

Weber Shandwick Europe then won the International Stevie for Public Relations Agency of the Year in Europe in The 7th annual International Business Awards, which were presented in Istanbul, Turkey on September 27.  That award was accepted by Rose de la Pascua, Chair of Weber Shandwick Spain and Executive Vice President for Continental Europe.  Read the full-text of Weber Shandwick Europe's Stevie-winning entry on the IBA web site.

Members of the Weber Shandwick network around the world also won honors in Stevie Awards's public relations awards categories in 2010, including among others AC Sanafor in Finland, McCann PR in Romania, Corporate Weber Shandwick in India, and Weber Shandwick in Dallas, Texas among others.

In addition, the agency won a raft of other awards in 2010.

So who'll be the Stevies' agency of the year in 2011?

Congratulations to Jeff Shuman, senior vice president of Human Resources and Corporate Relations for Harris Corporation, for being named to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Manufacturers. Read the press release here...

Jeff won the Stevie Award for Human Resources Executive of the  Year in The 2007 American Business Awards, has since then been a judge of the human resources awards categories in the ABAs, and is an all-around good guy. 

You can read Jeff's Stevie Award-winning nomination from 2007 on The American Business Awards web site.

In 2010 we introduced a lot of new public relations and communications awards categories in The American Business Awards, and we haven't added any new ones for 2011.  But I thought I'd take a moment here to outline the categories that I think are the best fit for public relations, corporate communications, public affairs, and investor relations professionals, because not all of them are plainly labelled.

First off, there are those categories that are plainly labelled, and they include the many Communications or PR Campaign/Program of the Year categories we introduced in 2010.  Here are the main communications categories (the letter/nomination combinations are our internal category codes):

Read the rest of this article here...

There are a good many HR awards categories to choose from in The American Business Awards, although there are only three that are specifically labelled as HR:

Human Resources Department of the Year
Human Resources Team of the Year
Human Resources Executive of the Year

Here are some others that human resources professionals should consider submitting nominations to:

Read the rest of this article here...

These are the new product awards categories in The 9th annual American Business Awards, which opened for entries last week.  The first early-bird entry deadline is November 17.  (The letter/number combinations are our internal category codes.)

Read the rest of this article...

We've added many new marketing awards categories to The American Business Awards for the 9th annual edition, which opened for entries last week.  The first early-bird deadline is November 17.

We used to have just a few marketing categories, including...

Read the rest of this article here

Today we've published the entry kit for The 2011 (9th annual) American Business Awards.  Get your entry kit on the ABA web site.  The ABAs are the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., honoring achievement in every facet of the workplace.

The ABAs are open to all organizations in the U.S.A., including the U.S-based operations of foreign organizations.

There are a couple of early-bird entry deadlines this fall by which the entry fees are substantially discounted - November 17 and December 15.  The ultimate deadline is March 31, but we'll continue to accept late entries right through April 27 with payment of a late fee.

There's quite a bit new about the ABAs this year, most notably a lot of new marketing awards categories.

There are also new categories specifically for organizations in the health care industries, including Executive of the Year - Health Products & Services, and Best New Product or Service of the Year - Health Products & Services.

Today we announced the Finalists in the 2010 (7th annual) Stevie Awards for Women in Business.  Personally this is my favorite Stevie Awards competition, because the stories of success that women entrepreneurs and executives tell are often so dramatic, and women give much better acceptance speeches than men do.  Find the full list on the Stevies for Women web site.

We had a record number of entries to the Stevies for Women this year - more than 1,200.  13% better than last year.  The majority of entries to this competition are still from organizations in the U.S.A. - I'd like to see this competition become more broadly international, and we're working on that - but we received entries from Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Kingdom as well.

This year's awards dinner is back at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City, and tickets are now on sale.  Last year the event had more than 330 women and their guests from the U.S. and several other countries, and I expect this year's attendance to be just as strong.  Sara Eisen of Bloomberg TV will emcee.

Among the leading contenders with multiple Finalists are BGT Partners, Miami, FL; The Buildmore Group Pty Ltd, Caloundra, QLD Australia; Elite Editing, New York, NY; Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, New York, NY; JCPR, Parsippany, NJ; Kryon Systems, Tel Aviv, Israel; MWW Group, East Rutherford, NJ; ODEL Limited, Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka; Reserveage Organics, Gainesville, FL; and VerticalResponse, San Francisco, CA.

We're a week away from the October 15 early-bird entry deadline for the 5th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and here are some thoughts about this year's competition.

Despite challenging economic conditions worldwide, I expect to see strong growth in the number of entries in the customer service awards categories.  Every organization worldwide wants to be known as providing great customer service, and winning a prestigious award such as a Stevie Award can be a useful tool to illustrate that one's peers, and perhaps customers, agree that you're achieving that.

Entries to the sales awards categories may be another matter, however, and I think that presents an opportunity for smart organizations out there.  Sales people love a pat on the back.  Strong commissions aren't enough to satisfy most sales professionals.  But many organizations hesitate to seek recognition for their sales teams when sales growth is stagnant or tepid at best.  And frankly, many organizations can't claim to be beating sales records in the current economic environment. 

And that's where the opportunity lies.  If your sales people are holding their own, if you have compelling stories to tell about the problems they're solving and solutions they're providing, then by all means, nominate them in the sale awards categories.  You're likely to have less competition than you would in years when all boats are rising.