New Product Awards Blog

Vote Now for Your Favorite New Products of the Year

Posted by Liz Dean on Wed, Jul 11, 2012 @ 12:34 PM

Favorite New Product of the YearVoting for the 4th edition of the People's Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite New Products, as part of The American Business Awards, the nation’s premier business awards program, opened today will go through August 29.

Vote now at http://peopleschoice.stevieawards.com.

This is a nationwide vote in which the general public will get to choose one favorite product in 30 categories including:

  • Favorite New Smartphone
  • Favorite New Tablet
  • Favorite Consumer Product
  • Favorite Media or Entertainment Product.

All new products and services that are nominated in the new product awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards are automatically included in the public voting for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products. Organizations will have the opportunity to win two awards: a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award, as determined by professionals in the ABAs’ peer-review judging, and a crystal People's Choice Stevie Award, as determined by the public vote.

Winners of the crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards will be announced at the American Business Awards' new product and tech awards banquet at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco on September 17.

Winners in the 3rd edition of the People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products were celebrated in New York on Monday, June 20, 2011. Past winners include Apple, Boost Mobile, Dow Jones, and Samsung, among others. 2011 results are summarized, at http://blog.stevieawards.com/new-product-awards/bid/55322/People-s-Choice-Stevie-Awards-for-New-Products-Award-Winners.

Tags: American business awards, stevie awards, ABAs, product of the year, new product awards

Top 3 Tips for Launching a New Product, From a Stevie Awards Judge

Posted by Liz Dean on Fri, May 04, 2012 @ 07:56 AM

Mike Oeth, CEO, OnSIP Business VoIP in New York, will chair the committee for final judging of the new product awards and product management awards categories in The 2012 American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. Here Mike shares three tips for companies launching or rebranding a new product or service.

What are your top 3 tips for companies wanting to launch or rebrand a new product or service?

  1. Mike OethOperation
    Before you launch a product, you need to make sure you can perform the four pillars of operations: Sell it, provision it, bill it, support it.  Can Sales sell it?  Can Provisioning provision it?  Can Billing bill it?  And can Support support it?  If you can do all those things, you have a viable product to take to the market. 
  2. Coordination
    Coordinate the launch with your marketing, support, sales, billing, and operations departments. Make sure everyone is on the same page for message, service specs, and time frame for rollout.
  3. Communication
    Communicate internally to everyone, not just the involved parties; and communicate externally via appropriate marketing channels such as websites and social media.

What item of news recently caught your eye and why?
My twitter feed @VoIPCEO is full of news items that catch my eye.  I’m a nerd at heart and follow the BoingBoing, Wired, Slashdot, and ArsTechnica feeds.  I use the wisdom of the crowds at Reddit to vet stories from other, less well-known sources. 

Within the VoIP space, I thought the M5 acquisition deal was one of the more interesting stories this year.  Outside of VoIP, I’m very interested in copyright, digital rights management (DRM), software patents, and intellectual property in general.  I loved that the comedian Louis C.K. was able to produce a performance of his stand-up routine and offer it directly to the public without DRM.  As a result, he made way more revenue than he ever could have if he’d gone through the “normal” channels.  I think it’s the beginning of the wave and the end of old-school music/movie distribution.

What is your favorite app?
My favorite VoIP app, and one of my top five apps, would have to be Bria by Counterpath. It’s a beautifully designed phone application that allows me to answer my work calls over 3G or WiFi with my iPad.  Outside of the VoIP space, I like the Twitter and Mint.com mobile apps.  They are both just proxies for the actual websites, but they are well done and give quick and easy access to the website content.  The coolest app is the new Marvel Comics augmented-reality app (available for iOS or Android).  You point the camera of your phone or tablet at a page in a Marvel Comic book, and the page comes to life.  I like it because it’s a novel application that gives me a good excuse to purchase the physical magazine. 

If you could choose another profession, what would it be?
My standby profession would either be basketball coach or blues musician.  But since my coaching experience—which I love—is limited to local girls basketball teams, and my guitar playing consists of about five chords, I think I’ll stay where I am.

What quality or qualities do you most value in your business associates?
When I think of the other two cofounders of OnSIP, two qualities I value jump to mind: a capacity for deep analytical thinking and an ability to play devil’s advocate.   John Riordan, our CTO, is very analytical.  He is constantly thinking five moves ahead of where we are today and looking to the future.  Rob Wolpov, our President, is a brilliant business strategist who plays the devil’s advocate to my over-optimistic approach.  These qualities help us challenge the status quo and propel our business and our technology forward.

As someone at the top of your profession, what keeps you inspired or makes you hit the ground running in the morning?
I enjoy problem solving.  There are always new and interesting problems to solve.  I even, every once in a while, jump on the support line and take a support call just for the rush of solving someone’s problem.  I take sales calls every now and then to keep sharp and to see what customers are requesting—like a secret shopper, but in reverse.  I like what we do.  I like that we actually help small and medium-sized businesses to compete and be as efficient as possible.  I like the people I work with.  I think we’ve done a really great job of hiring smart people and giving them the resources they need to be successful.  Yeah, I like my job.

About Mike Oeth:
Mike Oeth is the CEO of OnSIP Business VoIP, winner of a Stevie® Award for Best Management Team of the Year—Product Development in The 2011 American Business Awards.  Mike cofounded OnSIP in 2005 on the premise that the future of business communications would rely heavily on IP technologies.

About OnSIP:
Having helped over 15,000 customers, OnSIP is a leading provider of business VoIP service to small and medium-sized businesses. OnSIP, by Junction Networks, is an intuitive and reliable business phone service on the Internet for companies with 5 to 100 employees. OnSIP customers enjoy the benefits of a business-class phone system, without the traditional high cost, burden, and inflexibility. For more information, visit www.onsip.com.

Tags: American business awards, product awards, new product awards, product management awards, Mike Oeth, VoIP, OnSIP

51 New Product Awards Categories in The 2012 American Business Awards

Posted by Liz Dean on Fri, Mar 23, 2012 @ 01:38 PM

There are 51 Best New Product or Service of the Year categories in The 2012 (10th Annual) American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. The entry deadline is quickly approaching on March 28, request your entry kit here.

Our new product awards categories include:

  • Business-to-Business Products
  • Business-to-Business Services    
  • Consumer Electronics
  • Consumer ProductsAmerican Business Awards
  • Consumer Services
  • Financial Services
  • Hardware
       a. Computer
       b. Networking
       c. Peripheral
       d. Semiconductor or Other Electronic Component
       e. Storage
       f. Other
  • Health & Pharmaceuticals
       a. Product
       b. Service
  • Industrial Products & Services
  • Media & Entertainment
       a. Product
       b. Service
  • Software
       a. Asset Management Solution
       b. Business or Competitive Intelligence Solution
       c. Cloud Application/Service
       d. Cloud Infrastructure
       e. Cloud Platform
       f. Collaboration/Social Networking Solution
       g. Content Management Solution
       h. Corporate Learning/Workforce Development Solution
       i. Database Innovation
       j. Document Management Solution
       k. Electronic Commerce Solution
       l. Financial Management Solution
       m. Human Capital Management Solution
       n. Integration Solution
       o. International Data Protection Solution
       p. Marketing/Public Relations Solution
       q. Mobile On-Demand Application
       r. Mobile Operations Management Solution
       s. Project Management Solution
       t. Relationship Management Solution
       u. Security Solution
       v. Software Development Solution
       w. Supply Chain Management Solution
       x. Systems Management Solution
       y. Web Services Solution
       z. Other
  • Telecommunications
       a. Hardware
       b. Service
  • Transportation

Products and services introduced to the marketplace since January 1, 2011 are eligible for our product of the year awards and nominees may be brand new or new versions.

The following information is generally required for product awards and product management submissions:

  • An essay of up to 500 words describing the nominee's achievements since January 1, 2011.  For the best new product or service of the year categories, this should be an essay about your product or service: Its features, functions, benefits, and performance to date,
  • A biography of the nominee or the leader of the nominated company, department, or team of up to 100 words, and
  • Optional (but highly recommended), a collection of supporting files, product demonstration videos, and/or web addresses that you may upload to our server to support your entry and provide more background information to the judges

Every new product that's nominated in the new product or service of the year categories will automatically be included in voting for the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products.  Public voting will open in July, and the winners will be honored at The American Business Awards' new tech awards ceremony in San Francisco in September 2012.

Need help deciding which new product or service award you should apply for? Call us at + 1 703-547-8389 or email us at help@stevieawards.com.

Tags: business awards, American business awards, product of the year, product awards, new product awards, best new product, product management, service of the year

People's Choice Stevie Awards for New Products Award Winners

Posted by Michael Gallagher on Wed, Jun 22, 2011 @ 05:26 PM

People's Choice Stevie Award for Favorite New ProductAfter more than 140,000 votes were cast in May and June by people across the U.S.A. in this year's People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products, a feature of the annual American Business Awards, here are the winners of this year's crystal People's Choice Stevie Awards, announced at the 9th annual ABA awards banquet in New York on Monday evening:

Favorite New Computer Hardware Product: Zebra Technologies’ ‘RXi4’ Radio Frequency Identification Printer
Favorite New Computer Service: Premiere Global Services' iMeet®
Favorite New Computer Software - New Version: PetRays DICOM Sender 2.3.2
Favorite New Consumer Product: Reliv International's Reliv 24K
Favorite New Desktop/End-User Software Product: PetRays Accelerator
Favorite New Financial Service: www.AmberMcGown.com
Favorite New Health Product or Service: PetRays 30 Minute STAT Service
Favorite New Manufacturing Product: SYSPRO Inventory Optimization
Favorite New Media or Entertainment Product: USANA Health Sciences' Health and Freedom Solution DVD
Favorite New Server Software Product: Datacert Passport
Favorite New Service: PetRays Image Vault
Favorite New Smartphone: Apple iPhone 4
Favorite New Smartphone or Tablet App: Humana’s MyHumana Mobile App
Favorite New Software as a Service: Saba Software's Saba Live
Favorite New Tablet: Motorola Xoom
Favorite New Telecom Product or Service: Broadview’s OfficeSuite ACD

Congratulations to them all!

If you voted in this People's Choice Stevie Awards edition and would like to vote in the next one, note that your next opportunity will be in the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite Companies, which will open for voting on July 27.

How did your favorite new product do in this year's voting?

Tags: American business awards, stevie awards, product of the year, new product awards, favorite products, people's choice