STAR 101.5 Seattle - On the right path to meaningful recognition

Kent, Alan, Leonard, Jen, Ana.  Heard of these people before?  If you are in the Seattle area, my bet is yes.  For those out of the area, they are the morning crew of one of Seattle’s most popular radio stations, STAR 101.5.  Creativity and humor compliment the music they play, yet more importantly, they provide their listening audience a sense of involvement and community.

They have a program that highlights Trophies2go.com’s vision as a company - to be the national leader of meaningful recognition.  This program provides meaningful recognition by acknowledging excellence in teaching.  It has many other positive benefits as well.

Each fall and spring for many years, STAR 101.5 embarks on a program called ‘Teacher of the Week’.  The primary purpose is to give praise to the teacher by recognizing their extra efforts.  They do so by awarding the teacher with a cash award, a commemorative plaque, a class party and a ton of publicity.

This program is far more important than just celebrating the teacher’s accomplishments.  In recognizing the teacher, it shows the students and faculty what it means to achieve.  It shows how hard work, dedication and caring really do make a difference.  It raises the bar of excellence so each student knows they can go beyond what is normal and expected.  Even though the long-term implications of this role modeling would be difficult to measure, there is no doubt that it is an extremely positive program for the students.The program has some other benefits as well.  The sponsors of the program get recognized through radio and offline advertising and also are given a platform to spread their message. The message that is portrayed to the students is that of the importance of health and personal well-being. Some of the current and previous sponsors include: Applebee’s, Darigold, Dairy Farmers of Washington, Public Health of City of Seattle/King County, Delta Dental, Verity Credit Union, and the Museum of Flight. Finally, the last beneficiary of the program is the station itself.  Although not the main intent of the program, the station benefits include; larger listening audience, appearance they are doing a ton for the community, a sense of engagement with its listening audience, and creating a new generation of listeners.

The impact of this program to the teachers, students, sponsors and radio station is enormous.  It is a fine example of how a well thought out recognition program should be implemented.  My hat is off to STAR 101.5 for their ongoing commitment!  Great Job!

 ps: Here are some more pictures: Teacher of Week with Ronnie McD, More Teacher of the Week, Teacher of the Week with Nominating Student

Fraud in the internet trophy and award industry

So you say, “Who in the world would want to try and steal trophies and awards on the internet?”  Believe me, they are out there.  Here is my notice to you: I WILL BRING YOU TO JUSTICE!  Church ladies in California, Crack smokers in Houston, People pretending to be school personnel in Connecticut, “Reverends” in Florida - all of you look out!  These are real life people who, in the past year have either defrauded or attempted to defraud my company.  How do they try?  Well, the obvious guess would be by a stolen credit card.  That is most often NOT the case.  They try and steal from us because we try and be nice.  By nice, I mean give the customer the option of paying with a check or submitting a purchase order (from a school or corporation) as a promise to pay by check.

• Some of the crooks try to prepay with a doctored check.  This is a felony.  Notice - I will call the FBI.
• Some of the crooks try and submit a fake purchase order.  This is stupid.  Notice - I am now an expert in the art of PO recognition. You think you are sneaky in the art of PO faking, but you are actually an idiot.
• Some of the crooks try and use a fake credit card.  Notice - do you really think we are going to send awards to New Jersey when the credit card belongs to an old lady in Kansas?  Try buying a big screen TV instead.
• And finally (and my favorite) - email requests.  To the infamous Africa-large-order-what-kind-of-credit-card-do-you-take email spammer: BITE ME!  Stop bugging us.  Maybe start using the BCC: function of your email so we don’t know that you sent it to every trophy shop on the face of the planet.  It is a waste of our time to even delete your email.  Do you think anyone in the awards industry will think about sending 1000 unengraved soccer bobbleheads to Tanzania?  Get real.

 And for the justice?  I have a two pronged attack: Friends in the industry and airline miles.  I will send this post to all of the internet trophy and awards shops I can find.  Maybe a few can share their stories or names and cities of fraudulent activity.  Together, we can put you out of your evil ways!  As for the airline miles?  This is my ace-in-the-hole.  I have tons of miles.  I can get on a plane at anytime of the day or night and fly to your city.  I will stalk you.  I will personally go to your local police station and talk to the cops.  I will talk to your UPS driver and have all of your stolen items redirected to your mother.  The UPS driver will handwrite on each box, “sent to Mom with love from your loser child”.  Heck, I can even contact the local mob and have you beat up.

Or at the least, maybe I will take it easy on you and send you an outhouse trophy.  The engraving would read, “I am smart enough to buy a computer, but ain’t smart enough to use it.”

Think I am psycho?  Think I am serious?  Think I am funny?  I will leave that up to your imagination.  Only those who know me best know the real answer…