I just returned back from the National Safety Congress (NSC) event which took place in Orlando, FL. Once again we met with safety, health and environmental professional professionals anxiously searching for new ways to engage their workforces in order to create a safety culture. During the show, All Star was honored by Occupational Health & Safety Magazine as a winner of their 2009 New Product of the Year (NPOY) Award. The NPOY Award recognizes the outstanding product development achievements of health and safety manufacturers who assist in the improvement of workplace safety. Amongst 40 entries All Star’s PROPEL for Safety™, proprietary web-based safety incentive solution, was chosen as the most noteworthy contribution in the incentive category. There was a common theme throughout our discussions with attendees who sought to draw more attention to their safety programs. Traditional safety program elements tend to be very bland and flat. It is imperative that safety professionals draw attention to their safety programs and initiatives so that the message resonates. Branding an safety program with ongoing communications and recognizing the proactive safe behaviors of its workforce will make the safety program a greater success.

http://ohsonline.com/articles/2009/10/27/Twelve-Companies-Win-Inaugural-NPOY-Awards.aspx

Just coming back from the 2009 Special Market Dialogue Conference. One main concern discussed for 4th quarter and into 2010 for both the promotional and premium suppliers is the fact that the majority of manufacturers are going to be moving to even more of a real-time inventory stance. Forecasting is going to be key for 2010. Nearly gone are the days of calling a manufacturing and finding 200+ units plus on the shelve.

Here we go again, time to debate the pros and cons of expanded gaming in Massachusetts. Proponents and opponents will meet in the Beacon Hill Gardiner Auditorium in Boston this afternoon, just as they did on March 18th, 2008, to debate this issue. I was in the packed audience for the 2008 debate. There were many good and thoughtful arguments made on both sides of the debate, but it was all for not as the fix was in; Speaker Sal Dimassi had wrangled the votes to see that the proposed article died in committee, having never seen the light of day for a vote. Fast forward 18 months, 540+ days of brutal economic news and local cuts, and now the polls are falling all over themselves to get something passed. In all likelihood, we’ll see a bill that will allow slot machines at our existing racing venues, or full blown casinos on a federally recognized Mashpee Wampanoag tract of land, or perhaps even another location, such as Palmer or Milford, that would welcome the Mohegan Suns and Penn Gamings of the casino world with open arms. The only problem is that the can’t miss gaming ship may have already sailed. Just building a resort casino is no guarantee of it’s success nowadays. Virtually every gaming entity in the Northeast, sans Empire City at Yonkers Raceway, is significantly down year over year since 2007. And while a casino license could have been expected to fetch as much as 500 million dollars up front a few years back, now municipalities will settle for local infrastructure improvements, and hopefully a nice piece of the taxes that will be imposed on the entity.

Whatever happens in Massachusetts, it is likely to be three years or more by the time anyone is tossing dice or pushing a slot machine spin button. With 40% of our residents fueling the Foxwoods machine some say “if you build it they will come”, but will enough of them come to make them viable enterprises? And at what cost? Will a state with an inordinate amount of lottery revenue finally be over saturated with gambling options? Stay tuned.

View the webinar here

Periodically the engagement industry (also known as the incentive industry, motivation industry, premium industry, etc.) faces challenges from outside sources. These sources typically are academics/authors many of whom do a fair amount of public speaking to promote their work. While it would not be fair to make the blanket claim that their assertions are baseless it would be accurate in the vast majority of situations to say that those claims are at best misleading and at worst harmful.

Case in point, most recently Daniel Pink, author, public speaker and former Al Gore speech writer, made a presentation at a TED (Technology Entertainment Design) event in which we stated that motivational techniques:

• dull thinking
• block creativity
• do harm
• only work for simple tasks

He further stated that these findings were “fact” and then went on to cite some extremely random samples. I should mention that he confessed at the beginning of his presentation that he did terrible in law school, finishing at or near the bottom of his class. Based on his shoddy extrapolations and conclusions I can see why. I know that seminar speakers need to stir up their audiences to keep things lively, and telling business leaders that they have everything backwards is one way to accomplish this, but it is dangerous to present opinions as facts and then advise people how to run their businesses.

I’ll leave it there for now but will post specific challenges to his assertions in the near future. Below is the link to his presentation if you would like to see it for yourself. I am only supplying this link and commenting on this poor presentation because we in the engagement industry face these types of baseless challenges from time to time and it is important that collectively we are able to beat them down with substantive responses.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html