Each year, the Awards and Personalization Association recognizes the contributions, hard work, and creativity of our industry’s professionals by bestowing Gold Obelisk awards upon outstanding individuals and companies.

Global supply chain disruptions began in 2020, creating bottlenecks throughout the chain. There is no easy global solution, creating a lot of uncertainty around product shipping, stocking, and prices. Experts don’t see the bottlenecks resolving until, at the earliest, mid-2022.

Arlington, TX-based Engraving Concepts, which provides laser cutting, engraving, and metal marking services, is celebrating its 50th year in business. This year also marks 3 decades of the company representing the Epilog Laser brand. Along the way, Engraving Concepts has also added other made-in-America equipment: TYKMA/Electrox, Kern Laser Systems, and Direct Color Systems.

12 IN.

Height of the trophy

4.6 POUNDS

Weight of the trophy

2018
The E! People’s Choice Awards trophy undergoes a redesign. Previously a more traditionallooking art glass piece, the new design is meant to honor the E! logo—and it’s trademark exclamation point!—and offer a more abstract, sculptural take on trophies.

Word of mouth will always be a major aspect of any awards and personalization professional’s marketing toolkit, but if the last year has taught us anything, it’s that getting online is no longer negotiable. Retailers who do not communicate with consumers via social media are missing a huge opportunity to build relationships with new customer groups, capture additional sales, and grow brand recognition. But with everything running a shop requires, adding to it all the Tweets, posts, ads, and more can feel like a full-time job—on top of all the other full-time jobs required to run your business! That’s where social media management tools come in.

The holidays are nearly here! No matter how much you love this time of the year, it is hard to deny that there is additional stress in the workplace. Customers need gift items personalized at the last minute. Requests to engrave gifts purchased elsewhere become common. Questions like “Do you gift wrap?” surface more often. And with all of the sales offered by big box and online stores, the customers think nothing of asking you for a discount or better price. Frustrating, isn’t it? But as customer service professionals, we continue to smile and treat each customer with respect.

The National Design Awards program seeks to increase national awareness of the impact of design through education initiatives. It is presented by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which is the Smithsonian Institution’s museum of design.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I developed what I considered to be a brilliant plan to make the shopping experience with our company more enjoyable for our customers. It was a plan to increase sales and grow our customer base. I called it “Plan A” as a joke, never imagining I might need a Plan B or a Plan C.

The average U.S. data breach cost $8.64 million in 2020—and small businesses can be targets, too

Think your business isn’t on hackers’ radar? Think again. Cybercrime has a wide reach, and anyone with data is a potential target. Check out some of the common cyberattacks used to gain access to data and dollars.

It’s almost impossible to run any business nowadays without using computers, the internet, online ordering, and social media. And although technology has increased customer bases, markets, and product availability with new levels of speed and interaction, technology has also brought its own problems—or rather new levels of speed and interaction for the ancient problem of honest merchants guarding against thieves and scammers.