Award Software So Easy to Use It Wins You An Award
Michelle DeMarco had been running the award programs for Pensions & Investments for years. But facing another year of using a hacked together system of Word Docs, Dropbox files, and mailed in packets, Michelle had finally had enough. “We were the king of ‘just make it work’ But the flood of entries that came into the program made it really tough on the staff. “We used to have someone spend the better part of a week just opening packages and manually filling out a giant spreadsheet.”
“So I made the business case to move the program online, and after a year using the Open Water System, it has been amazing.”
Pension and Investments newspaper is a part of the larger Crain business media family and like many publications has over the last several years expanded beyond the original magazine to include conferences, symposiums, online and print publications, and the award programs. Maintaining this many different elements across multiple platforms was a challenge.
A Jury Rigged System that Nobody Liked
Like many award programs the team at Pension and Investments had mashed together a mix of offline and online tools to run their two award programs. The submissions often included a mix of media from printed materials to video combined with supporting text. Overall it made for an overly complicated and labor intensive program for everyone involved. As Michelle explains “Entrants used to have to download a Word document, email that Word Document back as an attachment to a special email address, if they have videos they uploaded them to a Dropbox folder, and then would physically mail printed materials to our Chicago office. Needless to say it was a mess.”
This jury-rigged system was also putting a strain on the judges. “Judging happens over the summer and asking judges to go in and out of different Dropbox folders was so painful. They would be at the beach with their families and wifi wasn’t good so everything would just grind to a halt.”
A Simpler Way
Fast forward to 2015 after Michelle had moved the program was run on the Open Water system. “Everything was just so simple. I told my teammate not to even make a spreadsheet. The system would just automatically put everything in the right place. I thought she was going to fall on the floor she was so dumb founded.”
Making life easier for the staff was terrific but the bigger win might have been with the judges. Like many award programs Pension and Investments asks senior executives in their industry to volunteer their time to judge the awards. For these busy people the new system was a revolution in terms of ease of use and quality. “The judges loved it. They could review stuff on the train. They could review stuff on their phones or iPads, as long as they had cell service the system worked seamlessly for them. It was awesome”
Turning Heads at Crain
The Pension & Investment award programs are entering it’s second year it is definitely getting attention around Crains. Multiple additional publications that Crain’s runs including Advertising Age, and Business Insurance have all moved their previous award programs onto the Open Water System for the coming year.
Michelle’s managers also noticed and one of them nominated her as Pensions & Investments Alpha Award. “One of the senior editors noticed how much easier the award program was working and put me up for the company award for helping to improve productivity, and I won. ” Awards software that wins you an award how’s that for success?
Find Out How You Can Take Your Award Program To Another Level
About the Innovator and Eddy Awards
The Pensions & Investments Innovator Awards honor visionary institutions and individuals making new and unusual changes to their defined contribution plans.
The Pensions & Investments Eddy Awards recognize outstanding by plan sponsors and their service providers to educate employees about how to invest their defined contribution plan assets wisely for retirement.
About Pensions & Investments
Pensions & Investments is the international newspaper of money management. Written for pension, portfolio and investment management executives at the hub of this market, Pensions & Investments provides its audience with timely and incisive coverage of events affecting the money management business. Written by a worldwide network of reporters and correspondents, Pensions & Investments’ coverage includes business and financial news, legislative reports, global investments, product development, technology, investment performance, executive changes, corporate governance and other topics crucial to the people who drive the world of professional money.
About Crain Communications
Crain Communications is a privately held media company that produces trusted and relevant news publications. Reaching 6 million business decision makers and consumers, the company’s 22 brand portfolio including Automotive News, Autoweek, Advertising Age, Modern Healthcare, Plastics News, Business Insurance and Pensions & Investments.
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