Sure it is an investment of time and effort to enter your product or service in the 2022 Cabling Installation & Maintenance Innovators Awards programs, but it is time well spent. Below are just a few of the many benefits associated with entering this year’s program.

BENEFIT 1
BE RECOGNIZED

Honorees have made a groundbreaking contribution to the structured cabling industry and are recognized as leaders and innovators to the largest collection of structured cabling professionals, with coverage on www.cablinginstall.com.

BENEFIT 2
INCREASE CREDIBILITY

Being an honoree is validation of your product or service from a credible third party to the structured cabling industry. It’s a great way to reinforce the quality of your product or service to existing customers as well as potential customers.

BENEFIT 3
GAIN A SALES ADVANTAGE

Being recognized with a 2022 Cabling Installation & Maintenance Innovators Award is an additional tool for your sales team to use as part of their sales pitch. Companies recognized with this prestigious distinction can better compete for business as recognized honorees are less risky for potential customers.

BENEFIT 4
SET YOURSELF APART

Honorees rise above the competition and instantly tell the structured cabling industry their project, product or application has something unique and worthy of review.

BENEFIT 5
IT’S GREAT PR

Fully capitalize on your successful entry with announcements that grow your visibility in the industry. We even provide a press-release template to use to promote your honoree status.

BENEFIT 6
STOCK YOUR TROPHY CABINET!

Honorees are the proud recipients of the coveted Cabling Installation & Maintenance Innovators Award to be highlighted at your booth during the 2022 BICSI Fall Conference and then showcased in your company lobby. You’ll also be able to use the 2022 Cabling Installation & Maintenance Innovators Award logo on your website and marketing literature to reinforce your success.

If you haven’t yet completed (or started!) your entry, we have five tips that will ensure you put your best foot forward with our judging panel.

Identify a Product or Project Worth Bragging About
Our judging panel will review entries based on the extent to which they are innovative beyond previous products, technologies, systems, or approaches. We offer the following characteristics as suggestions. Use your entry as a way to explain how your submission innovates in any of the following ways—or in an interesting way we haven’t listed here.

• • Innovative approach to project, application or product design and implementation
  • Value to the user, measured by qualities such as ROI, loss prevention, business-efficiency gains, or other qualities
  • Sustainability, characterized by overall eco-friendliness, long-term value, lifecycle cost-effectiveness, or other measures
  • Meeting a defined need as a well-conceived, well-executed initiative that fully meets specific user requirements
  • Collaboration, which can include communication and cooperation throughout the value chain through which the product or system is procured or deployed
  • Impact, which can be identified by describing the difference the project, application or product made on the professionals involved, on the productivity of its ultimate users, and/or on society as a whole
  • Any other characteristic you can specify. The program exists to honor the innovations and beyond-the-norm thinking of professionals like you

Block time out on your calendar
Map out some time on your schedule so you can focus on your entry.

Download a preview of the entry form and compile your answers before completing the online entry
Once you’ve compiled your data, review your draft and confirm it clearly demonstrates one of the following criteria: innovation, value to the user, sustainability, meeting a defined need, collaboration, impact.

Include Supporting Documentation
Whether it’s photos, video, specification sheets, technical descriptions or any documentation you can make available, our judging panel will review all material from each submission. Testimonials from users and other professionals involved—whether they go on the record or prefer to remain anonymous—are valuable and encouraged. Take the opportunity to “show and tell” by providing as much supporting documentation as you can to let us know what separates your entry from the crowd.

Use specific, quantitative and instantly credible language
Avoid the urge to just copy and paste the text from your marketing collateral or website.

Be sure to answer the following questions about the product/application/project:
How does the product/application/project being nominated stand out as an innovative application of a cabling or communications product or system? How does it reduce operational expenses and/or develop new revenue sources? What are the unique features of this product as it compares to competing solutions? What makes it innovative?

Get input from the technical/engineering team
Provide specific examples of how the development impacts the structured cabling community.

Celebrate Your Customers And Partners
When describing your product or project, use the entry as an opportunity to recognize your customers and your installation partners who deliver your products and systems to the market. Your customers can gain recognition as forward-thinking, problem-solving organizations that employ innovative technologies to optimize their business performance. And including your installation partners in the story emphasizes your company’s commitment to deploying systems with high-quality workmanship and top-notch expertise.

Call or eMail if We Can Help You
Our chief editor Patrick McLaughlin is managing the program, and is available to discuss anything that can help you complete an entry. He can be reached by email at pmclaughlin@endeavorb2b.com or by phone at 603-891-9222.

• Submission Rates

BICSI Members. Entries Received by April 19
one entry $645,   two entries $1,150,   three entries $1,400

BICSI Members. Entries Received After April 19
one entry $745,   two entries $1,250,   three entries $1,500

Non-BICSI Members. Entries Received by April 19
one entry $695,   two entries $1,250,   three entries $1,550

Non-BICSI Members. Entries Received After April 19
one entry $795,   two entries $1,350,   three entries $1,650

NOTE: If your rate does not display the BICSI discount, please go back to your entry form and confirm that you have checked “Yes” when asked if you are a BICSI member

• When do I need to submit my entry?
  Early-bird entries are due before midnight on April 19, 2022 and final entries are due before midnight on May 11, 2022.

• Why Enter?
  High scoring companies will be recognized as a leader and innovator within the industry both at a live event (BICSI 2022 Fall Conference), as well in Cabling Installation & Maintenance’s editorial coverage, including:

• • Magazine articles
  • Web articles
  • Slideshow articles
  • eNewsletter inclusion

In addition to Cabling Installation & Maintenance coverage, you will receive:

• • A physical award suitable for display at trade shows
  • A special award logo for use on your website or in your promotion
  • Recognition on social communities

• Worried about non-disclosure agreements?
  If you have an application that you would like to submit, but are worried that a non-disclosure agreement will prevent you from doing so, feel free to refer to the parties involved in general terms.

• What if you have questions about whether your product or application would be a worthy entrant, or where it might fit?
  Reach out on questions like these and any other by contact Patrick McLaughlin

• Is this a product awards program, analyzing and recognizing the characteristics of products that are available in the market?
  Products are welcome as entries. Whenever possible, the program’s intent is to recognize the use of cabling products and systems in real-world applications. To that end, an entry could include information about how a product or system has been put to use. In many cases, a product or group of products will be the centerpiece of a entry—it is the innovation worthy of recognition—and this awards program is an opportunity for product manufacturers to showcase their products’ characteristics and value. In these cases, we encourage product manufacturers, when practical, to use the entry form as an opportunity to tell us how your product, or a group of your products, can be deployed and value that comes from that deployment. The entry form includes space to include multiple entities—companies, individuals—within a single nomination. When possible, please take advantage of this space to include people and/or organizations such as cabling installers, system designers, system end-users and others that participated in the successful deployment of a product, group or products, or system. The program has been structured this way intentionally, to give product manufacturers an opportunity to nominate themselves along with their business partners and customers.

• What is BICSI’s involvement in the program?
  BICSI has generously offered to help us promote the Cabling Innovators Awards program as we gather nominations, and also has allowed us to offer a discounted entry fee for BICSI members. Additionally, the judging panel that will review nominations will include individuals designated by BICSI.

• What if we’ve completed a worthy project but the end-user customer won’t allow us to publicize it?
  We honor non-disclosure agreements and will keep confidential any information not intended for public consumption. In cases in which a user or other entity involved in a project will not allow public disclosure, the project can be described in general terms that do not “name names.” For example, an entry can include references like “a university with approximately 17,000 students …,” “a financial institution with a trading floor on Wall Street …,” “a data center facility in the Pacific Northwest …,” etc. With the user characterized in general terms yet remaining anonymous, the remainder of the project’s description can be more specific. For example, “a 20,000-square-foot student union with 130 network nodes …” To the extent possible, please include details about the project that explain why it exemplifies innovation in some form or fashion.

• Who can submit an entry?
  Entries are open to any organization or person, of any discipline, involved in the specification, design, installation, or management of communications systems. The answers to the previous questions mainly apply to situations in which a product or group of products represents an innovation that has yielded benefits for users. However, we know that innovations take place in many other forms as well. Designers use creativity and innovative thinking to develop communication systems that save time, money, energy, or all of the above. Likewise cabling contractors frequently use ingenuity and innovation on a project site to overcome obstacles or add to the value of an installed system. Stories about these types of innovations are welcome and encouraged.