It's been such a nice week! I honestly can't believe the difference two weeks have made. Two weeks ago, I was stranded at a gas station with a flat tire and a busted tire iron. I tried walking to an auto parts store to find a tire iron or some other custom auto accessories that could help, but since the snow was a foot and a half deep and the blizzard was still raging, I didn't make it very far. Yesterday, I drove past that same gas station. I had no jacket on, the window down, and there was no snow to be found. How did this happen?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that Spring seems to be here. I can get outside again and get some use out of the promotional water bottles that we own. It just seems crazy that I went from struggling through snow drifts in my heavy winter coat to no coat at all so quickly!

Time for the big decision: 24 oz. Custom Aluminum Bottle or 20 oz. Custom Recycled Bottle? Thoughts?

Tragedy struck the O'Sheas recently. We lost an important part of our lives. The external hard drive stopped working. We unplugged it for the Christmas season to accommodate the tree, then tried using it again in early January. No sound, no nothing. I brought it in for tech surgeon Danny to take a look at, to no avail.

We lost some documents, saved web pages, Mad Men Season 1, and music (and music and music and music). Luckily, I'll be able to recover the music. A friend backed that up for me. I'm not sure exactly what documents were there, but they are gone forever.

We'll eventually get another hard drive, but I've learned my lesson here. Any important documents will be saved to both a computer's hard drive and custom USB flash drives. I can get a promo 8GB USB flash drive, which is more than enough space for documents. I think I'll go with the 8GB Bamboo Flash Drive. If there's an option, might as well go with an eco-friendly promotional giveaway.

The lesson here, folks, is this: Do your best to save your important files in two locations. You never know when tragedy will strike.

I haven't blogged about football in a while. Shame on me. It's just that my football season peaked in October. The Giants completely fell apart. My one-time first place fantasy team fell apart. And my other fantasy team? Last place. I didn't get any cool football promotional items. Why would I want to write about football?

That's a poor attitude, though. Our little brothers, the J-E-T-S, are making some noise. Adorable. Are they changing the culture? Or are they setting up their fans for a typical Jets ending? I'm rooting for them. This isn't like Yankees-Mets or Rangers-Islanders.. the Giants and Jets play only once every 4 years. There's no true rivalry... they've never met in the Super Bowl or anything (which is hard to happen when one side hasn't made it there since the '60s). So why not? As long as the Jets fans that I'm friends with don't get too mouthy... go green! Wait, sorry. Go Gang Green!

The fans have been good so far. Following is the assessment of Jets vs. Colts from my good friend (and Jets fan) John: We don't stand a chance!

Ladies and gentlemen, the NY Jets!

Today I came across a site called One Billion Bulbs.  One Billion Bulbs is a division of Energy Trek, a company that aims to inform people on how to use less energy in the home.  One Billion Bulbs focuses on the lighting aspect of energy saving, specifically, changing to compact fluorescent lighting in the home.  This site encourages people to replace their bulbs by providing them with energy and money saving information.  So far, One Billion Bulbs has helped to change 169,036 bulbs to CFL in the United States.  When you think about the fact that there are over 100 million households in the United States, lets say there are 10 bulbs per house (although I'm sure that number is more like 40), that means there are one billion bulbs (hence their goal) in the country.  Unfortunately, 169,036 bulbs is less than 0.02%, but that is definitely a start, and also over 37 million lbs of greenhouse gas reductions.  I enjoy seeing a goal oriented group such as this that tries to make changes to the world in small, realistic ways, and they are certainly succeeding.  I believe they should succeed even more via the use of promotional items!

Ok, here's my vison.  Mail out the following Light Bulb Stress Reliever to the selected households...

Then a week or two later mail out an Energy Saving Bulb Squeezie Stress Reliever ...

The hope is that, even though they may throw it away because it says "throw this away", it should definitely be something they will think about and remember.  Two weeks later when they recieve the next item, they'll think back to the original mailer and realize the connection.  Then they will say "oh boy!  This is the most well thought out mailer I've even received!  I'm going to go change all of my incandescents to CFL's right now!"  Perhaps that reaction was exaggerated, but I think it would work out well.

Another great way to save the world one item at a time is by the use of eco-friendly promotional products from Motivators.

Information for this blog taken from One Billion Bulbs, Energy Trek, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The beginning of the new year means the end of the holiday season. It is the end of one season, but the beginning of another season, one that many people may not neccessarily think of. January is tradeshow season! In the US it is estimated that there are over 2,500 trade shows that occur every year, many of them in the first few months of the year so that vendors can unveil new products or services. In fact, the promotional products industry has its own trade show ready to kick off in Las Vegas on Monday, January 11th.  Anyone that has ever been to a trade show can tell you they are full of promotional products, you could imagine the amount of tradeshow giveaways there will be at the largest promotional products tradeshow in the country there will be. It seems to me there are going to be two major themes for tradeshow giveaways this season, eco-friendly items and anti-bacterial items. Environmental concern has grown in our society for the last few years so that should be no surprise to anyone, however, since the H1N1 scare many people have been much more aware of how easily germs can spread. Especially at a tradeshow, people are shaking hands and exchanging business cards, picking up a product and putting it back down only to be picked up by someone else, there is a valid concern about the spread of germs. So should you be going to a tradeshow any time soon, while you will still see the standard promotional lanyards, and promotional keychains, don't be surprised if you also see promotional non-woven tote bags, promotional recycled water bottles and promotional anti-bacterial sprays too. Happy trade show season everyone!

After work on Tuesday I successfully began and ended my Christmas shopping extravaganza. I was out for about five hours and was able to get exactly what I needed. I later thought to myself, "It would've taken five minutes if I just bought everyone gift cars." It's true, and the reason gift cards are so desirable is because everyone loves them. It's basically like receiving cash- with a motive. Except you don't have to provide any services or do any head hunting; just shop at the designated store.

Unfortunately, to some, these gift cards risk seeming impersonal or last minute. In fact, many people consider the entire gift-giving concept around the holidays to be to commercial. To help combat societies need for "things," TisBest was formed. The three year old company puts a new and very nice spin on traditional gift cards. Because when you purchase a TisBest Gift card, you are giving back to the community.

Today Mother Nature tricked us again with a brisk morning but a sun-shining afternoon. So toss off those heavy coats and strip back down to your summer-time swim suit and flip flops; let's celebrate the last of the sun before the fluffy whites come our way.

Now that we're all properly dresses for this most wonderful day, let's run around and break a sweat. A trip to the beach? Take the day off and floor-it to Splish Splash? Hopin the pool for an after work evening of Marco Polo? You decide.

I know exactly what I'm doing to make the most of the rays today. Because when I'm hot and sticky there's only one place I'd like to be. It's as refreshing as a misting water fall and as cooling as that central air you got installed last summer. It's bigger then a promotional fan but smaller then global cooling. No, no my dear Motivators friends it’s not LL Cool Jay.
    
To cool off after a hot day I'm heading to China to bask in the glory or should I say, under the glory of the first ever, toilet seat waterfall. Now, hush-hush all you neigh-sayers, I know what you're thinking. Wouldn't the Hicksville dump be a shorter trip to find a plethora of trashed toilets? It would. But in Foshan, China, there's actual water flowing down each and every abandoned toilet. Mmmmmm, I can imagine the rush of cold water down my back right now.

You may find it an odd attraction but listen up, if we're going to practice sustainability, why not do it in the strangest way possible. You can go the normal route and use tons of environmentally friendly products to promote the green-life, but why not shake it up?
    
Let's build our own masterpiece of fallen promotional products and create something as equally absurd. I'm open to all ideas. Just shoot them this way. After we've created our environmentally friendly products masterpiece we can hop on a plane to China and bathe beneath the 16 foot high, 356 feet wide toilet, sink and urinal waterfall.

Whose to thank for this marvelous recycled toilet display? The tradeshow industry of course! The upcoming pottery and porcelain products event is using this crazy waterfall to draw in more attendees. Hopefully they'll be using promotional antibacterial products as giveaways. With National Hand Washing week only two months away (December) they may want to keep this up for a great awareness event attraction.
                                                   

Now this concept is pretty wild, according to Green Launches supermarkets are learning how to use the same technology from Formula 1 cars to convert kinetic energy to power supermarkets. This is really impressive so basically what it does is as you drive in car parking lot you will be driving over plates in the road, which when applied pressure on creates a rocking motion under the road. This rocking motion then turns the generators creating energy which can then be stored. This is a little bit different from the Formula 1 cars because they create this energy during braking power. This is a fantastic step in the future in saving the environment, as consumers we should always try to look for alternatives in what we purchase so consider using Eco-Friendly Giveaways for your next corporate event.

I know what the people want, so here it is: my 2nd NHL related blog in as many weeks! All I hear around the office, in stores, on the radio and on tv is hockey talk!

OK, you got me. None of that is true. I've only heard about it from my friend James, a diehard hockey fan (and random smatterings from my brother and future brother-in-law.. see previous blog). I'm still excited for Game 7 tonight. It will end with one team getting this kiss:

Sadly, they will be kissing the Stanley Cup and not Hayden Panettiere. Who knows, after 9 months of trying to become champions, maybe they'd rather kiss the Cup.

The NHL and Reebok recently announced that the the official Stanley Cup Championship t-shirts will be made using 100% organic cotton fabric. That's right, if you want the t-shirt, you will be buying eco-friendly promos (or more specifically, a promo organic t-shirt). The NHL seems to be trying to generate all kinds of positive press, so why not go eco-friendly?

For my brother Tim... let's go Penguins!

So I know what you're thinking. Motivators employees are just a whole bunch of stick-in-mud promotional item sales people. All we care about is imprinting logos and our daily discussions consist of debates like promotional pens vs promotional bags, which is better for your money. But really, we're quite funny. We're even wacky. And when we go bonkers, the results are hilarious. Take for example yesterday, when I commented to Bill that I though we needed a question on all bamboo promotional items that explained why bamboo is eco-friendly. Think about it, if you saw wood coasters, would you think that they're eco-friendly? I wrote up the answer, emailed it to Bill and he sent me an example of a finished product. This is what the FAQ section says:

Perry from Sacred Heart Hospital wrote:

Why Is Bamboo Eco-Friendly?

Sarah Shepherd replied:

Bamboo is not a tree—it's a grass, and it grows like one. Several types of bamboo can grow up to two feet or more a day. In addition to its quick growth cycle, it's also eco-friendly because it is renewable. Once bamboo is harvested, it will grow a new shoot from its extensive root system. It consistently renews itself, making it one of the most sustainable resources on Earth. "Perry" from Sacred Heart Hospital? As in Dr. Cox from Scrubs? I laughed out loud when I saw that one. There's also a Scrubs shout out on the corn plastic promotional products in the FAQ question as well, but if you haven't seen the series finale yet *cough cough Anthony* don't read that one. And have you noticed that we like Lost? I say we, as in the majority of the company, not me personally. Ever noticed the logo on our custom 21oz water bottle? Check that out. And then, there's this fun logo that was designed in icing on brownies for the IT Department manager's birthday...ok, so we're maybe a little bit obsessed with logos.   The bottom line of this blog is that we like to have fun. And we should because promotional products are fun. So whether you're ordering promotional pens or imprinted drinkware, we're going to enjoy helping you. Because we like what we do.