Big night for Hubspan at the New York “Stevie” Awards

Posted by Ralph on June 24, 2010

I attended the 8^th annual American Business Awards (ABA) “Stevie” ceremony this week in New York City.  “Stevies” are awarded to businesses for excellence across multiple categories.  Companies are selected either by a panel of ABA judges or by popular choice – the People’s Award. 

Hubspan was a finalist in 3 categories:  Product of the Year, Software as a Service; People’s Choice Award for Best SaaS Product; and Product Development Executive of the Year for our VP of engineering, Ian Huynh.

Ralph accepting the Stevie Award for Ian

The highlight of the awards event came late in the evening, as they left the major awards till the end kind of like the grammies, when Ian won for Product Development Exec of the Year!!  Since Ian could not make it, I graciously accepted the award on his behalf (I also had to carry the incredibly heavy gold plated award on the airplane with me, which made the security checkpoint an adventure!).

Beyond our accomplishment, I found these awards interesting for two other reasons:  One, the awards cover a variety of categories, which made for an eclectic mix of companies.  I sat at a table with representatives from online media (rubicon project – winner), corporate rewards and recognition (iloverewards.com – winner), gambling and entertainment (WMS – winner), and agriculture/consumer goods (sovena group). 

Secondly, the award categories celebrated the people and organizations behind the products and corporate leaders – from Support Staffer of the year, to Technical Professional of the Year, to Human Resource Department of the Year.  It was nice to see the people behind the scenes win, as these are the folks who are fundamental to the success of leaders like Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs.  The award winners in these categories were likely much more appreciative for being recognized.  That being said, they did have awards for the big dogs, however, Steve and Larry were too busy to accept their awards, or even send a representative. 

Kudos to the ABA organizers, as the ceremony was professionally run.  I estimated over 500 attendees.  Given the number of categories and awards and in person recipients, it was amazing that they wrapped up in under 3 hours.  Only one award winner got “the music” hook to get them off the stage.  If this had been the Oscars,  the ceremony would still be going.

Congrats to Ian!

Tags: American Business Awards, Hubspan, Ian Huynh, Stevie Awards

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