Working in an office environment is great. There is fresh brewed coffee in the break room, your calls get transferred directly to your desk, your mail gets sent out promptly by simply dropping it in the Outgoing box, and you always have fresh pens and notepads at your disposal. It’s like magic. These little cohesive consistencies are what can keep each day from completely going up in flames, when chaos has engulfed everything else.

But it’s not magic. Well, it’s not wand-waving, spell enchanting magic, but it’s definitely something special. And it doesn’t just materialize on it’s own. There are a lot of hardworking individuals who are behind these seemingly simple tasks. But there is nothing simple, or easy, about being an administrative assistant. They, for lack of a better expression, are the glue, well for fun, let’s call them the super glue, that keeps an office and an office environment efficient.

This year, Aprils 18th to April 24th marks the National Administrative Professionals Appreciation Week, with Administrative Professionals Day landing on April 21st. Though you should always appreciate the hard work of your colleagues, especially your admins, this week is especially set aside for you to outwardly express your admiration and gratitude towards them for what they do.

Formally known as Professional Secretaries Week, before America got all politically correct in 2000 and updated the name/title, this evolving holiday was first created back in 1952 through the work of Harry F. Klemfuss, a New York publicist. He wanted to encourage more people, especially women, to consider careers in the secretarial field.

Fast-forward half a century, through civil rights and the bra burning years, the role of secretary as well as the gender has changed drastically. Administrative professionals are no longer Aquanet wearing, note-taking women, but serious business professionals. In fact, some prominent executive administrators are some of the highest paid people in corporate America. And they aren’t all women. Can we say Mark from Ugly Betty?

But whatever role they play in your particular office environment, they are the smile that greets you at the door and the ‘Have a nice day!’, as you leave. They are your organizational outlook and your personal reminder. They make your job easier.

So show your appreciation this week for one of largest workplace observances in any way you can. Flowers, candies, gift cards, etc. … and who doesn’t like to be taken out to lunch?? I’m just saying …

How do you plan to thank your administrative professionals? Leave your thoughts below.

Contributed by: Keri Lynch

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
According to Black Eyed Peas’ frontman, will.i.am, his most definitely is. In a recent article published by The Wall Street Journal will.i.am defines his approach to corporate sponsors, “I consider us a brand. A brand always has stylized [PowerPoint] decks, from colors to fonts. Here’s our demographic. Here’s the reach. Here’s the potential. Here’s how the consumer will benefit from the collaboration.” This approach has proved successful for the man who Randy Phillips, president and CEO of the concert promoter AEG Live, says could be “the best ad executive on Madison Avenue.” Not only do the Black Eyed Peas (or their songs) appear in partnership with giants like Coors, Levi’s, Honda, Apple, Verizon and Pepsi, but corporate sponsor “shout outs” have become a regular part of the live show. In the first half of every show will.i.am delivers a freestyle rap he creates from text messages scrolling on two large screens on-stage. The text messages are delivered by BlackBerry, the tour’s primary sponsor. The band also works in the company’s tagline “Love What You Do” into the seemingly impulsive monologue during the group’s performance of “Where Is The Love.” The Black Eyed Peas even performed a concert in Times Square for the sole purpose of promoting a new Samsung product.

For an industry of artists who have reported “it’s all about the music”, this band leader has been quoted as saying corporate partnerships are equally as important as music sales. What do you think? Savvy celebrity or sellout? Can a band be a brand?

Contributed by: Allison Jobes

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
We’ve all heard about the hundreds of Toyota cars that have been recalled due to sticking accelerators and the pedal entrapment issues (or the “big boo boo”). While Toyota has to gone to great measures to fix these issues, an even bigger question remains. Will the Toyota brand survive this tremendous hit and how have they responded to this crisis? This is a touchy topic, for many reasons. How do you put trust back into a brand that’s caused so many tragedies by way of a seemingly easily fixable flaw? Continue Reading »

Today marks the one blemish in April’s usually blooming record: Tax Return Day. Eh, well, April is also the beginning of tornado season, but I digress. A post office’s nightmare and a CPA’s dream, tax season gives a whole new light to mathematics and itemization. People find themselves scrambling through old shoeboxes for missing receipts and trying to mentally calculate volunteer work and “charitable” donations they can claim in hopes of squeezing every penny out of their return.

But why April 15th? Who chose this day to make people sweat an audit and pile themselves in papers? So I decided to dig around a little bit, and by a little bit, I went straight to Wikipedia. C’mon, everyone uses it, but no one wants to admit to.

According to the highly distinguished website, Congress was the one to put “tax day” on the calendar. When we, “America”, ratified the 16th Amendment in 1913, which allowed Congress to institute an income tax, they chose March 1st of the following year as the deadline for filing returns. However, with the Revenue Act of 1918, which I probably need to pick up a text book to see what that was about, they up and moved the date to March 15th. It wasn’t until 1955 though, that Congress finally settled on the April 15th deadline. I think it was because April is prettier, but apparently it was to spread out the workload for the IRS. It’s also rumored that the growing middle class was filing more and more returns and the government wanted a little more time to hold on to the money. Sneaky.

Although fulfilled with this great public encyclopedia knowledge about something that I still get my dad to do for me every year (yes, I’m 25), I also don’t want to spread lies. Therefore, I decided I needed to verify this information. After some intense Google searching, I stumbled across an article on CNN from April 15, 2002, which basically laid out the same information verbatim. And everyone trusts CNN.

So there you have it. That’s why April 15th is, well the day it is. So put the remote down, turn your laptop on and get to filling.

Contributed by: Keri Lynch