IFO Blog When you've got it ...

Ah, fall and all its glorious colors.I live in Florida, where there's really no difference in the weather or the appearance of the foliage between the end of summer and the beginning of the next season. So we have only one way of knowing for sure that autumn has arrived: college football!When all the universities started sporting their colors on Labor Day weekend, it sent a feeling of pride soaring through my heart. (Go Gators!) Oh sure, now that we're almost into October, American sports fans are also focused on pro football and the upcoming baseball playoffs.But college football, with its wild variations from one season to the next, offers the most edge-of-your seat action. And underlying the whole discussion about which team is the best, there's a new running argument this year about who will win the Heisman Trophy. The frontrunner, Johnny Manziel, who won the Heisman last year as a freshman at Texas A&M, has been described as incredibly talented ... but also incredibly arrogant. His actions on the field, both positive and negative, have started to overshadow the accusations that he signed autographs for profit. Now the debate is down to whether he's just too arrogant to be a good candidate for a second Heisman.So that made me wonder. If you're great, and you don't have a personal publicist, how do you let people know? We have that discussion here at work sometimes. How do you toot your own horn without sounding like you're, well, tooting your own horn?If you're lucky, you have an avenue like we do here to apply for awards in your profession. In the five years since Laureen Crowley has been the editor in chief here at the IFO, the association's editorial and marketing products have won 32 awards. These are for everything ranging from the writing in our Financial Ops magazine and our blogs to the design of our printed materials and marketing campaigns. Forgive us if this sounds like bragging, but we have some incredibly talented writers, editors, and designers.So not to toot our own horns, but we've created a new Awards page on our website to share our accolades with you. And please pardon us if we sound like Johnny Manziel, but we'd be happy to send you an autographed copy of any of our award-winning work ... at no charge.