Happy New Year! It’s that time of the (new) year again where I offer up congrats and celebration for a few exciting NASPP happenings.

Question of the Week Winner!

And the winner is of our 2015 Question of the Week contest is (drum roll!): mamaandmore (who, by the way, placed 2nd in our 2014 contest). For those of you who are asking “What’s the Question of the Week Contest?“, it’s a weekly quiz challenge designed for stock plan professionals to test their know-how in a variety of areas, while competing against their peers. Hone your equity compensation knowledge while having fun at the same time! There’s a new question each week, and a correct answer earns points.

And the Winners Are…

A big congrats to screen name alias mamaandmore for coming out on top of our 2015 contest. The screen names of the top 5 scorers (in order from 1st to 5th place) are:

• mamaandmore
• Doctor Jack and DMekwunye (tied)
• Heartbeat
• Lucky13
• MrsForty40

What’s in a Name?

Your play is tracked by your screen name – so you can be as anonymous or transparent in your game playing as you like. It’s become an annual tradition for me to highlight some of the fun, intriguing and perplexing screen names each year. In 2015, once again it seems nothing was off limits, from the range of “equity” and “stock” possibilities (CEP 1001, Sleepless in Stock Plan Admin. Land, EquityExtraordinaire, Equity Gamer, StockyMcStockMiester) to the mythical (unicorn6872) to the humble (Imnoexpert, InCaseIFlunk, Guessing, Humble Pie) to those who tell it like it is (Don’tKnowNuthin, The expert, The_Wrong_Way, whateverdude). Of course our sports fans were abundant as well (Golf, Hockeyfan, ORLonghorns, NY_YANKEE), in addition to a few that would probably require a happy hour and some time to explain (Bad Mamajama, Juice Club, Bubba, Sparky, Sparty Po, adminwannabe, Peter Pan).

Work Hard, Play Hard

We’ve just reset scores and this week’s challenge starts a whole new contest, so this is the perfect time for NASPP members to sign up, create your screen alias and jump into the Question of the Week Contest. We leave all of January’s questions active for the entire month, so you have plenty of time to complete the first quizzes of the new game.

Equity Expert Podcast

One milestone we’re recognizing is the 2nd anniversary of our NASPP podcast series: Equity Expert. That’s right, you can download short episodes right to your computer, smartphone or other device and listen to them at your leisure. This series focuses on short interviews with some of the industry’s best and brightest on a variety of equity compensation topics. Shorter than webcasts, they are designed to give you the quick run down on details you need to know. Our most recent episodes include Hot Topic! EU Data Privacy in 2016 with Barbara Klementz, Global Hot Topics with Marlene Zobayan, and 5 Things I Learned About Global Compliance and Communication. Be sure to subscribe in order to get updates on new episodes.

Social Status

Last year when I wrote this early January blog, we were celebrating our 900th LinkedIn follower. At the time of this blog, we’ve passed the 1,300 follower mark! We’ve got lots of great content posted to our social media pages, so be sure to like/follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter!

I wish all of you an incredible 2016!

-Jenn