When I was just a pewee, I attended Tocaloma Day Camp, a local haunt for school kids after 3 p.m.

Tocaloma had everything: a swimming pool, basketball courts and indoor games. At Halloween, we even bobbed for apples.

Most memorable about Tocaloma were the jackets worn by long-term attendees. Especially impressive were the sewn on merit patches running up and down the sleeves that were earned for prowess in various sports.

Wow, I loved those things, and to this day, I think stripes and patches and other insignia and distinctions are kind of cool.

As adults, in the corporate world, it isnt nearly as difficult to be award winning at one thing or another if you arrange it with your public relations department.

For instance, there are many organizations around that will give you laurels for delivering excellence in customer service, if you pay a fee to participate in a peer-group survey.

Choose the categories in which youre competing carefully, and youre sure to emerge from these narrow-field competitions with some award; perhaps for best call in customer care, or best email response customer service. There are even distinctions for best prospectus, if youre a financial services company.

And, of course, you get to promote your badges of distinction in your advertising, which has the added benefit of hyping the award-giving entity, as well, so everybody wins.

This is a lot easier than working long and hard to actually raise the level of your service.