Stressed from the roller coaster ride that is the stock market?

Tired of politicians debating debt with their focus on votes instead of fiscal responsibility?

Nervous about those dreaded two words: double dip?

Wondering if a consumer that seemed on the mend can stomach all of it in time for some soothing holiday spending?

If everything is spinning out of control again, try to take your mind off of it by taking control of what you can.

Stress-relief hint No. 1: Run your business.

Stress-relief hint No. 2: Enter the 2012 Housewares Design Awards.

Satisfying Solutions

This industry’s unflappable passion to make an everyday difference through innovation is a potent beta-blocker. Nothing stimulates the creative synapses more positively than the pursuit of better design, especially when business, politics and life keep firing curveballs.

Design as a general concept comes with a promise of illumination— the satisfying solution to a problem. Design that works… well, that’s the Holy Grail in housewares. And once again, “Design That Works” is the theme of the Housewares Design Awards as we begin the ninth annual campaign to honor the year’s best-engineered, most-functional and finest-styled innovations.

Entries for the 2012 Housewares Design Awards are being accepted in 12 awards categories, plus special “Green House” awards for eco-responsible products. Finalists will be exhibited and winners will be crowned during a special luncheon January 31, 2012, at the New York Marriott Marquis. (Rules, entry forms and additional information are available at housewaresdesignawards.com).

HomeWorld Business founded the Housewares Design Awards in 2003 to help quell the growing emphasis on price degradation in this business: To remind everyone the word “add” is a vital word in the phrase “value add.”

Inventive Resolve

The industry has responded with thousands of entries, often more in leaner economic periods, a testament to its inventive resolve.

The International Housewares Association, as it has since the design competition launched, provides independent coordination of the product submission and judging process. Sponsors of the 2012 Housewares Design Awards are The Gourmet Housewares Show at the New York International Gift Fair (whose winter 2012 show coincides with the 2012 design awards ceremony) and Gourmet Insider magazine, a sister publication of HomeWorld Business.

Consumer Exposure

Entering the Housewares Design Awards isn’t only a chance to highlight unique design achievements that differentiate products and reinforce brands to the trade. It is a chance to gain valuable consumer market exposure.

Raising consumer awareness of this industry’s innovative design effort is a central goal of the Housewares Design Awards competition. The program’s robust website combined with intensified media outreach has helped place finalists and winners in more than 330 articles reaching a combined audience of more than 122 million.

So don’t tense up about your chances of winning. Simply demonstrating a commitment to innovation— especially amid so many erratic business pressures— is a healthy exercise whose best prognosis could come at checkout.

Of course, taking home a 2012 Housewares Design Award trophy would make you feel better. But if you’ve done the heavy lifting to develop meaningful new solutions you believe are worthy of entering a design competition, relief is coming. One way or another.

Good luck. And relax.