Give a USB Gift This Xmas

It’s November, and you know what that means – Black Friday will be upon us before you know it! But before you start to consider what you ought to get for your co-workers, subordinates, or boss(es), consider this: gifts they can use at work are gifts they’re more likely to take advantage of. Unless you know what their home life is like, you have no idea what they might do with a fancy corkscrew or a ticket to the opera. A work-appropriate USB gift, on the other hand, you can see in action in the new year.

When you’re talking about giving gifts to the people at work, there are a few things you can count on. One of them is that they will have a computer, and that that computer will be on and functional for 90% of their average workday. That makes a custom USB gift something that everyone at work can use.

The old-school USB gifts are ones you saw being given out in 2006: small flash drives emblazoned with the corporate logo, maybe sometimes one pre-loaded with a Happy Holidays video from the top executives – very little else, though.

Then, there’s the kitchy USB gifts. These range in quality from poor to very poor, and in usefulness from not-at-all to actually negatively useful. USB Christmas trees, USB Valentine’s hearts, cheap USB robo-puppies…the list goes on and on. Suffice to say, avoid these at all costs.

But after that, if you put a little heart into it, you can come up with some surprisingly practical USB gifts. If your office is a little stagnant, getting everyone in the cubicle farm a USB fan for their desk can make you the hero of the hour. If your workplace is a little dust-prone, a series of USB air ionizers can make a startling difference – not just in the air, but in everyone’s mood as well.

For the truly classy, however, there are the coolest of the USB gifts. Imagine giving everyone in your office a USB hub that also acted as a speaker for the computer, a pen holder, a light source, and a digital photo frame. It’s the ultimate desk accessory; something everyone can and will use.