Contests for Web Workers from Cisco, HP, Microsoft

Further proof that the web worker demographic is important: this week saw the launch of two contests with serious prizes that you’re ideally suited to enter!

First up is the Home Office Makeover contest, jointly sponsored by Microsoft and HP. One lucky winner gets to have celebrity designer Vern Yip from HGTV come in and do a $25,000 home office makeover. To enter, you have to send in a 250-word essay “describing how a Microsoft Home Office Makeover will create an overall positive change in entrant’s personal and/or business life” and a photo (and optionally a WMV format video) of your current dismal space. They also load you up with Microsoft software and HP hardware if you win. There are some tablet PCs and copies of Microsoft Office for runners-up.

If you’d prefer to compete for cold, hard cash (or you’re one of those rare birds who is already completely happy with their home office), try Cisco’s Connected Life Contest instead. Top prize is $10,000 and ten runners-up win $1,000 each. Entering this one requires “describing in 1,000 words or less a new experience or capability you would like networking technologies to enable you to do, whether at home, at work, or on the move.”

You can submit a video too, and there are some videos on the contest page already, but the videos don’t count in the judging so I’m not sure why you’d bother. Whatever you do, don’t send them your best startup idea: the contest rules make it abundantly clear that you’re transferring all of your IP rights in your entry to Cisco.

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