I love this video! This is truly cognitive communication at its best. Oh, and the subject matter is truly eye opening as well. Some very interesting research about what motivates people. It’s worth the 10 minutes to watch this.

I love fireworks. Always have. Hence the name of our digital marketing agency. Fireworks always inspire. They exhilarate. They can’t be missed. This animation by PES is a creative take on fireworks. I had to post it!

I had to share this video. I am fast becoming an iPad fan. I hear all the objections…it’s just a giant iPhone, it doesn’t play Flash, it doesn’t have a camera, you can’t combine ATT  3G accounts with your iPhone, etc, etc. But all that aside, this may simply be the most “business-lifestyle-marketing-sales-productivity-daily-task-altering-object-of-desire” the common man has ever seen.  This little video shows iPad’s awesome versatility using an inexpensive velcro strip.

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

I’ve heard it said that failure equals growth. Well, if that is truly the case, then a lot of growing’s been going on in 2009! How do you handle failure in your life? What is your attitude when the bottom is dropping out of your industry, your project, your business, your life?

According to John C. Maxwell, author of  Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success we either panic and repeat failure over and over again, or we learn from our failures and grow.

Check out this great video…

Here are The Five Rules of Life
1. You will learn lessons
2. There are no mistakes, just lessons
3. A lesson is repeated until it is learned
4. If you don’t learn the easy lessons they get harder
5. You’ll know you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change

My wife and I saw this video this morning and were reminded again how failure is part of life and a stepping stone to success if handled properly. So let’s all learn our lessons and fail as achievers!

We live in a world where interruption marketing continues to slide into oblivion. Our lives are busier than ever and the clutter around us is deafening. How do we reach our target audience in this changing marketplace without interrupting them? Are Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and social bookmarking just a fad?

I challenge you to watch this video and consider if social media has a place in your marketing budget. Yes, it’s time-consuming, takes a big commitment to stick with it, and it’s hard to track ROI, but the fact is, social media is here to stay and it’s changing the way we market all products and services to consumers and to other businesses.

We’d love to talk with you about your social media marketing challenges. Give us a call if you’d like to discuss the possibilities for your business.

Amazing advertising technology being used at Waterloo Station in the UK. This is a really creative way to cut through the clutter in outdoor advertising.

waterloo station advertising from clive darr on Vimeo.

This is classic. Sesame Street is still brilliant…

This is a great video to open your mind to this exploding thing called Social Media.  It will affect every area of your lives, especially your marketing and communications!

Fireworx Digital just launched a new online store for GuyHarveySportswear.com This innovative line of fish art clothing and accessories with over 7,000 styles and sizes has seen incredible sales growth not only among it’s loyal salt water fishing fans, but also among university students at campuses across the country.

The site was designed with a primary focus on extending and promoting the Guy Harvey brand.  It provides one online location where Guy Harvey fans can see the entire line of Guy Harvey clothing items.  A dealer locator makes it easy to find retail locations within a given zip code.

Fireworx selected SearchFit as the shopping cart platform for client AFTCO Bluewater, master license holder for Guy Harvey Sportswear, based largely on the fact that it was built from the ground up for maximum search engine optimization.  Together with SearchFit, Fireworx was able to deliver a cost-effective, turnkey eCommerce solution for the new consumer direct site.  The shopping cart was fully integrated into AFTCO’s existing ERP system,  provided by Innovative Systems, LLC.

One of the biggest challenges for businesses in this current market is to avoid the temptation to figuratively curl up in a ball under our desk and wish it was 2005.  Sure the market is soft and customers are tentative but instead of taking a reactive position we need to be active.  There are upsides to the recession- there is less noise in the market and an incredible assortment of digital tools for you to better engage your prospects in a one-on-one conversation.  Seth Godin is spot-on in his recent blog post Death spiral!

As Tom Peters says, “You can’t shrink your way to greatness,” and yet that’s what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don’t. This isn’t a dip, it’s a cul de sac. It’s over.

Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum… Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you.

Change is a bear, but it’s better than death.”

2010 is just around the corner- let’s make something of ‘09 while we still can- cause times may not be optimal but this is the only time we have.