Here at CM we have our own culture, started and developed by our "Culture Queen," Lisa Schardein. Lisa created a work environment that supports its employees and brings us together in a unique CM family. We all truly enjoy working here and it shows.

There is a natural flow and balance here at Bakery Square that brightens each day and keeps the creative genius' flourishing. There are brilliant minds at work here at CM. As I am writing this blog there are projects being proofed, happy clients coming and going and laughter echoing down the halls.

We have two new friends at CurrentMarketing – The Duke of Goldington and Sir Goldshire! Yep, that's right - TWO GOLD LOUIES!!!

Congrats to our creative team for their work on the Masterson's Catering logo and the Little German Polka Hero interactive game.

Way to go, Arica, Rob, Steve and Brandon!

Before I was a part of CurrentMarketing’s social media team, I was a photojournalist. As a photographer you think of photojournalism as changing the world one well composed frame at a time. I’ve been a part of some great storytelling, but as a freelancer it seemed more often than not I was standing at a ribbon-cutting with 20 other people, 15 of which were holding the ribbon and the other five were holding news cameras or microphones. I was ready for a change and a new challenge, and I certainly got that by joining CurrentMarketing’s team.

I had no agency experience, or any clue as to what I could expect at CurrentMarketing (besides dogs, lots of dogs). The biggest question was would I find advertising rewarding? It took me all of a week to figure out I loved working at CurrentMarketing – maybe even just a few days. Much of my time spent here has been learning the business as we go, and as my understanding of advertising grows, so does my passion for it.

Last year, we handled a campaign for one of our clients, Texas Steakhouse and Saloon, that I am very proud of and found incredibly rewarding. During the entire month of November we collected letters for US troops and the response was overwhelming. Hundreds of heart-felt letters began pouring into our office the following week. We received over two thousand total.

Part of our job was to review the letters. People of all ages sent us letters, from former servicemen and women who have been retired for decades to children who were barely old enough to write. The messages were always positive, and some tugged heavy on the heart strings.

“Come home soon, daddy,” was one that stuck out to me. The child signed their name and age – he was only five years old.

A retired naval officer prayed they have strength through the holidays, because he knew they were the toughest times when he was deployed years ago.

Some of the restaurant servers took time out of their busy schedule to say how much it means to them that the troops sacrifice so much.

Working on this project was a pleasure. Unlike turning in a photo from a crappy assignment and wondering whether or not anyone will even notice it, I know these letters will be appreciated. Service men and women will hold these letters and get to read these positive messages, and they will be thankful for them.

I’m thankful I work at a place that’s able to make things like this happen. I’ve loved every minute of working at CurrentMarketing, from the office dogs to our daily Jolt meeting. I feel like I’m building a rewarding (there’s that word again) career for myself, and I look forward to coming up with more projects like this for all of our clients and new challenges for myself.

For me, it's something I really enjoy doing. I've always loved art, graphics, words (gray matter), ads, photos, films, etc. One of my college art teachers thought he was criticizing me when he said that everything I created looked like it belonged in an advertisement. Ha! He never really understood why my ultimate goal was to be a Creative Director, because his thing was "fine art."

In pondering this question I've thought a lot about the folks in our world who do the same thing, day in and day out. The people inside "plants" who have a specific task and are often timed and rated according to the repetition and quality of their work. I'm thankful for these workers because simple things like the chair I sit in wouldn't be easily available, or nearly as comfortable, if I had to create my own. The car I drive would be WAY too expensive, as the streamlined process of a car manufacturing plant has made it possible for most folks to own some kind of vehicle.

I have often wondered how these people stay engaged and happy in their daily work? Is it that they know what needs to be done and don't have many unexpected challenges to deal with? That they can leave work at work and not take it home with them? I'd suppose it's the relationships they form that aid in their happiness rating. And, the challenge of finding a better way to get the "thing-a-ma-jig" completed. Plus, the comfort of knowing exactly what you'll be doing each day.

In our world at CurrentMarketing, it's quite the opposite. We have new challenges every day with new technology, new products and services to market, and new "vehicles" for getting the message to our target audiences. It's a full-time job just staying on top of Facebook and their constant need to re-invent the user experience. New typefaces, new photo/video techniques, new twists on familiar phrases...all keep our jobs fun and exciting. And, it's so competitive too. The thrill of a client sharing the amazing results they've experienced has always been one of the greatest rewards for me. That, and knowing the "sky is the limit" when it comes to having ideas; and, the fun we have in generating/implementing them.

Ultimately, I believe we work to serve each other, no matter what you do for a living. And so we should serve each other with honesty and integrity, and the joy that we want from others when they serve us. "Give more than we take." Leave "it" better than we found it. I think being "service-oriented" is right there with being the best at what your company does. Of course you want to have the best product, or in our case, the best ideas. And then our level of service should be equally as important. (For both our external and internal clients.) It seems simple enough: do what you say you will do - when you said you would do it - and with a great attitude. Wouldn't the world be a lot better if we all made the act of serving joyful! Heck, it might not feel like "work" any longer.

Like many years, 2011 was a mixed bag for us at CurrentMarketing.  Without any doubt, all of our "ups" far outnumbered our "downs." But no matter how many "ups" we celebrated this year, they could never offset the cumulative weight of our "downs," due to one devastating tragedy.

We kicked off the year in great form. Katy Miller, in her new capacity as Account Supervisor, landed a large multi-unit dental practice.  Along with several other great gets through the year, Katy closed 2011 preparing a client to to roll out a new product with a big-box retailer.  (I'm sure details on the product and the retailers will follow as soon as it's announced publicly.)

Led primarily by Katy's efforts, we added a total of 18 new clients in 2011 and increased our overall billings by more than 20% (final numbers won't be in for a couple of weeks).

In order to provide great work to those clients, we had a total of 18 new hires throughout the year.  That's more than 2009 & 2010 combined. With seven people leaving our ranks in 2011, that left us with a net growth of 11 people.

Today 40 of us enjoy the CurrentMarketing culture that still includes occasional company lunches, Partner Days in the summer and the Birthday Wheel 'O Fun at least 40 times.  And the experimental "let's close up for the holidays this year," gave us all a week off between Christmas and New Years. Free coffee, sodas and a no-prima-donnas-allowed environment top-off the reasons this is a wonderful place to work. Thanks, Lisa, for creating such a culture!

In 2011, we began using Studio NuLu, our next-door neighbor, for photo and video shoots.  The commercial grade kitchen is a unique advantage for NuLu since there's not another food-shoot-equipped studio within 100 miles.  From steaks and Tex-Mex food to wine, whiskey and Bourbon to fitness and wellness....oh yeah, and lots of people, too...NuLu proved to be a great resource for us and our clients.  It also served as a terrific venue for our annual Halloween Party!

We expanded our Geek Suite to five people in 2011 and our video/motion graphics team from one to three. This included the first-ever returning employee, Luke Hattemer, who quit CurrentMarketing a few years back to attend film school in Chicago.  He left us as a production artist and returns as a highly-capable 3D animator...incredible capabilities for CurrentMarketing to offer new and existing clients heading into 2012.

However, reflecting on the past year, none of us can help but come back the mid-year tragedy which I mentioned in the opening lines of the entry. On the June 26, a drunk driver took the life of young Ben Koier, son of our COO Lisa Schardein and stepson of our CEO Rick Schardein. It was a tragedy that will follow most of us far beyond 2011 and some of us for the rest of our lives.

As Lisa and Rick continue coming to grips with their "new normal," so does everyone else at CurrentMarketing.  In their absences through the last two quarters, a new generation of leadership emerged here.  Steeped in The CurrentMarketing Way and tempered with an occasional WWRD or WWLD, the younger managers kept the ship not only afloat but steered toward the ever-changing horizon...the evolving vision of what our client need to compete.

So, bring it on 2012.  There's nobody more ready for you than CurrentMarketing.

This is the third in a 3-part series on what to get for the advertising professional who has everything. Today: The Geek.

Around our office, the term "geek" isn't the insult it is in most places. At Current, the Geeks are the fine folks who make our websites and smartphone apps sing and dance. Without them, our pretty photoshop files just kind of lay there. What they do is an absolute mystery to me and they make me look good at every turn, so if you are like me, you want to keep them happy. So here are a few gift ideas for the geek in your life.

1) Geek Work Shirt
The fine folks over at ThinkGeek.com have a site full of "stuff for Smart Masses," but this one really caught my eye. Sadly, I don't have the tech cred (or the hipster swagger) to pull off an ironic work shirt, but I would totally wear this if I could.

2) Coding Books
The internet is a constantly evolving thing and the coding behind the curtain is always changing too. Now I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about programming, but I'm told this is where you start if you want to learn to write Perl script.

3) Matias Folding Keyboard
I'm actually kind of coveting this one. A folding FULL keyboard for your Mac. The ultimate in portability for the Geek on the go.

4) Keurig Single Cup Brewing System
Most of our geeks (and most I've met) run on caffeine and code. And the last thing we want is for them to be up wandering around when they have crazy deadlines they need to be meeting. So this single cup coffeemaker will keep them at their desks and hopped up on C₈H₁₀N₄O_2.

5) Make Your Own Zombie Kit
Our Head Geek-in-Charge, The Bouv, loves Zombies. It's his thing. And if your geek is anything like him, this make your own Zombie action figure kit might be just the thing to make sure your internet stays on and your code keeps flowing.

This is the first in a 3-part series on what to get for the advertising professional who has everything. Today: The Designer.

Designers can be tough to buy for. Most of them are high-strung and temperamental and they tend to lash out when provoked. And since they don't usually wear ties to the office, that old standby is out. So maybe try one of these suggestions this year.

1) Pantone Swag
Pantone, the color matching system, is ubiquitous in the design world. It's how a designer let a printer know exactly what color they want to see on a printed page. And along with numerous color match books that designers use to spec colors, they also sell a line of accessories that let a designer show off their "street cred" with coffee mugs, iPhone cases, and my favorite, cufflinks. Very cool gift.

2) A Whack on the Side of the Head
No, I don't mean you get to take a shot at that designer that keeps giving you static about making the logo bigger. I'm talking about the book by Roger von Oech.  It's one of my all-time favorite books on creative thinking and it has tons of tips on how to train yourself to think outside of the box.

3) Cintiq 24HD
How much do you love your designer? Do you love them $2500 worth? Because if you do, they Cintiq 24HD is kind of gift that makes sure your projects rush to the top of their task list every day. It combines the best of Wacom tablet technology and a 24" HD display so you can draw directly on the screen. I'm an old-school mouse kind of guy, but I'd love to take one of these for a spin.

4) Designer's Guide to Color
Most designer start a collection of design inspiration books when they get their first job. Books of logos. Books of business cards. Books of web sites. They can be great sources of inspiration and are fun to read, but I rarely pick them up anymore. Not a lot of repeated reading value. But the one series of books I use all the time is the Designer's Guide to Color. A five-part series of small paperback books, they are basically a color combination cheat sheet. They have pages and pages of two and three color combos. When I find myself in a "blue rut," I'll grab one of these books and find some grey and orange combination that I would never instinctively reach for.

5) A Lynda.com Subscription
On the rare occasion that we have some downtime in the studio, I love to browse through the tutorials on Lynda.com and pick up new tips and tricks and they have tutorials for pretty much every software package you could want. Want to learn to program websites from scratch? Lynda has a video. Want to learn a 3D fundamentals in Photoshop? Lynda has a video. I highly recommend checking them out.

Next up: What to get the Account Executive who wants has everything.

Duuuude, Patty, Lucas Oil, Luuuuuke, or whatever you may call me here.  I’m back! Two short years ago I decided to leave CurrentMarketing, sell my car, sell my soul to student loans and move to Chicago to study Media Arts and Animation at The Illinois Institute of Art - Chicago. While I had convinced myself, whether I liked it or not, that it would probably be a long time before I would return back home. Well, as things turned out, here I am.  And I couldn’t be happier!

I am just beginning to get settled in back here at CurrentMarketing, and looking around, change is everywhere.  Being the only CurrentMarketing employee to ever leave and come back, I have a unique perspective of what has happened to this company in two short years. I have the familiarity of the company I know and worked for three awesome years and also the shock value of walking into a place that is nearly twice the size. Yep, TWICE. When I left in August 2009 there were 23 employees here. As of this week, just two years and two months later, we now have 41 employees. I think that says a lot for any company these days and just goes to show that things are heating up here.

Another big difference I am getting used to is the expansion of the office space here. I’ll be honest, on a couple occasions I would brag a little to my classmates (generally kids barely 20 years old or so) about the environment I once worked. Well, luckily it has only gotten better. CurrentMarketing has now expanded to occupy nearly the entire first floor of Bakery square. Now instead of seeing people from Lebowski Fest or other randoms walking around the courtyard, it’s  CM employees... and now that I am in an office next to it, I am able to turn to Brandon ask the ever important question, “ so, do they work here too?” Really, I am trying to get all the new faces and names together so I don’t have another incident like the one at the Halloween party. Just ask Meredith.

In last 6 months, CM has bought the old cabinetry company next to the courtyard and converted it into a fully operational photography studio.  This space is a perfect accent to an already killer work environment. We now are able to handle most photo and video shoots in house and we seem to be getting bigger and better equipment weekly. Not to mention, it is perfect for throwing a party. Which brings me to something that has stayed unchanged. CurrentMarketing and its employees know how to thow a party. Yep, we get down. In my second week back we had our Halloween party and it was just like I remember them... or don‘t remember them. I hate to use cliche’ expressions, but “work hard, play hard’” just about sums it up. One major thing I always enjoyed about this place is the atmosphere. There is a great mesh of so many different creative personalities and everyone seems to approach their days with positive attitudes which makes it that much easier to be involved.

The capabilities of this company have continued to move forward and are only growing.  We are now full time working with motion graphics and now that I am back with some newly learned skills, we are incorporating 3D modeling, animation and compositing to enhance product visualization to take the client’s branding to the next level. My focus and passion while in school was character animation and is another area we are moving into and plan on incorporating that into commercials and mobile applications.  This is very exciting and different for us because until now we have not had this capability or even been able to brainstorm with these kind of options. With the creative collaboration and the diverse skills between everyone here, there isn’t much we can’t do. The sky is the limit and I am stoked to be a part of it. We are moving in the right direction and I can’t wait to see what projects the future holds.

I am very thankful for so many things. I have a warm, comfortable place to lay my head every night. I always have plenty to eat. I have the benefits of technology that allow me to work from anywhere, communicate with my friends and family and even get all my Christmas shopping done without hitting the malls. I have the freedoms of expression and worship. And a great place to live and work, something I really value after recently spending a long weekend in New York with our daughter, Sarah.

I am also very thankful and amazed at the love and support that our family has received from all the people we work with. My co-workers came running the minute they heard the terrible news about Ben. Many made daily visits to the farm to just hold me close. Several had to step up and do my job, in addition to their responsibilities. And I am so grateful still. The funeral home was filled with compatriots, clients and vendors as well. The beautiful cards, flowers and unbelievable generosity of all who care about us was humbling. Even the media came to give us a chance to tell our story and hopefully save a life in doing so.

Recently I received a beautiful quilt made from Ben’s clothes. Two of my co-workers, Katy Miller and Pam Kruetzer, worked together at night and on weekends to make a really special memento for me to wrap myself in whenever I want to feel close to Ben. Other gifts include a tree planted in his honor and an infinity cross that I see every morning when I am home at the  farm. And these are only a few items—of many—for which I am truly thankful.

My main message today is to say “Thank You” to my co-workers. They continue to be there for me no matter what kind of day I am having. They are patient with me when I am grumpy or sad. They always seem to know when I need a hug or a kind word. And they have continued to carry the torch when I haven’t felt like it, because my life has forever changed. We have cried so many tears together and still do today. The wound is still fresh and the hole deep. And I could not be functioning at the level I am today without all the love and support of my CM peeps. I love you all! Thank you for all the love you have shown me. I am truly blessed!

Before departing yesterday afternoon, each of the bulbs here at CM was asked "what are you grateful for today?" I love these kinds of questions because, as you can imagine with this group, the answers can be amusing, obtuse, arresting, thought-provoking and sometimes all of the above.

Here's what I heard back:
That we're getting off early today.
That I get to spend the evening with my family.
My family, a great job and co-workers and modern plumbing (in that order).
All of God's blessings and the promise of eternal life.
OH MY GOSH!....My family, my health, my job.  All the awesome people I get to meet along the way.
Being here. (I loved this one, because "here" leaves it up to you, the reader, to interpret!)
My husband.  I've been grateful for him all week.
The peace and mercy I have found in Jesus during the worst time in my life.
That I'm back working for an awesome company like CurrentMarketing.
A beautiful daughter, wonderful husband, my health and a great job.
To still be alive after hitting 44.
My job.  My family.  My big plasma screen TV.
Erin, the new young lady in my life.
That Molly let me pet her. (Molly, the dog, not the person)
Getting to work on Kentucky Derby Festival!
I'm thankful for my daughter and I'm thankful to be here (another "being here").
My husband, because I'm newly married.
My wife and my dog.
My job.  My family.  My dog.  Beer.
Lots of things...my family.
Our new photo studio.
My family.
This job, my wife and that so far we've been shielded from this economy (knock on wood).
My family being healthy and here.  Having my mom and dad still around is awesome.
There's nothing that I'm not grateful for.  (If you can get your head around that one, it's an awesome answer!)
My job and that I'm home with my family for Thanksgiving for the first time in five years.
Oh, so much.  My son, my job – especially today since I got to have them both – that my truck's running well.  So many things!
My job.  My family.
My family.

You know, we hear so much every day – from pundits and politicians on the Left and Right – about what's wrong with our country.  Today is a great day to stop and be grateful for what God, Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu or Wakan Tanka (or whatever you call your higher power) has given us...and especially us in America.  It's not perfect, but we're all trying, right?  We're all working – in our own way – to make our community, our country and our world better than we found them.

Here's something that can make your part of it a little better:  In the next week, remember to thank someone when they're least expecting it.  And, rather than describing what I mean by that, I'll take a less from the couple of folks who are grateful for "being here."  I'll leave that for you to interpret.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!