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If you didn’t get the memo status update, check-in, tweet, or comment, today is officially Social Media Day. So, from us to you—a little tribute to Zuck, Dens, Biz, and Chad.

This article is copyright © 2012 

Last month, we celebrated Carrot Creative’s sixth birthday in our penthouse office with cocktails, a perfect view of the Manhattan skyline, and 200 of our favorite people.

Commemorating our company’s birthday each year gives us a chance to appreciate and honor not only what we’ve done, but also the people who have supported us along the way—the people who make each year possible and even better than the last.

We take a lot of pride in our culture and our space and we were more excited than ever to share it with our friends and family. Here’s a glimpse (put together by our friends at Demonstrous Productions) into the world of Carrot Creative and our very special night.

To everyone who helped make this past year incredible: thank you.

— Bobby, Mike, Chris

For photos from the red carpet, click here.

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Over the last year Kaitlin Villanova and I have worked hard to grow and extend the Digital DUMBO brand to match the exponential size of the monthly networking event. As you may have noticed, last week we officially rolled out the new brand identity for Digital DUMBO across our web presence and collateral.  Surprisingly, this is actually the third iteration of our logo. It seems as if our logo evolves in tandem with the evolution of the Digital DUMBO community.

Over the past year this evolution has taken place in many different forms. We’ve had the opportunity to showcase some amazingly innovative and creative companies at our monthly events in interesting ways such as arm wrestling, sumo wresting, ugly holiday sweaters, and bingo. We hosted a career fair. We participated in and helped plan programming for the DUMBO Arts Festival. All of these accomplishments were made possible because of ideas brought to the table by members of our community.

These accomplishments have led to growth in the size of our community and in new partnerships. This growth has pushed forward our logo as well. The new logo designed by Carrot Creative’s talented team was created to be more dynamic and more iconic than our previous brand, without completely abandoning the color palette and aesthetics of our original identity. The love mark depicts our two D’s, but also creates a face, humanizing our brand and serving as a representation of the community that Digital DUMBO is built upon. We also made a point to allow for a logo that could be utilized by other cities as we continue to explore ways to grow beyond New York, using the format and philosophies of our event to help grow stronger digital communities elsewhere.

The past few months have served as excellent building blocks for the future. We realize that there are many things that we can do better in order to be a better matchmaker for the community. Two areas that we are focusing on in the near term is the creation of the Digital DUMBO Workshop Series and in improving DigitalDUMBO.com. We hope that the Workshop Series will provide high value educational programming to our community in a more focused setting. For our website, we’re exploring ways in which we can create a more vibrant community online to complement our offline community.

We hope that our new logo marks a turning point not only in the design of our brand, but in our efforts to be even better at building a strong digital community that fosters economic activity for all.

We hope to see you at the next event!

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Carrot Creative’s excited to announce the re-launch of ahamoment.com. Over the past few years Mutual of Omaha, life’s proud sponsor of aha moments, has toured the country (in conjunction with Skadaddle Media) on the prowl for real people telling real stories about their “aha moment.” The culmination being users voting on what will be Mutual of Omaha’s 2012 TV campaign.

Carrot Creative has been tasked by Mutual of Omaha to tie the brand closer to the “aha moment” campaign as well as strengthen it’s web and social presence. Carrot is doing that first through the re-launch of ahamoment.com, and next through social media campaigns ranging from Facebook applications to blogger outreach.

What is an “aha moment” you ask? You’ll have to visit the site to find out, but get ready to see uplifting, courageous, funny, and even gut-wrenching stories from Americans just like you. So stop on by, watch some videos, check in on the progress of the tour, see what’s happening on Facebook, add tips on Foursquare, and don’t forget to come back and weigh in on whose aha moment is worthy of being in Mutual of Omaha’s 2012 TV campaign.

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Carrot Creative is stoked to announce a partnership with the world’s leading snowboard manufacturer, Burton Snowboards, headquartered in Burlington, Vermont. Specifically, Carrot will be assisting Burton with social media research, recommendations, and digital best practices—all designed to meet Burton’s objective of providing best-in-class service and support for their riders. The Carrot Creative team has been riding a high since the contract was signed.

Stay tuned, as Carrot and Burton ramp things up for Winter 2012…

About Burton Snowboards: In 1977, Jake Burton Carpenter founded Burton Snowboards out of his Vermont barn. Since then, Burton has fueled the growth of snowboarding worldwide through its groundbreaking product lines, its team of top snowboarders and its grassroots efforts to get the sport accepted at resorts.  In 1996, Burton began growing its family of brands to include boardsports and apparel brands. Privately held and owned by Jake, Burton’s headquarters are in Burlington, Vermont with offices in California, Austria, Japan and Australia. For more information, visit burton.com.

The Carrot team took a few quick photos while up in Burlington—enjoy!

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I should not be allowed to do this.

Interns are pixel pushers. Coconut water fetchers. Sweaty, nervous, life-sized stress balls. They search 2 weeks to find the stock image the Creative Director wants for his nephew’s book report. You know, the one of the grandpa in a space suit hugging a cactus. In 900 dpi resolution.

Interns don’t get to introduce themselves on the company blog their first week at the office. Especially not if they’re an art director (I blacked out twice just trying to open WordPress).

Don’t get me wrong—as an Ad School student, I’ve come to expect incredibly unique agency experiences. While working as an intern at Saatchi & Saatchi in Moscow, I made best friends with Russian customs officers after I was denied 8 times trying to leave the country (it doesn’t help having everything stolen), wore a gas mask at the office when the city was covered in Chernobyl forest fire smoke, and drank vodka that left my chest hair looking like a steel wool brillo pad.

While interning at Ogilvy in Brazil, I got lost at a 3 day music festival not knowing a lick of Portuguese. I got the opportunity to smell Ronaldo’s armpits from my office desk. I ate enough steak sandwiches on the beach to make a Longhorn Steakhouse chef consider veganism.

But now, I have different kinds of expectations at Carrot Creative. Expectations to work my tail off for something that I believe in, to learn from some of the smartest people I have ever met, and to actually contribute at the most innovative and exciting digital agency on the planet.

Today is my fifth day on the job. I was just ordered to graffiti Carrot Creative logos on every rooftop in Brooklyn. Life couldn’t be better.

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With more than 500,000 small businesses in the tri-state area, The New York Enterprise Report is once again honoring those who are among the most innovative. Carrot Creative has been nominated as a finalist in the Human Resources & Leadership category.

Companies were chosen based on their ability to demonstrate the use of a best practice to generate competitive advantages, revenue profits and/or long-term value. Twenty-seven companies, based in the NY metro area, were selected as finalists out of dozens of qualified applicants for each category and will be recognized at the event.

Mike Germano, Carrot Creative’s President and Creative Director, will be in attendance at this year’s event on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City, NY.

We’re honored to be included amongst a list of top small businesses doing great things within the New York area and look forward to a great event to meet others in the industry. This will be a great opportunity for Carrot Creative to show off our unique working environment and all of the exciting projects and clients we’ve been working with.

Are you attending? Let us know!

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How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live
TIME’s cover story on Twitter by Stephen Johnson, a must-read.

10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business
This slide show takes us through 10 ways using Twitter might become profitable for businesses. Hyper-local marketing, consumer data mining, and micropayments are a few of the topics covered.

Twitter craze is rapidly changing the face of sports
SI.com presents an in-depth look at athletes who tweet and how Twitter is having a big impact on sports.

Apps Boom as Companies Seek a Place on Your Phone
More and more companies are setting their sights on the mobile industry for sustained revenue, and this gives developers a chance to not only just sell their apps in the App Store, but also sell their company. This NYTimes article by Jenna Wortham discusses the opportunity on the table.

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As Social Technologies Become Pervasive, Prepare Your Company
Jeremiah Owyang discusses the implications of social technologies in business. He goes through the different vendors that have entered the space and explains some of the changes they’re facing. He also offers some great advice for brands as they get more immersed in social media and embrace the social web. A good read for anyone running a business.

Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web.
Google Wave was announced last week at the Google I/O conference. If you haven’t heard the buzz yet, check out the articles below. This could be the next big thing – at least, that’s what Google is planning.

• Google Wave: A Complete Guide
• 6 Game-Changing Features of Google Wave
• Testing Google Wave: This Thing is Tidal

Bing Opens Up. Is It Good? It’s Too Early To Tell.
Microsoft’s new search “decision engine” recently launched aiming to provide the best results in a more organized way.

Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant?
Kristin covered this article on the Carrot Blog last week. Definitely a must read.

Top 20 YouTube and Video Memes of All Time
The title speaks for itself. The top 20 viral video sensations! Quite entertaining.

comScore Announces Media Metrix 360
Yesterday, comScore announced Media Metrix 360, a ‘panel-centric hybrid’ solution to digital audience measurement. Fred Wilson posted his thoughts on the launch, saying it’s a great opportunity for smaller web services. Official release here.

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