Since 2009, FreeAssociation has partnered with Time Warner Cable on Connect a Million Minds, a five-year initiative aimed at tackling students’ declining interests in science, technology, engineering, and math. CAMM encourages students to seek out learning opportunities in the STEM subjects. In the past three years, CAMM has inspired almost half a million students and even an earned endorsement from President Obama.

Help CAMM beat out the competition! Just go to the People’s Voice ballot for Corporate Social Responsibility and cast your vote for Connect a Million Minds. Hurry because the polls close on Thursday, April 26th!

The Baby Safe Rider (10-12 age group)

Greyson M. from Indian Trail, North Carolina created “The Baby Safe Rider,” a carseat insert designed prevent hyperthermia by alerting parents when their infant’s core temperature rises to a dangerous level.

Bone Analyzer Kit (10-12 age group)

Team KWOFF (Hannah Y. and Hon K.) from Westlake, Ohio, invented the “Bone Analyzer Kit.” The kit analyzes the chemicals and elements of blood around the site of a broken bone to asses severity of the injury.

The i-Stand (13-15 age group)

Kayla B. from Topeka, KS imagined “The i-Stand,” an electronic music stand that displays sheet music, has a tuner, a metronome, and recorder. Kayla hopes this will become a indispensable asset to all musicians!

A to Zinc Coffee (13-15 age group)

Also in the 10 to 12 category is Team Bronx Task Force (Emmie L., Jaime B. and Eileen F.) with their “A to Zinc Coffee,” healthier coffee filters which will infuse the coffee with essential vitamins, improving the health of the coffee drinker.

Wouldn’t It Be Cool If… a contest which encourages kids to think up the most innovative, imaginative and cool ways to improve their lives and community is the dual effort of Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds and artist will.i.am. The FreeAssociation team worked with TWC and will.i.am to execute campaign strategy and launch the online contest.

Congratulations to the four finalists and all of those who submitted their excellent ideas! Best of luck in St. Louis!

Hey there Erik. The new ?What If! site is pretty sweet. Care to share your project highlights?
The people at ?What If! were hands down the highlight— bright, imaginative thinkers and doers.  And they just so happen to be some of the nicest folks around.

Talk about the collaboration.
The collaboration was quality. It was a pleasure to work closely with the C-suite— Chairman Matt Kingdon, as well as the Americas CEO Barrie Berg. Second, their unique mode of collaboration is defined by trust, transparency, and an abundance of creative energy.  It’s clear they value partnerships deeply.

Any significant challenges you hit?
Threading just the right brand articulation for a professional services firm is always a significant challenge. The answer was neither simple, nor quick to surface. We really had to journey together to invent a content experience that was distinctive, appropriate, and effective for the business.

Any personal key learnings from the project?
I personally saw the power of immersive client collaboration and co-invention. As digital experts, we spend so much time with headphones on staring at our respective screens. Our workshops with ?What If! were highly energized (and caffeinated) full day sessions spent sketching, inventing, and iterating. It’s a great way to create.

What’s next?
The feedback on the site has been excellent. That said, it’s just the beginning, as we have plans to grow the platform in interesting ways this year. We also look forward to further collaboration with ?What If! on client innovation projects.

How about some final thoughts?
Americas CEO Barrie Berg often used the phrase, “We need to crack this challenge”. In the case of the ?What If! brand & site, I think we cracked it!

With 13 days left in the Wouldn’t It Be Cool If… kid-powered invention contest, the competition is heating up! We already have over 450 live ideas, ranging from the genius (eg. a self-sustainable amusement park) to the novel (check out the ‘skirt for pencils’). With so many cool ideas, we’re glad we’re not the judges. But here are a few of our personal picks for most AWESOME:

• Carbon into carbon titanium
• Space junk removal system
• Biostep
• Ride to roller coaster
• Incito Ecollon

In late 2011, we partnered with Gap and Ogilvy to deliver a suite of Facebook Tabs to promote Gap’s Holiday collection. In addition to promotional content, our Tabs featured a highly visual Gift Guide to provide shoppers with gift-giving inspiration.

We’re glad to have extended our collaboration with Gap in the past month, defining art direction for a series of digital ads highlighting the spring Be Bright collection and Diane Von Furstenburg Kids & Baby collection.

 

Today, FA officially launched Wouldn’t It Be Cool If…, a campaign that challenges the American youth to use creativity and imagination to develop ideas that could make a difference in their lives, communities or the world and then show how science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) can make their ideas a reality.

Highlighted by President Obama at the White House Science Fair on February 7th, Wouldn’t It Be Cool If… is a joint effort of Time Warner Cable’s Connect a Million Minds, and i.am FIRST, founded by artist and entrepreneur will.i.am. The FA team led creative and strategy for the campaign, and also produced the online contest at www.wouldntitbecoolif.com.

The contest kicks off today, and entries will be accepted through March 28th. Four finalists will be selected and flown to the FIRST Championship in St. Louis on April 25th, to pitch their ideas live to will.i.am, Dean Kamen and other guest judges, to determine a national winner. The winner will be flown to New York City where they will meet with innovators from Fahrenheit 212 and kick-off a development process.

Check out Wouldn’t It Be Cool If… to vote for your favorite cool idea, and motivate any young minds in your life to join in!

In late 2011, Nautica engaged us to concept and execute a contest to drive social acquisition for their Facebook brand page. In response to this, we invented the Nautica Challenge, a series of games involving brand themes and social activities.

In place of a single experience, this contest was designed for continuous newsfeed activity. Each week we unlocked a challenge, from photo contests to trivia. Each week the winner took away a $500.00 Nautica Gift Card. With an initial goal to reach 200,000 likers by year’s end, Nautica page liker numbers surged to over 500,000 by the turn of the new year!

We were delighted to reward Nautica fans with a fun and beautifully designed social experience, and to play a role in the growth of Nautica digital.

In another collaboration with our friends at Victoria’s Secret, the FreeAssociation team provided UX strategy, interaction design, and visual design for the VS All Access Mobile website. All Access offers in-depth coverage of the Angels, from lingerie-laden photo shoots to star-studded store openings.

Working closely with the VS product team, we crafted a content site accessible from a wide range of mobile devices for the fashionista on-the-go. Through a responsive approach, VS is now able to serve the same content and markup in a device-agnostic fashion.

We also wanted to ensure an intuitive navigation experience for mobile- a challenge, considering the large amount of blog, photo and video content. Thoughtful design considerations make the difference, such as providing staged navigation with a simple button tap, exposing a measured amount of related content, and enabling swipe-based gestures for photo galleries in both portrait and landscape mode.

Right now I’m in Los Angeles on a shoot for a new project we’re working on. The video content being shot will promote a sizable community platform for a meaningful (and fun!) initiative that FAers have been hard at work building. Stay tuned as it will be launching next month.

Once I wrap up here, I’m heading over to New Hampshire with our good friends from Connect A Million Minds to attend the First Robotics 2012 Founder’s Reception. The event is hosted by inventor Dean Kamen, and the Founder’s Reception takes place at Dean’s house. His house is a futuristic museum-like mansion featuring a 40-ton steam engine in the front foyer, secret passageways, and workshop where he creates his ground breaking inventions. Dean is a personal hero of mine, both in his work as an inventor and in his work engaging kids around STEM though his awesome organization First.