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.

New Office . New Sneakers. New Year. #letsdothis

That was my tweet from yesterday morning. There’s nothing like a protracted holiday break and a smattering of newness to catalyze the creative flow. Fleshing things out a bit:

New Office
I’m beside myself with excitement over our new DUMBO office. Our old space at 45 Main was nice, but this is more spacious, well lit, and highly inspiring. The expansive bridge views and carefully crafted interior (pics coming soon) are simply incredible.  I’m eager to see the impact this well-designed environment has on collaboration, creativity, and culture here at FreeAssociation. Hats off to FAers @methodosis and @chrisrodemeyer for the vision.

New Sneakers
If you know me, you know I’m a fan of sneakers. I avoid dressier shoes whenever possible. I’m not professionalism-averse, but you never know when you might have to grind a subway stair-rail between client meetings. My lovely wife Kris bought me a slick pair of Black Nike Frees for Xmas. These kicks bring such pleasure to my stride—simple, lightweight, streamlined—design that works. I kept them in the box for the last week, and broke them out for the new year. Nothing like the promise of a new day and a crisp pair of sneakers.

New Year
2012 is here, and like everyone else we’re honing our vision for an awesome new chapter in the FA trajectory. Like 2011, we’ll continue to partner with organizations to ignite imaginative experiences with smart strategy, charismatic content, and digital craft. But there’s a few new items on the agenda as well.  For one, we’ll be rolling out an identity refresh for our firm. This new asset will reflect our refined brand vision and guide our growth. Second, we’re ramping up our product innovation business. We’re currently working with some killer clients in this space, and developing a few digital utilities of our own. And finally, we’re investing more in the culture that defines us: our intentionally boutique model, passion for quality, incredible people, and unique approach to work, creativity, and life.

So a very big happy new year everyone! Time to dig in and make it happen.

Let’s do this.

What were you doing before joining FreeAssociation?

Prior to joining FA, I worked at an independent record label and music publishing company in Manhattan. As a manager, I facilitated music licensing, record releases, and a lot of the label’s digital such as development and maintenance of the company’s website and social media campaigns.

Are you excited about your new role as project manager?

Super stoked! As passionate as I am about music, the digital exposure made me realize I wanted to focus more on interactive media. On the education front, I’m actually pursuing a MS in Management at Stevens Institute of Technology with a concentration in Project Management. I look forward to applying this academic knowledge to client work at FA.

FreeAssociation knows work and life must balance. What are you up to in your free time?

Well with school, down time is hard to come by these days. But when I do come up for air, I love to listen to all kinds of music, produce music in my home studio, read, and cook for my friends and family (believe it or not, cooking and project management have a lot in common!).

Music plays an important role in FA’s culture.  What have you been listening to lately?

Everything from bebop to electro to indie rock- my tastes really run the gamut. I’m doing my best not to play-out the new album from Real Estate (‘Days’). A former colleague turned me on to Ben Howard– his album ‘Every Kingdom’ has a really sweet vibe.

• Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky (Chris Rodemeyer, Sr. Designer)
• Sketching User Experiences by Bill Buxton (Erik Carlson, Project Director)
• Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson (Charlie Tran, Sr. Developer)
• A New Brand World by Scott Bedbury (Matt Piliero, Project Director)
• Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide by Todd Zaki Warfel (James Veluya, Sr. Designer, ID Designer)
• I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (David Landa, Executive Producer)
• Cultural Strategy: Using Innovative Ideologies to Build Breakthrough Brands by Douglas Holt & Douglas Cameron (Michael Piliero, Creative Director)
• Critical Chain by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Eric Konzelman, Producer)
• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst (Matias Jansen, Designer)
• Grid Systems by Josef Mueller-Brockmann (Niek Dekker, Designer)

The project involved a comprehensive effort to reorganize, reposition, and rebrand the non-profit with the goal of opening up what was formerly a private, scientifically-led organization to the public arena. FA worked with the digital strategists at Undercurrent (UC) to clarify and refine MP’s brand strategy and synthesize it into an actionable plan for web production. FA then went to work designing and developing the digital platform.

As part of FA’s annual philanthropy program, we donated web strategy, content strategy and creative direction to Millennium Promise.

A good cause should have a clear call to action. The CaMM 2.0 homepage refresh gave us the opportunity to visually reinforce the campaign’s core components: pledge, connect, and share. On the homepage, visitors can find ways to participate locally, get updates on the latest news, and sign a digital pledge of support. Stay tuned— the launch of the new homepage is just the first in a series of planned enhancements for 2011.

In an effort to strengthen her online presence, she brought us in to provide digital strategy and a website refresh.

We focused on brand-building, reorganizing the site’s structure and implementing web best-practices, while being sure to maintain the site’s core black and white rock’n yoga aesthetic. The result is a solid platform that’s findable, usable, and accommodates for future growth.

Whether you’re a dedicated yogi or a weekend warrior—or if you’ve simply never held a chatauranga pose while listening to a live DJ spin Biggie Smalls—we urge you to try an I.AM.YOU. class.