How’s that for a Monday?

Let’s start at the end and work backwards.

Location.

Today is our first official day in the office at 1712 Pease St. in fabulous downtown Houston! After 15 years on South Boulevard near Rice Village, our agency has steadily outgrown the big purple house to merit a move to a custom-built low rise in the Toyota Center District.

Although we will miss the annual Rodeo trail ride down Kirby and the barbecue smells wafting from Goode Company as we walk into work in the morning, we could not be more thrilled and excited to show you the new place.

Brand.

The new design direction for the MMI Agency brand identity was inspired by a passion long held by our firm to serve clients and produce work that “mpowers” brands. Take a look around the new site – we hope by exploring you’ll get an even better sense of what we’re all about.

Name.

We’ve all been calling ourselves MMI for years. So we put a ring on it. And made it official, and toasted to the future of what has already been a long and wonderful relationship, and then got back to work.

For today, don’t mind our mess as we are getting organized and settled in to our new future.

It’s just a little made-up word we’ve been talking a lot about lately.

Why? We’ve found it’s really the best way to describe MMIers as a whole. We act a lot like a startup – always looking for the new (often tougher) route that will get us the best results, but with the backup to really make our ideas happen.

Looking back at the past year we’ve traversed from one Summit to the next, down to the putting green and every which-way around the internet to find where people are talking about our clients and how (and how to join that discussion). We’ve launched websites and lit the town pink.

Like entrepreneurs, we’ve found ourselves becoming a jack-of-all-trades simply because we like what we do and love to be involved.

Thank you to all our clients and venders for a busy, fulfilling, inspiring year – we wish you all a happy holiday season and look forward to hearing how we can help your business in 2011.

Tonight our own Cindy Marion will be joining some of the brightest business leaders from Houston and surrounding areas for the announcement of the 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award.

Sometimes when we think of entrepreneurs, we think of those first starting out, fearlessly venturing into the unknown. But over twenty-three years into that journey, we find that Cindy and the rest of the MMI staff are all still full of the adventurous, entrepreneurial spirit.  Her “whatever it takes” attitude and innate ability to find the right people for the job have helped MMI thrive.

A few Cindy-isms to inspire:

Is it providing unquestionable value?

Don’t ever assume.

Ask not “Is it reasonable?” but “Is it possible?”

Congratulations to all the finalists and nominees!