Marion, Montgomery, Inc.

One of the unexpected perks of my job here at MMI has been my involvement with the Fort Bend Rainbow Room. For those who don’t know, the Rainbow Room provides assistance to families and children in need through the efforts of the county’s caseworkers.

I was first introduced to the Rainbow Room when coordinating a 30th anniversary party for a client. The Rainbow Room was the benefiting charity for the evening. Three years and many more events later, I now serve in the newly-created position of publicity director. In the beginning, I was charged with getting the word out about the Rainbow Room through the local media and other channels.

Since that time, I have witnessed the charity grow by leaps and bounds. I think it is safe to say we have successfully raised awareness of the Room among the community. And as a result, we have recruited additional quality board members, increased our number of volunteers and most importantly, through an increase in grants and donations, were able to hire a full-time executive director this past year.

Sugar Land Councilmember Jacquie Chaumette donated bikes to the Rainbow Room’s Christmas project last month.

Although I cannot credit it all to PR, because we have a great board of directors who leverage their talents and contacts, I do believe PR has played a role in the success and growth of the charity. It has been so rewarding to use my professional skills to help with a charity that is so near and dear to my heart. What an awesome experience!

Most recently, we are delving into the social media arena. We just set up a Facebook page — so check us out!

Today, the Mom 2.0 Summit announced its theme for the 2010 conference.

Like many Americans, we’ve learned in the last several years that “mommy bloggers” is a rather unassuming term for the online entrepreneurs and social media pioneers that use these tools to reach farther and accomplish more. A lot of the talk leading up to narrowing in on a theme for this year revolved around remembering our own mothers – and what they could have accomplished with these same tools at their disposal. From years of sharp women thirsty for the right outlets to express and create, a movement began.  In our generation technology has made them unstoppable.

Mompreneurs have come a long way since the Tupperware party. They’re sharp, they’re savvy, they know C++. February will be an exciting month to celebrate the difference even a decade has made. The summit will start with an artful look back at the milestones along the way, but the whole weekend will be packed with discussion and strategy for things to come.

At MMI, the holiday celebrations begin early and end all too quickly. This year we started off the season with our annual holiday party at the Galleria mall. Much to our surprise, we had the bonus of real snow! Sitting at our tables, our hands cupped around warm mugs, we watched as the snow fell and filled our bellies with delicious food.

The celebration continued with the much-anticipated announcement of this year’s chip winners. We cheered for those who won their prizes and sat in awe as we heard the story of one MMIer using their chips to bid on gifts for his family.

Since then, we have all worked together to assemble and distribute our holiday mailer to our clients and vendors and created a moving holiday e-card. We also hosted an event that a few of our clients and vendors attended to judge our annual bank-decorating contest. Although 2009 has been challenging on all of us in one way or another, we have managed to stick together and produce the best work possible for our clients. We are looking forward to the holiday break to spend time with our families and to return rejuvenated and ready for what 2010 brings.

London Frog!

Shane testing out the dry ice fog for his winning entry while Emily listens to the "sounds of London" soundtrack that accompanied the display.

Our bank decorating contest was a smashing success. Every year the competition gets just a little bit stickier, but with lighted disco dance floors, sound systems, and dry ice brought in for fog, I think it’s safe to say this year we really outdid ourselves.

Last week we invited our clients, colleagues and friends to come in and judge the contest. Everyone sipped cocoa, ogled the displays and chose a top three. More important than the contest itself, our charity for 2009 has also been decided. All donations from last year’s turtle banks will be given to Mrs. Cruikshank’s 1st Grade Classroom Lending Library, to buy books for the students of Jane Long Elementary.

Want to decide for yourself who had the best bank at MMI? A Facebook album cataloging every entry can be found here.

The holidays are here and signs of the season are all around. There is a constant flow of sugary treats in the kitchen, Christmas carols are blasting from our computers and everyone seems to have a lot of errands to run over the lunch hour. One other telltale sign it’s Christmas at MMI is the influx of our seasonal interns, who come home for winter break and return to the office to help out in our busiest time of year.

MMI interns pose with Santa's "sleigh" at the Sugar Land Town Square tree lighting ceremony.

MMI has a wonderful internship program that is open to both high school and college-age students. There are always young minds buzzing around the office to assist on various projects, but during the holidays a good many of our old interns come back and suddenly the halls are bursting with helpfulness and good cheer. Unlike a lot of internship programs, you don’t just sit at a desk all day. Our interns work up a sweat – executing all manner of tasks with flair, from forming massive assembly lines for creating the latest media drop to dressing up like toy soldiers and escorting Santa and Mrs. Claus at the Sugar Land Town Square tree lighting ceremony.

I can’t help but think how different our MMI culture would be if we didn’t have them. They have always been a part of the MMI family and I don’t think any of us could get our jobs done as well without them.

That’s why TIAA-CREF created their award program six years ago. To support those who serve the greater good. And that’s what we helped them do the evening of December 3,  in recognizing one outstanding medical educator, Dr. Herbert L. DuPont.

In working with our client, we helped them identify a need within one of the communities they serve to build relationships, to give back, to foster good will and most of all build on their brand promise. To create an award is simple, however, it’s power and lasting importance lies with its recipients and those that support it. For our client, this simple concept helped them to further a 50-year legacy of working with Texas’ great medical institutions.

In our usual MMI-way we keep to behind the scenes in this endeavor to help manage the program, the steering committee, develop the tribute video, and produce an award dinner befitting of such amazing leaders in our Texas medical community. For us to see the fruits of our labor come together each year in recognizing people whose life’s work saves lives feels good.

We’re happy to announce our newest project at MMI – working with the lovely ladies of Kirtsy and Opmom to coordinate the 2010 Mom 2.0 Summit!

It’s a perfect mix of all the things we love – marketing, technology and girl power. The conference will serve as an arena for conversation amongst the most influential thought leaders out there on the web today – mom bloggers, tech moms, marketing representatives, market and brand leaders.

There will be themes, parties, prizes, panel discussions and ideas so electric you’d be living in the dark without them. The team is bursting with news we wish we could announce all at once, but we’ll be keeping you posted both here and on the Mom 2.0 blog from now until February, so stay tuned for the juicy details on the conference you can’t miss.

Still want more? Facebook — Twitter — Flickr

It’s that time of year again at MMI. That time when competition heats up, and it’s every MMIer for him or herself. Yes, it’s time for the annual MMI bank decorating contest, where we take ordinary, unsuspecting ceramic animals and turn them into…well, whatever we want, in the hopes of being named the GRAND PRIZE WINNER. Last year we decorated turtles. The year before that, lions. Sure, it’s silly and it’s fun, but we take it pretty seriously over here. Because when it’s all said and done — once the paint and the glue is put away and the winners have been crowned, and we’ve all heard enough puns to last a lifetime — we know these little creatures will go on our desks to collect our loose change all year ‘round. And at the end of next year, we’ll gather all that change and vote for a charity to donate it to. Yes, I suppose we could just write a check, but it wouldn’t be nearly as challenging, fun or creative. In other words, it wouldn’t be us. May the best MMIer win.

My frog bank has a crack in it. I'm at a toad-al disadvantage.

This year the US knocked the UK off the top slot for mobile web browsing. Our 245 million mobile subscribers account for nearly 1/3 of the world’s mobile users. And thanks to the iPhone, we are accelerating faster than all other countries. So it is now more important than ever to make sure your website can be seen mobile. Our interactive team has created mobile sites for many of our clients, but we finally brought the lesson home. Drum roll, please… The MMI website is now mobile-optimized! But don’t worry, you can still switch back to the full version of the site, if you’d prefer.

If you are reading this post via an iPhone or other touch-based device, you are experiencing our website much like you would an app. How’d we do it? Websites run off stylesheets that detect how you are viewing the web, then style and optimize the display based on your browser. For our mobile site, we created a new stylesheet to tell it how to display if mobile browsers are detected.  Super cool.

With the popularity of devices like the iPhone and Google’s new Android, coupled with the explosion of mobile social networking like Facebook, Twitter, Loopt, FourSquare, and Yelp! – we can only expect more and more of our web traffic to come from mobile users.

Check out our mobile site and let us know what you think!

Times are tough right now – there’s no doubting that. And business development in the communications world is no different. Companies are cutting back on marketing budgets, taking more initiatives in-house, etc.

But there are still plenty of opportunities out there for new business, even in a down economy, if you know how to look for them strategically and efficiently.

If possible, stick with what you know
Doing due diligence and making a strong effort to streamline new business efforts are critical. In other words, know what you do well and target companies who will benefit from your services.

For example, researching companies who excel during a slow economy is a good place to start. Then filter that prospect list to focus primarily on industries or areas where your firm excels.

While MMI has an extensive client list, we have strong expertise in real estate and health care, making sense for us to target companies in those fields.

Proof is always paramount
More than ever, showing evidence of ROI and how you contribute to the bottom line is essential. Companies need to see in black and white how you’re helping them reach their business objectives.

Armed with strong case studies and ROI figures, selling becomes much easier. Not to mention how ROI makes for happy current clients.

Speaking of which… show them the love
It’s easy to forget an extremely important target audience when thinking about new business – it’s your current client base.

One of the most effective and efficient ways to drum up new business is to expand your services with clients already part of the firm’s portfolio. Growing business internally is a firm-wide responsibility.

Replacing a client is much more difficult. A client loss can also damage your firm’s reputation in the marketplace.

Instill the mindset
At MMI, we’ve made a company-wide, conscious decision not to participate in the recession. As strange as that might sound, it makes perfect sense in the world of new business because despite the economic climate, there are always opportunities. You just have to find them.