Today, the new Bridge of Northeast Florida website goes live. Brunet-García really believes in the mission of the organization and is grateful to have been able to contribute creatively to such a great cause. Zoe Ann Boyle and her team at the Bridge were a pleasure to work with. We hope that the new site reflects the open, accepting atmosphere of their physical campus. Visit www.bridgejax.com to explore!

Additionally, we are the midst of promoting Cardboard City, a fundraiser for Family Promise of Jacksonville, another amazing re:solve client. Have you seen the Cardboard HOME sculpture around town? It has already made appearances at the Jacksonville Landing, Burrito Gallery, and has been covered on the local evening news. Look for it in front of MOCA Jacksonville this Wednesday, October 5, during Art Walk.

Visit www.familypromisejax.org to learn more about the organization and Cardboard City and make sure you like Family Promise on Facebook!

If you are interested in becoming a 2012 re:solve client, apply online!

Of all the ways to take advantage of a down economy, this has to be one of the more creative. Jacksonville-based entrepreneur Jason Sadler has successfully been “renting” his body out as a human billboard. In return for a sliding fee (2009 rates were $1 for January 1^st – $365 for December 31^st) he will wear your company’s T-shirt and blog about it on his website and through his social media network. Seems like a novel idea to me, so against Bill (our web guy)’s protests—“That’s exactly what he wants you to do!”—I looked into it.

He says he devised the idea because he was simply sick of thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that?” about internet sensations like “The Million Dollar Homepage” (1,000,000 pixels successfully sold for $1 a piece).

While not quite as lucrative—he is set to make $66,795 this year in shirt-wearing fees—he claims the idea is sustainable. For 2010, he has signed up a West Coast friend to “expand his market” and doubled his fees (bidding began at $2 for January 1). Interested? As of this morning, he is sold out up to May 28, 2010, which can be purchased for $296.

As Lara previously mentioned, the social media floodgates have broken open whether you like it or not. I guess the question now is how to use it for good (like Queensland Australia did when they created “The Best Job in the World” promotion that garnered worldwide media attention by allowing contestants to submit and vote for audition videos) and not bad (like the Oprah/KFC coupon debacle that resulted in thousands of enraged and disappointed customers).

It seems as though we are beginning to get it. But, with innovative ideas popping up every day, you’d better think fast if you’re looking to trade-in your red paperclip for something a little bigger or better.

Since then smart phones, at-home fiber connections, microblogging, user-centric ad strategies, social networks, and broadband TV, phone and internet have snowballed, leaving a lot of people grasping at straws to figure out what they should upgrade next.

In the midst of this revolution— an information revolution, an economic revolution, and more than anything else, a cultural revolution—it’s evident that if we want to stay on top, the changes happening in the world today will force us to change how we communicate, how we live, how we grow…and soon.

I was emailed a video in which author Thomas Friedman argues that 10 major forces over the past 20 years (including the launch of Netscape, the advent of uploading projects like Wikipedia to the web for collaborative purposes, and the availability of information thanks to search engines) have “flattened” the world, eliminating the rules that previously governed the positions of nations, companies and individuals in the world economy. The speech was delivered in 2005—before social networks like Facebook took off, before Twitter, before blogging was mainstream, before customer support communities like Get Satisfaction existed. To see a summary of his argument, check out “The World is Flat” entry in Wikipedia.

While I’m not so sure the world is truly flat yet, I see where Friedman is going. For many of us, information is now immediate, and we can access it from our iPhones and caller-ID-reading TV/web browsers while simultaneously monitoring tweets on the new release of our latest product. As businesses, we can no longer rely on being the keepers and shapers of the public perception of our brands.

In addition to the traditional forms of advertising, we have to learn to develop relationships, engage our customer base, learn from their feedback or insights, and be open to the idea that the next “best idea” can come from anywhere, including our Facebook fans or blog comments. The culture of customer relations is changing. The way we as consumers relate to the companies we buy from has changed.

When Delta’s website lets me see how crowded my plane is, seek out an empty row, and plant myself in it, why do I need to call a representative? Or how about when I can see how soon my dad’s flight will touch ground from an iPhone app and avoid circling the pickup area 50 times trying to avoid the stern eyes of the parking patrol? And this is just the tip of the iceberg…

While all the new technology developments seem difficult to keep up with, and launches of new social media outlets outpace us daily, the potential of this shift is limitless. How will new communication tools change the way you connect? I can’t wait to see what happens next.