Summer brain wreaking havoc on your productivity these days?  You aren’t alone my friend. In trying to battle our own sluggish-ness we thought it would be helpful to ask our pals how they manage to get work done when the temperature (finally!) soars.  Here’s four tips:

1.  Take a work vacation.

And by ‘vacation’ we just mean take some time away from your desk. Tell your boss (or yourself) that some professional development is just what you need to be the best employee you can be.  Look for a local conference or, to really get away, look for a deal on Expedia while perusing Mashable’s Guide to Summer Events.

2.  Take a real vacation.

Don’t roll over vacation days into 2011 when you can cash them in now and take advantage of this glorious weather.  And, even more importantly, when you do finally take some holiday time, don’t pack your Blackberry or iPhone.  If you must bring it (it is handy for those e-boarding passes) then at least turn it off as soon as you reach your destination.  Trust us, some time offline will do the body and soul some good.  And just think of all the news you’ll have for your Facebook posse when you get back.

3.  Start early.

So the long to do list on your desk means getting out of the office is not gonna happen anytime soon?  Then it’s time to set your clock ahead.  Take advantage of the early sunrise and head into work early.  Thanks to the light streaming through your windows and the perky bird chorus outside, you’re probably awake anyway so why not get a head start on the day?  This way you can power through some of the more painful to-dos before you’ve even had that second cup of coffee.  Best part: you should be able to leave the office early in order to score a patio seat for Happy Hour.

4.  Don’t check your email.

Well, let’s clarify that a bit.  Don’t check your email first thing in the morning.  And definitely not repeatedly.  Take the advice of productivity guru (and author of The 4-Hour Work Week) Timothy Ferris and schedule set times for email checking and responding. Definitely helps ensure you don’t lose hours of your day to hitting the refresh button.  PS – This goes for Twitter and Facebook too.

Ok, now let’s just see if we can follow our own advice.

What’s new at The Social Agency, you ask?  Lots actually.  Since starting up a year ago, we’ve certainly been busy. Here’s a celebratory recap:

For starters, we launched a networking event series for app developers and marketers called ‘Appy Hour.’ We’ve since hosted two sold-out events at The Diamond and Revel Room in Gastown.

We’ve also gotten to work with some really wonderful clients including:

X-Weighted
X-Weighted is a Television documentary series that follows unique and courageous individuals on their precarious weight-loss journeys.  We promoted the launch of their website (www.xweighted.com <http://www.xweighted.com> ) and National Fitness Challenge through a social media campaign which included blogger outreach and the use of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

Fusion Digital Media & Venture Forum
Fusion is an annual presentation of The Digital Media & Wireless Association of BC. We recruited and managed their speakers and oversaw the logistics for this year’s event.

Benefic
Benefic provides strategic, legal and operational advice on charity law, tax planning, gift planning, major donor and Internet fundraising. We organized a summit at the Vancouver Museum to solicit research for their new CH_IMP (Charitable Impulse) initiative.

Vancouver Eco Fashion Week
Vancouver Eco Fashion Week held their launch event, Eco Fashion Forward, during the 2010 Olympics.  We provided branding consultation, copywriting and PR consultation for them.

Northern Voice
Northern Voice is a popular blogging and social media conference. For their 6th annual event, we produced a ‘Mad Men’ themed bowling party for the conference’s opening night celebration.

Better Together
Bettertogetherbc.ca features the tools and resources needed by health professionals, educators, parents and community agencies to support families to eat together.  We set up and managed a strategic social media campaign for them which included writing weekly blog posts and community outreach through Facebook and Twitter.

Most recently, we’ve re-launched our own website to reflect our focused new direction: providing promotion services, specializing in traditional PR and social media marketing. Call us : )

And, in less business-y news, we’ve also celebrated a wedding and had a baby!  Monica got married in August and Kirstin’s daughter Zoe was born in December.

Here’s to another fun and eventful year!

Cheers,
Monica, Kirstin & Kelly

New Apps + More Appies  = Appy Hour 2!

Friday, March 26, 2010 from 4 PM to 6 PM

(Presentation starts at 4:30 PM)

@ Revel Room, 238 Abbott Street

Appy Hour is a new event series that combines mobile applications and a whole lotta networking.  Join us for presentations by innovative application developers alongside noshing and mingling at one of Gastown’s hippest spots.

Presenters:

Jesse MacFadyen, Developer, Nitobi

Jesse MacFadyen is a senior software engineer at Nitobi where he’s part of the rock star PhoneGap Team. When he’s not contributing to the PhoneGap open source project, he’s deep into presentation layer programming for rich internet applications. This former professional chef also lends his creativity to large-scale apps built in Silverlight, Flash, Flex, Air, .net and JavaScript.

Jesse is passionate about making functionality work across multiple mobile devices through simple APIs, and enjoys sharing his knowledge with other developers by leading PhoneGap and Flash/Flex training sessions and presenting at developer conferences and meetups.  In his spare time, Jesse developed YuTuplr, a simple, easy to use Air application for uploading videos to YouTube.

Sarah Thomson, Director of Business Development, IUGO Mobile Entertainment

Since 2007, Sarah Thomson has steadfastly proven her talent and expertise as Director of Business Development for IUGO Mobile Entertainment.  Her role also extends to areas of marketing, promotions, product development and company spokesperson.  She has helped position IUGO as a premium mobile content developer while quickly establishing the studio as a leader for iPhone, Blackberry, Android and other high end mobile platforms.

Appy Hour is a presentation of The Social Agency.  Thanks to TechVibes for their support!

Register here.

And kicking off as an Olympic launch party called Eco Fashion Forward!

February 19th, 2010 @ 8pm @ The Vancouver Public Library

The newest event to the Vancouver fashion scene, the pioneers behind VEFW are setting their sights on making the clothing industry an earth friendly one. They’re off to a good start, partnering with groups like the David Suzuki Foundation, EPIC, Vancouver Green Capital, and local designers like Dotted Loop and Adhesif.

Eco Fashion Forward will be a celebration of fashion, music and art, including a series of fashion shows, plus live musical performances by the amazing Jill Barber, Adam Thomas with the Mike Allen Quartet, Vince Vaccaro, and DJ Pheonix Olivia.

Tix are $45 with partial proceeds going to the David Suzuki Foundation, to find out more visit: http://ecofashionforward.eventbrite.com/

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, reportedly the most popular photo sharing site in the world, will be the Keynote Speaker at the 3rd Fusion Venture Forum 2009, presented by New Media BC on November 12 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Butterfield is a firm supporter of Vancouver’s Digital Media industry and was part of the original team that grew Flickr from a tiny Vancouver based operation to a worldwide phenomenon. He and his co-founder Catherine Fake sold Flickr to Yahoo reportedly for more than $30 million, barely a year after launching it in February 2004.  The original plan had been to create an online game that never quite took off. Flickr remains one of the most noted digital media success stories from this region.

Butterfield will open Fusion ’09, the only Venture Forum devoted to Digital Media in Western Canada, by sharing his success story with some 150-200 attendees, mostly Canadian founders with early to growth stage ventures. Twenty of Canada’s hottest digital media companies will present their latest ventures to top tier investors from North America, including heavyweights Google Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and SoftTech VC.

(via New Media BC)

Apps + Appies  = Appy Hour!

**Launch Event**

Friday, September 25th, 2009 from 4 PM to 6 PM
(Presentation starts at 4:30 PM)

@ The Diamond, 6 Powell Street, Gastown

Appy Hour is a brand new event series that combines mobile applications and a whole lotta networking.  Join us on National Digital Media Day for presentations by innovative application developers alongside noshing and mingling at one of Vancouver’s newest lounges.

Presenters:

Michael Fergusson, Chief Executive Officer, Ayogo

For fifteen years, Michael has been building internet-related products and companies to fuel his deep passion for uniting the technical and the social, using technology to change people’s lives for the better.  Micahel’s collected half a dozen patents; helped write some of the web’s fundamental open specifications; served as an expert advisior to Microsoft Research, Electronic Arts, and Nintendo on social networking; and deployed online community and collaboration systems for legislators, doctors, rocket scientists, and Moms.  Prior to founding Ayogo, Michael held a number of senior executive roles including VP of Product Strategy for Blast Radius where he was responsible for building the company’s IP and products portfolio; and Chief Product and Innovation Officer for Uniserve Communications, where he built Kinzin, a million-member web community.  In 2008, Michael was a top-three finalist for a Canadian New Media Award for Producer of the Year.  In 2009, he served a s a gaming specialist on the evaluation panel for SFU Venture Labs.

Jonathan Carrigan, Product Development Manager, CBC

Jonathan Carrigan is a Product Development Manager with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where he explores the changing media landscape and ways to leverage emerging opportunities.  These days he spends most of his time studying the mobile media space with particular interest in Apple’s Touch Platform.  Jonathan has an MBA from Simon Fraser University, specializing in Technology Management.  Prior to joining the CBC, Jonathan spent 8 years as a New Media Producer.

Appy Hour is perfect for application developers, members of the local digital media community, and social and traditional media professionals – but all are welcome!

Appy Hour is a presentation of The Social Agency in partnership with Rogers Communications.

To register, click here.

Not only is the The Social Agency an exceptionally dynamic event production & pr company; we’ve got a ton of experience producing crowd-pleasing events, a fascination with the world of social media, and last but not least, a talent for having a whole lot of fun!

We thought it might be fun to share some random facts to help us all get acquainted…

Monica:

As a child, deeply connected with the characters on Dallas and Dynasty
As an adult, connects more with the people of East Van
Favorite charity: Genesis Vancouver
Most memorable trips: India, Spain and Norway
Hidden expertise: elaborate cake decorating
Recently acquired skill: removing red wine stains
Biggest accomplishment to date: childbirth and marriage in one month (too personal?)
Pet peeve: that everything profound is a cliché
Like a lot: on-line shopping
Loves: critiquing ecommerce sites
Passionately loves: fake e-check outs
Most intrigued by: the human condition

Kirstin:

Celebrates her birthday on 7/11 which makes her a Cancer
Has a lot of pink and black in her closet
Loves Love Story (book and movie)
Knows what a bunnyhug is
Will always listen to Simon & Garfunkel
Likes to drink Pimm’s and Ginger at Subeez
Lives on top of a mountain with her husband, toddler and black labrabull
Collects takeout menus and purses
Is slightly addicted to her iPhone
Is definitely addicted to Dr. Pepper SlurpeeS
Has been watching Y&R since she was nine
Makes a mean breakfast sandwich

Kelly:

Loves British comedy (sometimes more than her own children, who are pretty darn cute)
Dreams of hosting a dinner party with Jennifer Saunders, Steve Jobs, J. K. Rowling, William Gibson, Stephen Colbert, and Lucille Ball
Likes to sew & knit (time permitting) views such projects as 3D real-time puzzles
Still cries when watching Bambi
Grew up with an astrologer for a mom, knows what it means when “Mercury is retrograde in your second house�
Is daily amazed by the stunning beauty of living in Vancouver
Strives to be better poker player
Views teenagers as a foreign species (there’s at least 3 in her house at any given time) but kinda cool too
Hides her chocolate stash in the vegetable crisper (no one ever looks in there!)
Digs all things unexplainable

We look forward to connecting! Now it’s your turn to introduce yourself so please pop by and say hi.

Cheers,
The Social Agency