American Medical Response of Greenwood Village, Colorado, won a Stevie Award for Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year in The 2009 International Business Awards.

Smiles ear-to-ear—and the occasional tear.  That’s the emotional response when nursing-home patients and their families are reunited at their family residences each holiday.

American Medical Response’s (AMR) Home for the Holidays program provides residents of skilled nursing facilities with free medical transportation to their family homes to spend time and share a meal with loved ones over the holiday season.

“Home for the Holidays” is a program offered by many AMR operations across the nation.  On receiving the Stevie Award, AMR President Mark Bruning said: “AMR is honored to have been selected from so many outstanding companies that practice social responsibility. We are extremely proud of our ‘Home for the Holidays’ program, which reflects both our core values and our commitment to the hundreds of communities across the nation in which we serve. Along with providing quality emergency medical services, giving back to our communities is the most important and rewarding thing we can do.” 

The program allows ambulance crews to bring some holiday cheer to nursing-home residents and their families. It is rewarding for the EMTs and paramedics, who have to work over the holidays, and it provides a change of pace from the stress of responding to 9-1-1 calls—while not affecting response times.

“We endeavor to schedule as many of these transports as we can,” said Mark Bruning. “I know it’s very, very gratifying, having done a number of them myself.”
Bruning recounted one Thanksgiving in particular when he transported a young woman who was impaired due to significant brain injury. When they arrived at her home, the woman’s cat jumped on her lap excitedly. The woman was visibly moved. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” said Bruning. “To see the reaction on the family’s faces—I’ll never forget that as long as I live.”

		Read the entire article

Mobile advertising network, Millennial Media, Inc., of Baltimore, Maryland, won a Stevie Award for Marketing Campaign of the Year in The 2009 American Business Awards.

Millennial Media created and delivered the “Eagle Eye Mobile Challenge” campaign in partnership with Paramount Pictures and Mediaedge:cia (MEC). The mobile media campaign ran from September 8th to October 5, 2008 to support the theatrical release of the DreamWorks Pictures’ film Eagle Eye.

Millennial Media and MEC worked hand-in-hand with Paramount executives to develop a series of distinctive mobile banners that ran across Millennial Media’s premium mobile ad network. “Since 2007, we have worked on numerous campaigns with Paramount, including this summer’s Star Trek and Transformers 2,” said Paul Palmieri, president and CEO of Millennial Media. “We share this Stevie Award for the Eagle Eye campaign with Paramount Pictures and Mediaedge:cia, Paramount’s media agency of record, as this truly was a collaborative effort.”

The Objectives
The Eagle Eye campaign was created to maximize consumer participation in the
program, drive opening-weekend ticket sales, and build Paramount’s opted-in
mobile database.

In order to deliver an immersive, exciting experience that was reflective of the film’s plot, Millennial Media integrated mobile web, interactive voice response, text messaging, and viral activation experiences. The company delivered a groundbreaking interactive campaign that gave the user an engaging simulation of the main character’s experience in the movie.

The campaign propelled the user into an intense, fast-paced, and multifaceted interactive experience-—similar to the plot that unfolds in the film. The interactive voice-response portion featured voiceovers by an actress with a voice strikingly similar to the one who portrayed the “mysterious caller” in the film, adding to the campaign’s authenticity and engagement in a way that only mobile can deliver.

		Read the entire article

Founded in 1979, Makovsky + Company is one of the U.S.'s leading independent global public relations, investor relations and branding consultancies, specializing in integrated communications programs for the financial, professional services, health, technology and business services sectors. Makovsky + Company won the Stevie Award for Public Relations Agency of the Year in The 2009 American Business Awards.

We recently spoke at length with Ken Makovsky, President and CEO of the agency, about how the firm began, how it's grown, and how the PR business is changing.

Makovsky + Company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.

		Listen to the Podcast Interview with Ken Makovsky of Makovsky + Company...

Blogs, or web logs, are all the rage these days. Each month in this space we'll point you to several blogs that we think might be of interest to you.

Elf Yourself: Amuse all your friends this holiday season with this interactive site sponsored by OfficeMax.
The Improvised Life: Sally Schneider's blog with some useful ideas for home-made holiday gifts, and lots of other stuff.
Ars Technica: The art of technology: News, analysis, and in depth coverage of technology.
A List Apart: An online magazine for people who make websites: explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.