Towards the end of each busy year, Chris & I identify several FARMers who deserve honourable mentions for the contribution they've made in the past 12 months. The outstanding work of one individual FARMer is then recognised as FARMer of the year - Creative Director Wade Kuhn was the proud recipient of the award in 2010.

Before I go into the team members who were highlighted this year, I would like to say that there isn't a single person here at TheFARM I couldn't say great things about, so it's important to acknowledge that the most valuable part of the business is the talent and attitude of the entire team - we've had a great year in 2011 and we're most certainly excited about 2012.

Honourable mentions go to:

Elijah Glover (Senior Developer):

- For the way he was able to quickly able to understand and get on top of three very large technical solutions.

- For stepping up to play a leadership role with the Tech team

- For taking over ownership of TheFARM infrastructure and client hosting attitude.

- For his 'nothing is too hard' brilliant attitude

Amie Weller (Digital Strategist):

- For leading the amazing development on our social media capability, effectiveness of campaigns & expertise across FMCG

- For her great work managing Johnson & Johnson over the past two years.

- For breathing new vigour into the agency's profile through award entries (and wins!), PR & communications.

- I'll also mention that we are very excited about Amie evolving into a strategic role across all clients in 2012.

Carolyn Staples (Designer):

- For her tremendous personal growth in creative this year.

- For stepping up and punching above her weight to play an Art Director role on a number of campaigns.

- For her amazing attitude & work ethic.

Brooke Lucas (Copywriter):

- For really evolving our copy & content capabilities.

- For stepping up into a strategy role across many clients & new business opportunities

- For playing an invaluable role in keeping the office environment positive & culture upbeat.

Drumroll please... the FARMer of the year 2011 award goes to....

Dave Langridge (Developer):

- Firstly for being hugely adaptable. Dave joined us as a Flash developer and over the past year has successfully learned .NET, iOS, Umbraco & Android and completed complicated projects across all of them.

- For going an extra mile on a number of occasions without questions - amazing attitude.

- For doing all of this in an unassuming, quiet manner. He just gets on and pumps the work out.

Well done Dave!

We’ve got bunches of new FARMERS!

Over the past few months we’ve had out our pitch forks, and now we’re reaping what we’ve sewn, with
new business wins on Sara Lee Bakery, The Smith Family, Hoyts Distribution, Servcorp & Piazza
D’Oro.

To celebrate, we’ve added lots of awesome people to the team.

Health Amos has joined us as Executive Producer, a role he’s been making his own in places including
Wunderman, Euro RSCG and The White Agency. In a short time he has brought TheFARM’s abysmal
timesheet deficiency into line, and has spent approximately 2% of his time in fancy dress.

Also on the producers’ table is our new Senior Project Manager Natasha Murray. Natasha brings a wealth of
Business Analyst and User Experience knowledge to the office, as well as upping our pommy rating to 2 (still
incredibly low for a creative office in Surry Hills), and our hipster bike riding crew to 6 (also pretty dismal).

In client services, Rhoda Malia has taken over as Account Director on Johnson & Johnson Pacific and
Sunbeam. Rhoda has replaced Amie Weller, who after 2 years covering 7 Johnson & Johnson Pacific
brands with 8 Facebook pages that engage over 61,000 fans, has moved into a Strategic role across all
TheFARM clients. Rhoda was most recently at Holler, after spending a few years in London, bringing the
Aussies with try-hard English accents in the office to 2.

In the development team, Jacky Lau has joined us from Deepend. Jacky fills the role of office Kiwi, which
has surprisingly been open since the middle of the year, and also speaks Cantonese, which is going to be
very helpful during late nights at Ding Dong Dang’s.

Of course, none of this would be possible without Pete Nichols, our new CFO, who has taken control of
TheFARM purse strings and promises to make the company Fortune 500 in a year and a half (as long as we
don’t require wages).

TheFARM has launched its first social media campaign for The Smith Family, since winning the account for the charity in August.

As part of The Smith Family's Christmas Appeal, the Facebook campaign aims to expose the impact of disadvantage on the lives of more than 605,000 young Australians living in jobless families today.

The interactive video uses Facebook Connect to give users the opportunity to experience the effects of disadvantage for themselves, bringing their own Facebook friends into the narrative to highlight the isolation and loneliness that often accompanies children who grow up in families with financial difficulties.

Chief Executive Officer of The Smith Family, Lisa O'Brien said, "Social media a great way to help bring our cause to life and to connect more Australians to the issue. TheFARM has created a personal, informative and engaging piece. With 1 in 10 Aussie kids living in disadvantage this Christmas, it's a very important message to spread."

The application was created, designed and built on TheFARM, and is being supported with Facebook ads and wall updates. While donating is a huge aspect of the campaign, sharing the message of The Smith Famliy through social media and growing the community of committed fans on Facebook is the priority.

"Working with The Smith Family has been very rewarding and we are hugely proud to be helping them get their important message across in social!" says TheFARM Managing Director Chris Pile.

TheFARM and The Smith Family encourage everyone to watch the video and share this important message. https://www.facebook.com/TheSmithFamilyAustralia?sk=app_277474692289207

Google unveils brand pages for Google+!

Finally Google+ has opened up pages to allow businesses and brands to join Google’s social network - interesting times ahead.

Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said, “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people, but we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about - from local businesses to global brands - so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

Check out TheFARM's new page here!

Read more on Mashable

We’re looking for a new Farmer!

Want to work in Surry Hills in a small development team, alongside some great creative people and a gnome called Randall?
 
TheFARM needs a mid-senior level developer, strong in .NET web development, with experience of things like ASP.NET MVC, Umbraco, HTML, CSS and Javascript. Having the ability to learn and adapt is far more important than knowing all the answers up front.
 
We primarily produce small to medium sized websites, for a variety of clients including many household names. We also do work on Facebook applications, mobile work on iOS and are starting to play with new digital mediums and platforms.
 
You should have a passion for software, a strong desire to learn and improve, and a positive 'can do' attitude.

If it sounds like something you'd be interested in chatting to us about, we'd love to find out more about you, so drop us a note along with your CV to work(at)thefarmdigital.com.au