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).

With much excitement (and a few sighs of relief) we launched our first iPhone App today.

Go Somewhere Special was created for Moccona, to bring the romance of their beautiful television commercial Candles into peoples’ real lives.

The app allows you to set a romantic journey for your date, and then send them an invitation to follow it to a secret destination. They then follow the augmented reality line of candles, meeting you at your rendezvous point.

It’s really cool!

We originally conceived the idea when pitching for the Moccona business last year, thinking it would be awesome to push the campaign further than the usual online channels, and out into the real world. With a lot of hard work from all the farmers, and support and confidence from our client, it’s been great to see the idea go through concepting, design, research and development, and finally build.

It’s available now on the Moccona Romantics facebook page, and in the app store, and it’s free so you really don’t have any excuse not to give it a go. We’re predicting it will be a really great last minute romantic gesture for those who forget about next Monday (that’s Valentine’s btw).

Here’s the TVC that started it all:

Go Somewhere Special now, and let us know what you think!

By day she’s a mild mannered Account Exec with a penchant for shiny brogues, by night she’s a high class DJ, spinning parties into complete disarray.

Meet Yo, our account exec/ powerpoint princess/ DJ de jour.

And listen to her stuff here

[November 2, 2010 Melbourne Cup] To celebrate Melbourne Cup (albeit in the wind and rain) The FARM made it's way to Royal Randwick Racecourse in all it's finery. Taking up the monthly dress up challenge for the Cup, The FARM channelled the advertising agencies of old paying homage to Mad Men in 50s inspired dress. The result? The FARMers srub up pretty well!!