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August Jackson, the communications design agency, announced Ken Jones as its new president.  Jones, most recently the managing partner at CMI Communications Media, Inc. and Compas, Inc., will join August Jackson in September. 

"Ken has spent a couple of decades leading agency teams, innovating offerings and developing relationships at the highest levels of his clients," said Frank Andrews, August Jackson's CEO.  "That is exactly what we need at AJ.  We are excited to see where he leads us."

"Joining August Jackson gives me a new opportunity to learn and grow," said Jones.  "AJ is as good as it gets at designing and implementing live, digital and virtual communications solutions and campaigns for its clients.  We want to develop a stronger strategic capability, and grow the agency broadly.  I am looking forward to the challenge."

August Jackson also promoted Matt McGinn to partner of the agency.  McGinn joined August Jackson in 2008 as an executive producer, and was promoted to Vice President in 2010. 

"Matt has been a true leader at AJ," said Andrews.  "Our clients depend on him, and our staff looks up to him.  He is our most accomplished and skilled project leader, and I know he will make a tremendous partner."

"AJ is home," said McGinn.  "I love the people and the culture, and we have done some incredible work in partnership with our clients.  I am excited by where we are headed as a company and look forward to helping us get there."

August Jackson designs and creates communications programs and campaigns to motivate and influence its clients' most important audiences.

I love a good commercial, and this past weekend the Association of Independent Commercial Producers handed out their awards for 2011 commericials. Some of them I have seen, but a lot of them are gems that I haven't had the pleasure of watching...until now. 

Here are a few of my favorites from the winners:

A winner in the copywriting category, this bit from Land Rover keeps getting better and better with each view: 

Chipotle did a great job with this long form commerical, and took away awards for Best in Animation, as well Next Viral/Web Film. The music is "The Scientist" by Coldplay performed by Willie Nelson. Pretty haunting...

John Krasinski and Alec Baldwin (two of my favorite actors), are awesome in this commercial that is selling Baseball Caps from New Era that won an award for best in Performance/Dialogue or Monologue

The Google commercials always make me tear up unnecessarily, but this tops them all (and also won best in Advertising Excellance/Campaign)

Paul Scott is Manager of IT at August Jackson and when I am not answering questions and looking for cool new tech for our team I collect Apple Memorabilia, watching movies and reading books (ebooks of course). 

Frequently I visit http://www.apple.com/usergroups/ to give people locations of Mac Groups in their area. 

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I use www.twitter.com and www.facebook.com following people with similar interests to curate content on the net. I find a lot of tech and world news delivered right to my app or browser.

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I also enjoy www.macrumors.com where I get the latest speculation on what is coming next from our favorite tech company to follow. 

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My fitbit webpage www.fitbit.com is where I go to see how much exercise I am getting and to push myself to do more. Fun geek toy with a great purpose. 

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Of course I write on blog.macguy.info reviews of products, answer tech questions and occasional tech how-tos.

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Finally my funniest thing for the day courtesy of a friend on facebook. For those of us who have ever had luggage lost or mutilated remember it could always be worse.

Ed Hubbard is a business school classmate of mine and a pretty successful entrepreneur (if you like Uber, you like Ed). He trades his own portfolio on the side, and wrote a great blog here on the importance of failure. The life lessons are exactly right.

Eileen Page is a Sr. Producer of all things digital who is back to the web after a 3-week vacation and almost complete hiatus from it!

For news that's both quick and can make you look smarter at cocktail parties, I like dailybeast.com, especially their cheat sheet of must read articles.

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Just because the wedding is over doesn't mean we can't still capitalize on the fascinating antiquation that is the Royal Family, especially its newest member, Don't Call her Kate Middleton 

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Continuing on the sarcastic vein, I love the store Anthropologie, but fellow fans, let's be real:  their website and catalogue are ridiculous, and this site is spot on in calling them out on it.

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And of course I'm on pinterest and through my favorite usage for it, finding recipes, I found my favorite cooking website with lightened up versions of all your favorite foods.   The skinny mac and cheese is to die for!

I actually love this one too, for the graduating class of 2012, but I also think there are some great points in here for everyone in general!

Forbes: 10 Tips for the Graduating Class of 2012

This is just great, and clearly illustrates why connecting, communicating and engaging with a company's employees is so important.

Very nice ExxonMobil animated campaign. Check it out.

Just in case you need to make a fashion statement with your beer can, the best in beer industry visuals have been awarded in the 2012 Canny Awards.

 Pictured left is the 2012 Winner for Best Graphic Design, Diesel, from Sixpoint Brewery

Jeff Wingstrom is VP, Mobile and Technology at August Jackson.  When not finger-mashing on an iPad he can be found replacing rubber parts on old BMWs.

I like to have this page open during conference calls and imagine everybody talking is one of the penguins.

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When I want to see how busy Clark St. is and whether I'll make it to my neighborhood Starbucks.

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Ebert's blog is always loaded with thoughtful content and comments.

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NASA's APOD page is endlessly fascinating and also good for gazing at during conference calls.

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Obligatory political page — read The Shrill One every day.  He knows what's up.