We’ve recently picked up several company bikes, encouraging employees to ride any time to meetings, meals, or simply take an afternoon ride. The bikes are cutting down on the need for our automobiles during the day which makes Grow and the Earth happy. Customizing the bikes was a joy, too, with Republic’s 3D bike shop—a perfect marriage of digital and customized manufacturing technology.

With the addition of the new bikes, it also makes it easier for our employees to turn to public transportation to get to and from work each day. So much so, that we’ve adopted a new transportation program. We now pay our employees to come to work by any means except a car—be that on Norfolk’s new light rail, bus systems, carpooling, biking or walking. The money we would normally spend on a parking pass is refunded to the employee on each paycheck. Everyone wins. So far, about a third of our employees are taking advantage of these alternate forms of transportation.

We’re currently working with city leaders to improve the viability of public transportation systems, increase bikeability throughout Norfolk, and encourage a bike share program. Speaking of which… HRT, how about a viable and cost-appropriate solution for small businesses to take advantage of GoPasses?

Here’s some highlights from our summer vacation (albeit only for an hour):

Louis Fisher’s Social Dance-A-Thon saw self-proclaimed illustrator, writer, graphic designer, and oh yeah, wunderkind dancer Louis Fisher tackle 35 user submitted dances. For 60 straight minutes, Louis cut rug to popular dances like “The Dougie”, “Thriller”, “Flashdance”, and the staff approved “Dance Up On Drew.”

Our offices were taken over by munchkins as Tiny Grow filled desks and sippy cups imitating all 18 Grow employees. Viewers were treated to a wide-open hour of little versions of each of us workin’ hard… and hardly workin’. The only thing more fun than the feed was the ensuing pizza party after!

Grow’s proud to have a world-renowned illustrator in Jason “Stuntkid” Levesque among our ranks. Stump Stuntkid pitted Jason against FWA viewers in an intense, “Win Lose or Draw” type competition wherein users submitted things for Jason to draw while the Grow crew guessed against a clock. If the user successfully “stumped Stuntkid”, he scored some free Grow swag.

We had a blast participating and watching our peers make nearly as big of fools of themselves as we did. Check out the new FWAwebTV, where more Grow content is sure to follow.

Every Wednesday at 10AM EST we participate in FWA’s FWAwebTV, where we stream live from our office for an hour. Two weeks ago, we were honored to have River James play a fantastic set in front of us and a few special guests. If you missed it, you can listen to the full performance below. Enjoy!

Grow’s holiday parties have become somewhat legendary.  Each year, our festivities seem to get a little crazier and a little more elaborate.  Last year certainly followed this trend when our holiday party featured an ongoing game that was centered around a web-based, smart phone app.  The brief to partygoers at the beginning of the night was simple: The more fun you’re having, the more “points” you’ll earn, and you can track and redeem everything for prizes—all through the app.

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Thanks to the hundreds of friends and family who celebrated our housewarming with us.  We’ve posted some photos from the event to our Facebook page…

View the full set. Photos by Howard Tarpey.

Thanks, too, to those who gave generously towards Five Points Farm Market.  With bar proceeds and the sale of our donated, limited-edition t-shirts, we raised over $2,300 for our good friends at Five Points.

We’ll have you all over again soon.

The Grow Housewarming is just around the corner, and we’re excited to announce that the party will benefit the Five Points Community Farm Market. If you’re unfamiliar with this market, you need to witness the goodness that’s developing there. Five Points is not only your local connection for delicious, local produce but also Norfolk’s opportunity to support regionally owned, food-related businesses.

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Please note that if you’re already an RSS subscriber for our blog, you should update your feed URL, as we’ll be disabling the old one at the end of the month.  The new feed URL is http://feeds2.feedburner.com/GrowInteractive.

Sorry, it’s been a while… to say we’ve been busy would be an understatement at best.

Since the beginning of the year, not only have we been cranking away on some of the biggest projects to date (more on those later), but we’ve also been in the midst of the renovation and historic restoration of our new home, 427 Granby St.

At nearly a hundred years old and abandoned for the past several years, we’ve restored the building to its original 1917 beauty and historic charm—with some modern additions like a partial green roof, a bleacher seating presentation area, and a green screen studio.  Read more about the building’s history “after the jump.”

We’ll be posting a more complete view of the renovation in the coming weeks, but we’d love to have you come visit. We’re having a housewarming party on Friday, November 5th. If you’d like an invitation, drop us a note at info@thisisgrow.com.

Not to be forgotten, we’re excited about our return to Downtown Norfolk and look forward to helping steer its continued renaissance.  More soon!

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Last night, I gave a presentation to the Richmond chapter of AIGA entitled “Enabling Interactivity”.  The presentation aimed to share insight on the tools and practices Grow utilizes to help ensure the smooth execution of complex digital initiatives.  Here are the slides from that presentation.

Download: Enabling Interactivity PDF