We've been voted a "Best Place to Work" but don't take our word for it -- hear it straight from the nerds who work here.

Clockwork Active Media Systems, LLC. – January 28, 2010 – Minneapolis, MN - Clockwork Active Media Systems, LLC, a Minneapolis-based digital agency specializing in web design and application development, is pleased to announce the creation of a research unit, along with the appointment of Michael Koppelman (currently CFO) to the new position of Chief Scientist.

The newly established research unit will focus on strategy, analytics and innovation for Clockwork and its customers. Nancy Lyons, Clockwork’s President and CEO, explained the move, "We've always approached projects with outcomes in mind. What are the goals? What action do we want to inspire? How will we measure success? Our research unit provides the data to help our clients make decisions about content, functionality, growth, and enhancements by developing clear and measurable performance indicators. That then informs what our designers and developers produce — from web sites to mobile applications to environment-integrated digital experiences."

Koppelman, who has dual degrees in music and astrophysics, explains his new title: “My peers know how much I love math and science. Clockwork is full of analytical brains eager to explore data-driven approaches to the beautiful web sites we create every day. Clockwork Research helps our clients refine their strategies, integrate metrics, improve through experimentation and ultimately be more successful by embracing evidence-based approaches to their web programs. At the same time we are investing in home-grown innovation to invent the products and services that our customers will need in the future.”

While finishing his astrophysics degree at the University of Minnesota, Koppelman worked with data from the Hubble Space Telescope with a team of professional astronomers studying massive stars. He is an author on 19 peer-reviewed astronomy papers and was featured in the PBS special Seeing In The Dark for his observation of a gamma-ray burst (GRB). He sits on the Council of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) and works on original research from his rural observatory. Koppelman is also involved with high-power model rocketry, amateur (ham) radio and has coached a youth Lego team in a robotics competition.

In the past year, Clockwork has rolled out new metrics and analytics capabilities to clients via the Active Media Manager, their content management system (CMS) and ecommerce platform. Their recent release of Tweetwally, a Twitter search and display application, demonstrates the kinds of applications that Clockwork will be exploring. “This is an evolution, not a revolution,” adds Lyons, “We've always been intimately involved with emerging technologies, data research and client web strategies. This new department simply formalizes that specialty.”

As a digital agency, Clockwork develops strategies and interactive experiences using emerging technologies. Some of Clockwork's clients include Best Buy, Cargill, General Mills, Hutchinson Technology, MinnPost and Target.

CONTACT:
Nancy Lyons, CEO
nancy@clockwork.net
612-695-7314

Michael Koppelman, Chief Scientist
michael@clockwork.net
763-443-2048

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About Clockwork Active Media Systems, LLC.
Clockwork Active Media Systems is a digital agency specializing in web strategy, design, application development, mobile development and social media. The Clockwork team consists of strategists, engineers and creatives. Since its inception in 2002, the company has worked with a variety of clients from Fortune 500, small business and non-profit sectors. Clockwork is a firm with a deep understanding of and familiarity with a broad base of Internet technologies.

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In May 2009, I added Clockwork as a Foursquare location before one of our spring parties. It's been fun watching the number of users steadily increase over the last year, and seeing all the cool ways people are using it. (But, seriously — what's up with people adding their homes as "locations"? That's just weird!)

It's also been fascinating to watch businesses tap into Foursquare with special Mayor offers (which are now an official part of the Foursquare service offering).

It's not like we're a restaurant that can offer free drinks or appetizers to our Mayor, but we thought it would be fun to honor the Clockwork Mayor in some way, so we decided to dedicate a page on our website to the current Mayor. So now, without further ado, we give you...drumroll please...the Clockwork Mayor.

Ahem, yes. We know that — as of this writing — the Mayor is a Clockwork employee (a certain Mr. Ryan Evans). We've updated our social media policy to include a ban on employee Foursquare check-ins, and the first person to unseat Ryan will get a fabulous prize. In fact, anyone who stops at Clockwork and can prove they're the Mayor will get cool Clockwork swag (From whatever we have in stock. We've usually got t-shirts, coffee mugs, water bottles and — of course — the infamous Clockwork notebooks.)

Now, here's the deal: CHEATING IS LAME. You should actually walk in the door here to check in. Don't be doing drive-by check-ins or we reserve the right to publicly shame you. I mean, heck, we know the lengths people will go to get their hands on one of our notebooks but let's keep it clean, people!

Thanks to Rett Martin for coming up with this awesome idea, and to him and Selah Ben-Haim for implementing it!

We've been busy little elves over here at the Clockwork web site workshop! So busy, in fact, that we've hardly had time to stop and admire our handiwork. Over the past couple of months, we've launched a wide variety of new projects. Check 'em out!

Clear River Fund

Clockwork designed and developed a web site to support the launch of Lowry Hill's new mutual fund product, the Clear River Fund. This site, and the main Lowry Hill site, are both powered by the Active Media Manager.

Frank Stone Gallery

As part of the design of our new office space in 2009, we traded services with local artists. One of them was Frank Stone Gallery. In exchange for some awesome metal and glass work (which you can see in our lobby) we designed and developed a snazzy new web site. We got to do lots of fancy manipulation of Wordpress themes and plugins, and our client has a lovely new web site that they can easily maintain on their own. Win!

Lucky, MN

If you like to play the Minnesota State Lottery, you'll love the newly redesigned Lucky, MN where you can sign up for winning numbers and access exclusive player's club content. The site has been powered by the Active Media Manager since its launch in 2005, but recently got a design refresh from Colle+McVoy which we implemented and launched.

Premier Pontoons

This is the fifth website we've completed for Premier Pontoons. Premier complements their updated product line each year with an updated site design. Our partners at Take it To Eleven provided the elegant site design and Flash content that is powered by our content management system, the Active Media Manager.

YCB

The recent launch of the new Minneapolis Youth Coordinating Board (YCB) site is the first step toward helping the organization become the premier source for parent and youth-focused resources that encourage the healthy development of Minneapolis youth. The site is powered by our content management system, the Active Media Manager. Clockwork provided strategy, design, and development services, along with the design of a new identity system and collateral materials.

Clockwork is feeling the love lately. We've gotten some cool recognition recently from around the web:

Google Favorite Places

To our surprise (and delight!), we received a note from Google that read "Congratulations, you are a Favorite Place on Google!" They also included a nice sticker (which is now on our front window) that displays our "Favorite Place" title along with a QR code that can be scanned with a camera phone to get our Google listing (technology is amazing).

Additionally, the letter included some interesting stats. For instance,  in a three-month period there were over 500 requests for driving directions or other information. Apparently, throwing big parties really pays off! Who knew? Thanks to Google (and everyone who Googled us!) for making Clockwork a "Favorite Place!"

Geek Girls = Titans?

We were also delighted that our very own Geek Girls, Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker, were named to the list of "Top Ten Twin Cities Social Media Titans!"

We're fortunate to have such an amazing group of people here at Clockwork and we're always thankful when other people think so, too! Thank you to Judy and all of the judges for the recognition.

The Geek Girls were also invited by the Interpublic Group to speak to a national group of Women's Leadership Network members in December. The presentation was webcast in three countries and 14 cities, and focused on how professional women can — and should — use social media for personal branding and professional networking.

Clockwork Featured on TCBMag.com

Gene Rebeck was kind enough to come out and talk with Nancy last week, which resulted in a great article on his blog for Twin Cities Business Magazine this week. The title of the article, "Why Clockwork's Time Has Come" is a testament to the hard work we've been doing since establishing Clockwork in 2002.

What a nice way to finish 2009! Happy New Year.

For the last few years Clockwork has participated in the Twin Cities Bike Walk Week, and this year finished in the top 10 in the Workplace Team Category! Wahoo!

For the 2009 Celebration we had 8 registered participants, which gave us a 27% participation rate, and made for a great week of biking lunches! Unfortunately we couldn't find any bike lunch pictures from this year, but you're in luck, because we have some from years past!

Thanks to all the Clockworkers who participated, and until next year, keep on biking!

Clockwork is excited to annouce the launch of the new Hawaiian Gardens Casino website! The site is run using our Active Media Manager and beyond the great functionality, the site is really pretty to look at!

Thanks to everyone who worked on this project, Kurt Koppelman, Michael Opperman, Meghan Wilker, Nancy Lyons, Luke Vestrum, Kyle Meyer, Eric Hanson, Kevin O'Brien, Ryan Evans, Dave Dohmeier, Alex Wohlhueter, Sharyn Morrow, Chuck Hermes, Ben Beuchler, as well as Hillary Markham from Hawaiian Gardens for her creative direction.

Twitter's meteoric rise has resulted in a vast number of tweets—short bursts of text, links and pictures. Brands, event managers, speakers, educators and individuals are looking for ways to filter the torrent of tweets and Tweetwally, a new web application we developed, gives users more powerful ways to use Twitter than ever.

Clockwork was intimately involved with the creative aspects of the project. We designed the logo and the attention-grabbing web site, which was featured in Smashing Magazine. Clockwork's Michael Koppelman also produced the podcast, along with fellow new media astronomers Pamela Gay, Nancy Atkinson, Rob Simpson and Stuart Lowe.

The show can be found at http://365DaysofAstronomy.org.