FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress) provides a training program designed to help military families learn practical skills to meet the challenges of deployment as well as create a happier, healthier family life. The Groop is translating this program into an interactive, online experience through FOCUS world. Parents, spouses and children will be able to explore tools, play games and learn from exercises designed by The Groop. The Groop has also recently launched their HQ website, where military families can discover the offerings of this amazing program.

Visit Focusproject.org

Some of the reviews:

“Jammed packed with info!”

“Honest testimony, passion, thoughtful information”

“Loved the open and informative atmosphere”

“Engaging speakers, relevant discussion”

Sean Bonner lives in Los Angeles though is often spotted elsewhere. He’s one of the guys behind Metblogs, the host of iPhun and has previously been involved with art galleries and record labels of the punk rock variety. He also is a big fan of bikes.

“Sean Bonner is a pioneer of social software, Internet memes and online publishing. In addition to being an excellent and highly sought-after speaker, he is quickly becoming known as one of the celebrated icons of the modern Internet subculture – his mere presence attracting huge crowds of fans. I for one am a true believer.”
- Joi Ito, CEO Creative Commons

He has been featured in GOOD, Wired, Playboy, Salon, Forbes and others, been included in Yahoo!’s Best of the Web, and has spoken at conferences, events, and coffee shops around the world.

As co-founder and CEO of Bode Media Inc, Sean helped create Metblogs, the worlds largest network of local media blogs. As a consultant, he has helped The Groop, Jack In The Box, LAPD, Suicide Girls, Obey Giant, Shopzilla and others interact with their customers, clients, and fans online. He also speaks frequently at conferences covering blogs, media, networks and grassroots journalism. Recently he’s spoken at IzeaFest (Orlando, FL), SXSWi (Austin, TX), Roboexotica (Vienna, Austria) and Re:Publica (Berlin, Germany). As an event organizer, Sean brought BarCamp to Los Angeles, produced the first art exhibition comprised solely of phonecam images, ran art auctions and benefits for the West Memphis Three. Sean is also a guest blogger/contributor for BoingBoingVideo and the host of the iPhone game review show iPhun.

You can find out more about Sean at his blog:
http://blog.seanbonner.com/

Ok, so not exactly, but check out Seth Modeling during today’s AdPerk/Rite-Aid/Phillips shoot..

We are reaching out to our network of friends and collaborators
because we still need a few more good people to participate in
Usability Testing for an exciting client.

To make it even “pimpier” we are upping the reward for your participation
(aside from getting to hang out with me, which is worth a lot already)
to a $50 iTunes Gift Card!

You can buy some rad tunes with 50 bucks.

If you are interested and have an hour to spend next week fill out this
survey by tomorrow at noon:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=L3e7kJjbr8Y5icrkir_2fS_2fQ_3d_3d

I know you are busy so thanks in advance for taking the time to check
out the survey and helping us out to make our websites even stonier.

What is Usability Testing you might ask?

We have been developing a website that helps people save money online.
We recently relaunched with a new design and enhanced functionality.
The goal of this testing is to understand how real people are interacting
with the website in order to discover what works well and what needs improvement.
The information that we gain from this testing will help us to further develop
the website’s design and usability.

We are looking for Participants with the following characteristics:

People who are interested in saving money online
People who shop online
Between the ages of 18-45
Available to come to our office (downtown LA) for 90 minutes on
August 31st or September 1st

Testing with take place at the GROOP office space in Downtown Los Angeles.

If you think you are the type of participant we are looking for
please fill out the survey by Noon on Friday August 28th. (tomorrow)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=L3e7kJjbr8Y5icrkir_2fS_2fQ_3d_3d

Please pass this email onto anyone you think might be interested as well.

We will contact you if you are selected to be a participant for
our Usability Testing. Your participation and feedback will be
rewarded with a $50 Itunes gift card. There will also be snacks!
And most important it will be fun.

Testing time is approximately 30-40 minutes (tho we ask that you
plan to spend 90 minutes at our office), and will take place on
either August 31st or 1 September 1st. We will contact you with
your exact day and time.

We appreciate your time and consideration!

Thanks,

Seth Epstein

iPhone Video QA with New Groop Chief Catalyst, CEO from Jose Caballer on Vimeo.

Transcript:

I am Seth Epstein, the Chief Catalyst and CEO of The Groop.

What attracted me to merge Broadtent into The Groop is the fact that The Groop is in a leadership position. It is one of the top interactive, digital agencies in Los Angeles, and it does unbelievable work, has an incredible track record and is a great strategy firm, a great design firm and great at execution.

I think it is important to shoot this interview on a iphone instead of our $10,000 camera sitting over there is because it really represents the future in that content will be created. In the short time that I have already been here, in about a month and a half, we have already tackled a project that is cross plat-formed, kind of a new form of advertising on the web using video so it was an exciting project that we did for Rite Aid with Adperk and it really represents the future of how the web, advertising and television are colliding.

When we merged the companies people would say well what does The Groop do and who are the clients, and basically our clients are Ad Agencies, Television Networks, Fortune 500 companies all the way down to startups who want to grow their business on the web– so everything from platform, all the way to content and really that’s what we do.

Lawn Chair Panel details:
Join us from 7:30 to 8:30PM for an animated discussion moderated by The Groop’s Chief Visionary Jose Caballer.

Our Topic will be Advertising in the Digital Landscape:
What role does creativity play in digital landscape?

We will answer the following questions:

1. Who drives? The strategist or the creative? Could they be one in the same?

2. What is the role of the Digital Agency vs. Traditional Agency. (i.e. The Groop vs. Young & Rubicam) in the current landscape? In the future?

3. How do we as a community (Advertising, Creative, Technology, Business) better listen, communicate, collaborate and learn from each other?

4. How do we make technology more beautiful? More human? How do we bring art to it?

Panelists to include luminaries from academia and agencies.

Previous panels moderated by Jose Caballer:

Creating Green Brands Panel at the Opportunity Green Conference

Do you sometimes need a beer (cocktail), a hot dog, taco, soft serve ice cream or great music after work?

Are you often concerned with the future? The media industry or advertising industry?

Could not knowing about the most cost effective and powerful video delivery and content management systems potentially cost you your job?

We can help.

Join us on Thursday July 16th for The Groop’s 2009 Summer BBQ with Workhabit.

Featuring the world’s first Lawn Chair Panel discussion.

Our topic:
The Future, How cost effective and powerful video delivery and content management systems can make your life better.
More details and panelist to be announced soon.

To summarize:

You get:
- Free Beer / Cocktails
- Hot Dogs
- Tacos
- Soft Serve Ice Cream
- Music

And there is more:
- Networking
- Panel Discussion
- Awesome Moderator

Here is what people have to say:

Jose you’re a regular Jerry Springer. Thanks for keeping it lively.
ps – My only disappointment is that I didn’t get to throw a chair. Next time.

When: Thursday July, 16th 2009 at 7:00 PM.
Where: The Groop’s Downtown LA Headquarters

Feel free to send invite to friends, but space is limited so please RSVP at: thegroop.net/bbq
See you there!

PS. RIP Billy Mays

The Opportunity Green VIP Party was crazy fun. Sorry if you missed it. Check out the sexy pictures.

Thanks to the folks at graphpaper.com for the analysis and nice shout-out to The Groop.

“Our next redesign comes from The Groop, the only boutique firm in this mix. I didn’t know much about them before, but their portfolio and clients are really impressive.

Newsweek describes The Groop’s design approach as “Out: ‘old money,’ ‘faith-based.’ In: ‘new wealth,’ ’spirituality-based.’”. And I think right there is the problem…

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