Smart CEO recognized Congruent Media with an Emerging Growth award in conjunction with the publishing of their list of the 50 fastest growing companies in the Baltimore region. To celebrate the occassion, Smart CEO hosted a dinner banquet at the Baltimore waterfront Marriott.

Needless to say, the CM team was there.

It was a great time, and a perfect opportunity for the CM team to get together afterhours to relax and mingle with other emerging companies in the area. We're all certainly proud to have been recognized for our hard work. But we haven't lost sight of the fact that we're lucky to have a great collection of clients, who deserve a lot of the credit for our growth.

Here's a Flickr set of pictures from the night. Feel free to browse. You'll find some gems in there, like this picture of Dan sporting the Future 50 helmet. Enjoy!

Ever see those little kids stack cups up and down really fast? McDonalds did a commercial with a kid who is smoking fast. My nephew had a set of those cups at his house and I played with them for a while and had a ball, so I had to get a set and share the fun.

With that, sport stackers all over the world better watch out. Team CM now has a dedicated stacking practice facility. The facility includes a regulation Stack Mat and the cool little hand timer. Those cups you see aren't plain old Dixie cups, no. Stiff, CM green and aerodynamic with three holes for faster stacking. In fact, you can't even drink with this puppies. That's not what they're about.

In the top left of the picture you'll see the official rules. No shortcuts for Team CM while training. "By the rules, no fools" is our sport stacking motto. We've even got an official office record scoreboard. Our team captain Ryan is the current in-office record holder in the 3-3-3 event. We haven't made it to the more difficult stacks like "The Cycle" or the 1-10-1.

After we get some training in, Team CM will likely be joining the World Sport Stacking Association. They're the governing body of all of this fun. They even have an age division for us older folks. It's called "Masters." I can think of a few more appropriate names that aren't so PC.

As funny as this sounds, people take their stacking seriously. Check out the world records in the attached PDF by clicking [Download] below. You'll see the record in the 3-3-3 is about half of what the best here can do. Wow.

Wanna battle Team CM? Get your own set at SpeedStacks.com, practice up and let us know! Loser buys the beers :)

Last Thursday, the Congruent Media team of Emily, Brian and Sean took an opportunity to pour wine at one of Greater Baltimore Technology Council's regular wine tasting events. It was a great night of networking. Of course, what networking event centered around wine (and a few unusual beers) wouldn't be?

Between telling tasters about Congruent Media, and the Australian wine we poured, we also managed to get people to fill out a short survey. (We enticed them with a Starbucks giftcard for their troubles.) The survey was simple: "Rate your company's activity level in the following areas: email marketing, SEO, PPC, banner advertising, lead generation, lead nurturing, social media, mobile marketing and overall internet strategy." The results were interesting. Remember, this was a tech crowd. 

SEO

27% of the respondents replied "none" to Search Engine Optimization activity.  Another 27% replied with "Beginner." So 54% of the companies surveyed replied with beginner or none? Wow. Remember, this is a tech crowd. Effective SEO should be instituted at ALL companies, if for nothing else than reputation management.

Email Marketing

1 in 5 respondents said they do not do any type of email marketing. Another 1 in 5 declared their company at the beginner's level. Email marketing is a very cost efficient way of beginning and maintaining client relationships, yet almost 50% of the companies surveyed were at the beginning stages or not using it at all. Again, this was a tech crowd too.

This is just a sample of the data. Watch out for the full report, hitting your Congruent Media website shortly. Disclaimer: this data is the farthest thing possible from scientific, it was collected at a wine tasting afterall. Still, the responses are interesting.

How would you rate your company's activity level in the above areas? Is your company taking advantage of the internet's cost-efficient and effective marketing power?

Oh, and if you'd like to see the rest of the pics from that night, check them out here.