Things seem to be picking up steam around here - with a slew of interesting opportunities from major organizations and partners.  Everything from Forestry & Paper advocacy to HDTV on your cell-phone to Senior Citizens Rights groups... it's diverse, challenging, and incredibly fun.

We've just wrapped up some really cool projects for an international health safety organization, a kidswear company, a fight-wear company (we didn't know that category existed a couple weeks ago), a family counseling franchise, and perhaps the hippest business process consultants we've ever met.  It's been a great summer...

But it just got better yesterday.

Out of the blue we got a call from the Community Business Partnership down in Springfield.  (That's where we learned how to turn the idea for Stokefire into the big bucket of awesome that we are today.)  Someone nominated our firm to be included in their Hall of Fame - and we got accepted.  Or is it inducted?  Not really sure...

Anyhow, it's all going down today at around 11:30 in our old digs.  We'll be talking with CBP's board of directors and our old counselors, sharing the stories of our growth and successes (Two Fortune 500 clients, winning a contract away from the biggest branding agency in the world, more partnership and contract opportunities than we can keep in our heads, and a ten-fold increase in revenue per hour over the last two years.  Oh, and mentions in the New York Times, the Washington Business Journal, and the Chicago Sun-Times.  And keynotes at ASAE and ACCE... and AIIM.)

Looking back on it I'm amazed we've done it.  Heck, I'd be amazed if we'd done half of it.

I rarely take the time to thank our readers, and that's certainly a failing of mine.  We get about 150 per day (not a huge base, but certainly enough for us) with the occassional spike into the thousands when I say something particularly relevant or perhaps inflammatory.  But I fully acknowledge that this blog and you - the readers - are a large part of the reason we're successful.  People encounter our opinions here, send them around, and essentially invite new entrepreneurs and business leaders to learn about our organization, offerings, and philosophy.  About half of our conversations with prospective clients start with "So, we heard about you when someone forwarded me this post from your blog."

So...

We woudln't be where we are today without you.  Y'all come back now, y'hear?