Chris Huebner, president of Mac Mannes, Inc., provided us with the following item which focuses on the value of specialty advertising in your marketing mix.

Brunner Digital is sending seven of its top creatives to the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin next week and will be live-blogging throughout the conference.

For employees of Environics Communications in DC every day at the office is a green day and the agency provided us with five tips for going green this St. Patrick’s Day - and every day.

Brunner Digital launched a social collaboration tool that enables the agency to better communicate and source ideas across its offices.  The platform also has been adopted and custom-designed for two clients - DeVry University and Aquafresh. 

There's only a small chance you've never heard of Twitter, reports Peter LaMotte of GeniusRocket, but, he told us, the chances are much higher you've heard of it, but have never used this social-networking service. If you have yet to dip your communications and marketing toes into the world of Twitter, now is the time and Peter has prepared the following "Twitter 101" piece to get you started.

Fleishman-Hillard's DC office provided us with a number of news items reflecting trends worth tracking, including: In an attempt to appeal to younger, online Catholics, the 2,000-year-old Vatican and 81-year old Pope Benedict XVI have launched a papal YouTube channel that will feature videos of the pope.

There’s a good bit of discussion floating around the agency world about the “new breed of creative” that an agency needs to be competitive, we hear from Ernie Mosteller, VP, creative director of emerging media at Brunner Digital in DC.   

There's little doubt who won the Super Bowl, it was user-generated advertising.  While the game was exciting and down to the wire, the battle between traditional advertising and the new breed of user-generated marketing was over in the first quarter, we heard from GeniusRocket. 

The Washington Post Company has announced the beta launch of WhoRunsGov.com, a Web site offering a unique look at the world of Washington through its key players and personalities.

Searchles has launched a free related content widget for bloggers and web publishers as the first phase in the rollout of the Searchles Discovery Widget platform.  This self-serve open platform will be expanded in upcoming weeks to offer a larger set of social widgets

Sallie Mae, along with Building Hope and Reading Is Fundamental, have launched a nationwide book drive, “Reading Is Presidential”, to celebrate the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama - and we have an audio report.

We asked Cary Hatch, who heads DC-based MDB Communications, for a list of things for you and your agency to consider for survival in 2009.  She provided the following seven points: