Tonic Xmas Party 2008

We couldn’t let the holidays come and go without having a Tonic Xmas Party.  This year we opted for an evening of fondue at The Melting Pot, which was a new experience for many of us.  In case you’re in the same boat, picture a night full of melted cheesy concoctions, steaming meats, and decadent chocolate.  It was delicious!

For our gift exchange we each had to bring our favorite dvd and a cd of favorite songs from high school. We took the White Elephant route and things got pretty heated, but all in all everyone walked home with some premium items.

Tonic’s 2nd Annual "Christmas for a Cause"

You may remember from last December our designers get very competitive around this time in anticipation of our annual T-shirt design contest.  Well, this year was no different.  We came up with 6 designs for clients, partners, and friends to vote on.  The winning design was courtesy of Nathan Rhoads who created the shirt below:

Thanks to all our voters we were able to make a very special Christmas for a local Thousand Oaks family.  We first received word of the Peralta family through St. Maximillian Kolbe Church.  It was very hard not to fall in love the Peralta’s and we felt so great to be able to help them out.  We bought lots of fun toys for their 5 year old son and gave them an Albertson’s gift card to help out with groceries. All of the Tonic team has agreed its better to give than to receive and we are already looking forward to next year’s event.

TONIC at thinkValley

We had a great time at the first meeting of thinkValley last night. ThinkValley is a local marketing, advertising, and media collaborative group that Danielle has had the opportunity to be involved with planning along with Neil Adelman who is the CEO/Advertising Director of Statement magazine. Jason was invited to kick off the meeting with some positioning exercises that led to some great discussions about where we would like the group to go and what we see it becoming.

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Interns have all the fun!

Tonic Summer Games

The Tonic team celebrated Jason’s birthday this year with a picnic in the park and lots of summer games including bocce, croquet, bean bag toss, horse shoes, and paddle ball!  Check out the photos from the fun event.  Happy Birthday, Jason!

Happy Holidays!

To celebrate this holiday season, the Tonic crew got together for a dinner at Padri’s in Agoura Hills. We all brought our favorite DVD and CD of all time to giveaway in a Secret-Santa-style gift exchange. Here’s a glimpse of some of the fun:

TGIF!

Find a way to sneak out of work early today, because it’s Friday!!!

Team Chemistry

What is the most vital characteristic of a successful team?

I believe the answer to be the effective combination of leadership, diversity and chemistry. While good staffing can elevate leadership and diversity, team chemistry is very difficult to achieve.

In my experience, whether it is winning a championship or landing a major business opportunity, effective team chemistry is what makes or breaks and organization.  As a college baseball player for five years and as a professional marketer for three, this scenario has held true.

The components of this chemistry include: a unified respect for team members and management, a common discipline, a shared commitment and passion and the ability to positively work together amidst differences in experience, preference and personality.

Leadership must represent these components, and subordinates must fall in line if effective chemistry is to be achieved. The fruit of this organizational achievement is not only profit and success, but the creation of a work environment that can be enjoyed everyday by every employee. 

Happy Birthday Jason, Grant & Jeremy!

Today we celebrated Jason, Grant and Jeremy’s birthdays– or birthMONTH, if you will… Take a look at the birthday boys: