Jennifer Corrigan has traded the bay of San Francisco for the lakes of Minnesota, joining mono as an account director. While out West, Jen spent five years in account director and brand strategist roles at Duncan/Channon and The Loomis Group. She also sharpened her skills in Best Buy’s marketing department. Needless to say, Jen’s an adventurous spirit. She’s already contemplating which winter sports to master, and is petitioning the sun to hurry up already and warm the nearby water skiing holes. We’re glad to have you, Jen.

We love good design. And AIGA MN, one of the largest chapters of the prestigious group, presents awards each year to some of the best. This year, four of our entries received recognition: our website (yep, the one you’re on now), monotunes (our New Year’s greeting card), a brand book for Tillamook, and the Blu Dot Swap Meet. Congrats to all of the winners.

Jon Stewart. CNN. Fox News. Saturday Night Live. And now, the President of the United States. When we developed the “Lean Forward” campaign for msnbc, we believed it could be powerful, but couldn’t have anticipated the ripple effect it would have on American politics and pop culture. President Obama just announced his new campaign slogan, “Forward,” and it didn’t take long for people to take notice of the uncanny similarity. Creating a brand idea that the President himself believes will rally a country? We’d like to think that’s progress.

The Human Doing campaign for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of MN has won its second Best of Show award, this time at the District 8 ADDY Awards. We put a man in a glass apartment at Mall of America to show people what community support could do to improve health, and it worked. The Human Doing also won Best of Show at this year’s The Show, and contributed to our recent Agency of the Year award from the 4A’s. Cheers to good health and simple ideas that reinvent the status quo.

Parents at mono had a problem. Plenty of our kids just couldn’t get to sleep. The fear of boogeymen and other scary things meant less zzz’s for all. So we put our heads together and created an iPad app to help our young ones overcome fears. Called “Penny Finds Her Brave,” the app is part interactive storybook, part bravery detector, and part night-light. It tells the story of a girl named Penny who is scared of everything until she meets Seymour, the bravery detector. Get Penny in the App Store, and check her out on Fast Company’s Co.Create and Creativity Online.