• Read more about Causes We Love: Milagros para Niños

At Mobomo, building things is our passion, and sometimes an opportunity to build comes through supporting a worthy charity.

Last week, we were honored to support Children’s Hospital’s charity, Milagros para Niños at their inaugural brunch. Milagros focuses uniquely on aiding Hispanic patients at Children’s Hospital, a group that accounted for approximately 55,000 patient cases in 2013, with mostly uncompensated care. Through Milagros, children whose families may not have funds to pay for their hospital bills—or worse, lack basic Metro fare to visit their children—receive services uncovered by insurance, such as translators, therapies, transportation, and other crucial resources.

Mobomo and other supporters enjoyed a Latino-inspired brunch at the Embassy of Mexico’s Mexican Cultural Institute, and were entertained by a mariachi band and celebrity emcees Cindy Pena, and 107.9 Morning Host, Pedro Biaggi.

The day was filled with countless wonderful moments, but the highlight was the announcement that Milagros had raised $20,000 through the event! To offer your support to this great cause, contact Ashley Nolan, Assistant Director of Milagros para Niños.

• Read more about Commit to Be Fit

Ah, the joys of working from home. It's only a few steps from getting up in the morning to my home office...and the kitchen.

Given the lack of exercise needed to navigate during my workday (mostly, I sit at my desk) and the close proximity to said kitchen, it would be easy to gain weight and lose fitness over time.

At Intridea, to help combat the relative inactivity of remote working, each employee is given a Fitbit to track daily steps. We even have our own Intridea Fitbit group that ranks our progress and successes with others in the company.

This simple little device has been a life-changer for me and I’m frequently atop the group leaderboard for steps, distance and very active minutes.

Competition and Goals

So, how does an almost fifty-seven year old woman make the top of the company leaderboard?

What began as a fun, competitive attempt to add more activity to my day and climb up the leaderboard has ultimately led me to set new goals for myself.

With virtually no commute, I have extra “found” time I dedicate to fitness. Even so, you can always find the time for things that are important to you.

No longer content to run and/or walk one or two miles a day, I’ve challenged myself to bump it up. Weekday runs have increased to five to eight miles and weekend runs are longer. Throw in some walking, instead of driving, to take care of a few errands and my weekly steps average around 150,000.

More Energy

Through this increase in activity, spurred on by the little Fitbit gadget, I have:

With more energy, I can keep up with my seven grandkids and more fully enjoy favorite pastimes such as backpacking, hiking in the mountains and biking. Other tasks have become easier too, like shoveling snow, chopping wood and mowing the lawn.

Using the Fitbit has helped motivate me to run some marathons, compete in a snowshoe race, raise money for a charity by participating in a 24-hour run/walk event and more.

Commit to Be Fit

Supposedly, it takes thirty days for something to become a habit. So, try it. For thirty days, add more activity to your life. It doesn’t have to be running or walking, but find something you enjoy doing – swimming, dancing, jumping rope, hula-hooping. lifting weights, or a combination of activities - just get out there and do it. My bet is that by the end of thirty days, there will be a noticeable improvement in the way you feel.

Commit to be fit and reap your own rewards. The benefits are there for the taking. If this ol’ gal can do it, so can you.

How does your team stay fit? Keep the conversation going! We'd love to hear from you.

• Read more about New Year's Resolution: Run Better Races with BibRave

New Year resolutions are kicking into high gear! And like any resolution; strategy and commitment are essential. Keeping yourself on track, encouraged, and most importantly accountable are crucial pieces to attaining your goals.

In the realm of fitness, the online world is full of resources. From activity trackers and weight loss apps, to virtual trainers and coaches; there’s a tool for almost every stage!

One app, Intridea is particularly proud to introduce is, BibRave.com.

Thanks to a few avid runners and Intridea, this site enables runners of all stages to inspire, inform, and encourage one another through live social media streams and race reviews.

Stemming from a less than stellar race experience, Tim and Jessica Murphy, saw a need to place better information at racers’ fingertips! Thus, after months of planning and research, and a partnership with Ruby on Rails experts, Intridea, BibRave was born!

Getting the inside scoop on a race has never been easier. BibRave equips runners with honest to goodness feedback and details on information they actually care about. From runner schwag and crowd atmosphere, to trail terrain and race organization, BibRave is more than just your ordinary race page, its a community.

Intridea had an awesome time bringing BibRave to life and would highly recommend it for your New Year’s resolution toolbelt!

• Read more about Introducing Yourtime.Intridea

The average commuter spends eight days every year just traveling to and from work. Not us: every Intridean works from home. This means we saved an aggregate of 9,380 hours last year for the things we love instead of sitting in a car or a bus.

We wondered how our peers spend their time, so we asked. We didn’t know what to expect: skateboarding, civil war re-enactment, extreme knitting?

As it turns out, 40% of Intrideans mentioned spending more time with family: Ben got to see his son take his first steps. Linus started playing the piano again—after a fifteen year hiatus. Kathleen, Chris, Batman, Javie, Mike, Serign, and Tom all run. We’ve shared our stories in a mini-site built using maps from Tilemill.

In the coming weeks, we’ll dig deeper into the numbers. Yourtime is the first part of a platform we’re building to measure our lives, our health, and our carbon footprint. We’ll share our experiences as we grow, and soon you’ll be able to add your own company’s team to the board.

Come see how we spend our time. And if you’d like to recapture eight to ten days of your life every single year, come tell us how you’d like to spend your time.