HyperQuake

The Bengals finally made the playoffs last year and, as luck would have it, hosted the game at Paul Brown Stadium, right here in HQ’s hometown. The team wanted to create a really exciting Playoff Book to be sold during the game, and they felt HyperQuake would be a great fit for taking the design to the next level.

The goal of the project was to create a commemorative piece to showcase the Bengals’ awesome accomplishment. We all agreed that teamwork should be the primary focus of the design – the Bengals view making the playoffs as a collective achievement – with a strong emphasis on the host city of Cincinnati as well.

The end result was an exciting design that hit all of the team’s objectives and really made the Bengals come across as the high caliber team they are. Despite the fact that the game didn’t finish in the Bengals’ favor, fans can still cherish the memories, and have the playoff book to prove it.

Team HQ showed up in full-force on Saturday for Cincinnati’s first annual Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Race to Anyplace. Red Bulls in hand for energy, iPods cranked for race time tuneage and Team HQ shirts for speed, we didn’t miss a beat. The event took place downtown at the Chemed Center and boy did it have a great turn-out. Twenty-six teams showed up to pedal as hard as they could for 6 hours to help support blood cancer research, and our eleven-person team was proud to be one of them.

Should anyone ever tell you that spinning is easy, don’t listen to them. We pedaled like we had never pedaled before (the speed one of our teammates generated made me severely question the bikes ability to handle our skills) and after all was said and done, Team HQ racked up 73 miles for the day!

Though we may have went home a little sore and tired, we felt extremely happy and lucky to have gotten the chance to be a part of the event and to help raise funds and general awareness for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society here in Cincinnati. It was a great time and we met some wonderful people (and a huge dog who decided to join in on the race day fun) throughout the course of the day.

As sore as we all are, we can’t wait to be a part of the event again next year. We have our eyes set on the elusive 100 miles marker next!

It’s always fun to be in the news, and we’re excited to share the story with you: Recently the Cincinnati Business Courier, a weekly news publication covering all things business-related in the Cincinnati area, ran a small story about HyperQuake and one of our clients, iExplore.

This past weekend, Cincinnati saw the best and brightest in the local ad world come together to recognize the great work that took place in the advertising community across the region during 2009. Put on by AdClub Cincinnati, The Addy Awards (much like Santa), come only once a year bearing gifts of trophies and recognition to all the agencies in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky whose design work is deserving of the ever-coveted award.

We’re proud to share that we were nominated in the ‘Advertising Industry Self-Promotion: Mixed-Media Campaign’ category and took home the gold for our brand new HyperQuake Identity System.

From a website redesign, to stationary and business cards, even a complete office environment overhaul, a lot of work was done this year in re-developing the HyperQuake visual identity, and we’re proud of our team that was a part of it and pumped for the recognition.

Saturday 2/27/10, marks the 1st Annual ‘Race to Anyplace’ in Cincinnati, and HyperQuake is racing to it…or rather, in it.

11 determined souls from here in HyperQuake-Ville have volunteered to step up to the challenge to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society kick off the event for the first time in Cincinnati. The team will be participating in a 6 hour (Yep, you read that right!) relay-style Spinning event, peddling as hard as they can for 15 minutes at a time before switching riders.

The HQ team shirt

The event has been taking place in other cities across the country for sometime and now it’s Cincinnati’s chance to help the LLS in its fight against cancer. If you want to find out more information about the event, visit the events site here.

If you have directions on how to get to Anyplace (i.e. Spinning tips for us newbies), let us know, I for one can’t find it in the GPS and don’t want to get lost en route. I’m actually writing this blog post while I’m training, so back to that I go. Until then, perhaps we’ll see you in Anyplace.

So I’ve been a resident of Cincinnati for 11 years or so now.

I’ve been a punk rocker or sorts (minus the mohawk and facial piercings) ever since I got a cd player and starting rocking out about Nofx, Green Day, Face to Face, The Descendents….. The list goes on.

Put these 2 aspects above together and over the past 11 years I’ve been a regular attendee at punk shows here in Cincy, no matter where they are. From the original Void (literally a closet behind a rock-and-roll laundromat in Clifton) to RadioDown, to Bogarts, to The Mad Hatter, to Ripley’s, I’ve been to shows all over the city and during that time, I’ve often seen Pat Rice.

I remember thinking when I first saw her, “why is this old lady at this show?” As you’ll see in the video, she is 65 now, so at 54, I was seeing her at shows surrounded by 15-23 year old kids. I was perplexed, but also thought it was awesome because as my wife, family and friends know, that will probably be me at that age too.

The more shows I went to, the more I would see Pat. Again, I’d always think this was odd, weird, crazy, cool, awesome.

This video is about her connection with the local music community, the way she has become connected with it, the mark she’s left on various bands/kids at shows and just overall, the love that the music scene here in the city has for her and vice-versa. She’s become quite a figure, being recognized by CityBeat and asked to give out a Cincinnati Entertainment Award award among other things.

It’s great to see this video though and be able to see the story behind this person I always wondered about. Truly a unique story and a testament to some of the great people and great things people do for others here in the city.

Watch the video here.

YES, it is that time again, folks. Time for the annual HyperQuake Chili Cookoff, an epic interoffice competition with high gastronomical and personal-pride stakes. The fridge is filled, the Crock Pots are plugged in, one developer has somehow ALREADY needed a Tide Pen. For non-Cincinnatian readers, what you need to know is: this area of the Midwest is obsessed with chili. When asking a native what there is to do in this town, invariably they will say, “You HAVE to go to Skyline/Gold Star/Camp Washington Chili” etc. Try it.

Being a non-native vegetarian, I can be pretty ho-hum about chili, but last year featured several no- or faux-meat items that basically blew my face off with delicious, not to mention unusual items like the chili cake pictured above. (SPOILER: This year someone made chili ice cream…what!)

Prizes will be awarded in the form of trophies denoting “Overall Best Taste,” “Best Not-So-Chili” and “Weirdest Freakin’ Thing.” Mmmmm…weird.

I think a ‘groupon’ sounds likes like some sort of parasite that locks onto unsuspecting groups and steals their souls… which might be accurate as it turns out.

“Each day, Groupon emails you one exclusive, unbeatable deal on the best things to do, see, eat, and buy in Cincinnati.” At least that is what their site says.

I have been waiting to see Groupons in action for a while now and this week they came through for me, publishing their first offers for Cincinnati. Today’s offer was for a yoga studio. I like yoga. I like 50% off. I am not sure I like the location of the offer, but I am certainly going to stay tuned. Any day now they could offer a Groupon for someplace I love or have been meaning to try, and this will be the thing that converts me from a window shopper to a buyer. It’s kind of exciting. In a really nerdy way.

Yelp is a collection of consumer-generated reviews of businesses in their area. Originally a San Francisco-centric venture, the site has become popular in 33 cities with tens of thousands of reviews. The Inc. Magazine article, You’ve Been Yelped, has a great history of the company, as well as business owners’ reactions to it. (Read it!)

Obviously, consumers place a high value on peer reviews, and despite the fact that the majority of Yelp reviews are “overwhelmingly positive”, some business owners are starting to fear the effect those rarer negative reviews could have on their business, occasionally going so far as to blame Yelp for their company’s failings (as embarrassingly described on the first page of that Inc. mag article). Others take the approach that Domino’s has, by embracing negative reviews and trying to improve their offerings.

#1 ranked for Cincinnati shopping is my neighborhood’s own Shake-It Records.
“One of the holy grails of Ohio record stores. Selection is outstanding — I mean, how often do you see Redd Kross or Camper Van Beethoven albums anymore? Kids these days with the iTunes and MP3 whatnots, I tell ya. Get out of the house, dammit.”

Gosh, I love crotchety reviews.

Seeing Shake-It at the top of that list immediately made me smile. The community aspect that comes along with Yelp is not to be ignored. I scanned the reviews and saw many familiar names and faces, and was pleased to see other neighborhood businesses topping their respective lists locally, too, sporting such informative reviews as, “All the cutest girls in town work here. Hi ladies.”

Despite the potential damage Yelp could pave the way for in the case of less-than-stellar businesses, it also commends and celebrates those that are doing a good job, creating a digital circle of cheerleaders around those places. It’s got to be tough as a business owner to know that the Internet takes away a huge chunk of control (businesses do not get to opt-out of Yelp), but the Web is a cut-throat equalizer, lauding the good and reprimanding the bad. As one Yelp-reviewed business owner said, “you can’t hate the future.”

There is a storefront near where I live that has been having some identity problems in recent years. It was a hair place, then it was another hair place, then it was a pet shop, and I’m pretty sure it was a few other things in-between, so when I saw it was undergoing a change again, I was honestly a bit skeptical. But as the days passed, the interior construction began to look more and more interesting. Hey, were those chandeliers? What’s with that big red curtain, and who made the terrific art that has found its way to the walls? What exactly is moving in here?

Located at the corner of Chase and Hamilton Avenues in Cincinnati’s Northside neighborhood, Happen, Inc. is what erm…happened to that storefront, and it is an art space for kids and adults. They have all kinds of lovely programs, events and open studio time at the Northside location, all of which is totally free and open to the community. Keep up with their blog to get a good idea of what they’re all about.

What a perfect addition to the neighborhood. Organizations like this that promote creativity and interaction for kids are not numerous enough. As I have harped in the past, the more opportunities kids have to create and explore, the better they’re going to end up, and Happen is providing that opportunity for the children around Northside.

For those of us who (claim to) have advanced beyond the coilpot stage (c’mon), there is a grownup open studio the last Sunday of the month called BYOProject which is recommended for all your knitting, doodling, projecty needs. Come, relax, and remember what it feels like to just sit and make.