Palo Alto it ain't, but still, Cincinnati is trying. It has a well-regarded accelerator, the Brandery, which borrows the regional expertise in consumer marketing (this is the homeown for P&G, after all) to help start-ups build a brand. Read the full story here.
Furry friends and their owners are invited to come to the fourth annual Beast Bash, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday at Kenton Paw Park. The event benefits the Kenton County Animal Shelter and the dog park, which was named one of the top 10 dog parks in the United States by Dog Fancy magazine. This year, the kids’ area is bigger than ever before, with a craft area, demonstrations by the local sheriff’s department SWAT and K9 teams, a dunking booth, blow up jump house, petting zoo and the fire department’s smoke house. There will also be a look-alike contest for owners and their pets, a best-behaved competition, giveaways, food vendors and a pool party. “Every year, we expand the Beast Bash,” says Dan Evans, director of the Kenton County Animal Shelter. “In the future, we hope to get the entire park—the tennis courts, soccer fields—so we can have events going on everywhere.” The Beast Bash’s emcee this year is JoLynn Johnston, with special guest Fox19’s morning news anchor, Rob Williams. Different vendors will be hand, including local pet stores, rescue groups and vets who will be available for free advice and information. At 8:30 a.m., owners and their dogs can compete in the Beast Bash & Dash. The cost is $25 per dog if you pre-register, $30 per dog if you register day-of. If you pre-register, you’ll get a “doggy bag” with a T-shirt and doggie bandana. The Beast Bash is free, but a $5 donation is encouraged to raise funds for the animal shelter and the dog park. All dogs must be licensed, registered and on a leash, but no retractable leashes. “It’s a fundraiser for the animal shelter, and it’s one of our bigger events,” says Evans. “It showcases the animal shelter and dog park, and shows people what is in the community and the resources that are out there for them.” By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
Today the web is a crucial link between employer and employee. Your first contact with a potential employer is almost always online, and it can be hard to stand out. That's why a group of Cincinnati entrepreneurs are set to launch a platform that allows job seekers and college students to more completely, creatively and simply show what they're made of. Stephanie Hughes, Kevin Mackey, and Tom Raterman, founders of GlueWorks, LLC, and Erik Lutz and Greg Frederick, their partners from the Devine Group, a Cincinnati-based talent management firm, are launching their first product, the Glue Talent Showcase. The online platform is a multimedia portfolio that allows users to display and share their important workplace skills and attributes. The Glue Talent Showcase, set to go live July 31, allows users to customize their profiles from a number of available features. With the Glue Talent Showcase, job seekers can use video, PDFs, audio, pictures and more to show and sell themselves. Glue Talent Showcase also has a workplace assessment feature that will list your top five workplace competencies (out of 84 assessed). "You can upload your resume, a first impression video or elevator pitch, songs, letters of recommendation, class projects," says Mackey, who has a background in marketing and finance. "It's like an interview before the interview." GlueWorks will allow users to share their profile from the site. The platform is a modified idea of Hughes', an NKU professor. Originally, she envisioned the site as a way to connect college students to former professors and businesses. Students can be hard to find once they graduate, and GlueWorks was formed to increase the "stickiness" between them, she says. Like many startups, the idea evolved, though the core concept remains the same: high-quality connection. The Glue Talent Showcase stands out from sites like LinkedIn because of its focus on displaying individuals' talents, Hughes says. "Glue offers a much more digestible tool," she says. "If I'm an employer, I don't want to navigate my way around a (social media) profile. Glue presents information in a much more standardized, digestible way for employers. It doesn't make the job of the employer difficult." And what's good for employers, is good for employees. Those interested in The Glue Talent Showcase can sign up on the GlueWorks website. It's free for individual users. Organizations like colleges and universities or chambers of commerce can also purchase a white-label version of the system, which includes a search portal and an administrative portal for providing advice and feedback on their members' Talent Showcases. Eventually, as Glue builds its user base, employers will be able to purchase regional or national recruiting memberships for a monthly or annual fee. By Feoshia H. Davis Follow Feoshia on Twitter
Fourteen-year-old Emerson Walker decided to pitch his idea, now named mPlanner, at the Cincinnati Startup Weekend event. It’s only a 60 second pitch in front of 100+ ridiculously smart developers, designers and business people. Why wouldn’t a fourteen year old have the courage to do this? Read the full story here.
In the past 13 years, the Hispanic and Latino populations of Ohio have increased by 63 percent. With the increased population comes the increased need for helping others navigate the healthcare system. “It’s a relatively new community compared to other Latino communities around the country in places like New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, California, and some of those southwestern areas, and even some of the bigger cities in the north and northeast like Chicago and Detroit,” says Dan Almaguer, director of health for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) for both Cincinnati and the state of Ohio. Because Cincinnati has a relatively new establishment of Latino communities, Almaguer says it’s vital to address things like transportation and language barriers, but also to start conversations about addressing health disparities that occur. “The Latino community, along with the African American community, suffers from higher percentages of a variety of health issues, such as diabetes and HIV,” Almaguer says. “With diabetes—the obesity issue contributes, and that’s another area—and that is from lack of quality foods in some of the communities where our people live, and when you’re not getting good, nutritious foods and you live in a food desert, then you have to travel long ways to get your food. Oftentimes, you can’t get fresh produce unless you travel those long ways, and then transportation becomes an issue.” To begin setting goals and objectives, leaders from not just Cincinnati—but from across the state of Ohio—will come together at the Ohio Latin Health Summit in hopes of figuring out solutions to increase preventive care for Hispanic and Latino Americans throughout the area. “We want to move from a cure-treatment mentality to a prevention approach,” Almaguer says. “Prevention is the cure. That’s true for any community—whether we’re talking Caucasian, African American, Asian, Latino, whatever—prevention is the best thing you can do. It’s more economically advantageous. We spend less money on health care by living healthy lives.” Do Good: • Attend the Summit if you're a health care professional or leader in Ohio. • Keep up with the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission, and contact the organization if you want to get involved. • Like LULAC Cincinnati on Facebook. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
The region's fifth annual Cincinnati Innovates competition comes with a federal twist, a global challenge and a $10,000 prize opportunity. By partnering with the US Environmental Protection Agency, Innocentive, the Cincinnati Metropolitan Sewer District and Northern Kentucky's Sewer District 1, the newly announced Water Challenge competition focuses on the development of low-cost, low-maintenance sensors able to monitor sewer overflows. Sewer overflows, which spill untold gallons of raw sewage into waterways after heavy rainfalls, remain a major challenge for cities and a major barrier to compliance with Clean Water Act regulations. Cincinnati Innovates founder Elizabeth Edwards explains this first-ever Cincinnati Innovates/government initiative: Why is the sewer system ripe for innovation and why Cincinnati? Cincinnati, like many other major metros, is faced with major infrastructure improvement costs to maintain our 100+ year old sewer system. Is this the first time you've partnered with a governmental agency and what do you think that signals? Why do you think the EPA is reaching out to basically "crowd source" innovations in how we handle water overflows? This is the first time Cincinnati Innovates has partnered with a government agency. The EPA's Water Research Lab here in Cincinnati is one of the largest in the world. This partnership is just another example of the EPA's efforts to commercialize water technologies in the region. Contests spur innovation. The EPA's partnership with Innocentive and Cincinnati Innovates is just one way the EPA is sourcing innovation. How did this partnership come about and what was the process? We've been working for several months together with Innocentive to create a prize and a process that makes sense. In defining the prize, we worked with water utility experts on both sides of the river. What impact could this competition, and the products it support, have on the people of Cincinnati--and beyond? This competition could save Cincinnati and cities like it millions of dollars a year - and improve safety and water quality. The competition is open and online now. By Elissa Yancey Follow Elissa on Twitter
For more than two decades, shoppers happily shared close quarters at The Little Mahatma's 10-foot-by-10-foot space in the Carew Tower Arcade. So when Dan Schwandner bought the OTR business this year, he determined to continue the shop's densely merchandised history through a fresh renovation and an ever-evolving collection of international treasures.
Kristen Becker of Five Dot Design, Marti Heard of Marti’s Floral Designs, Kelly Ledford of Cinci Makeup, Jacalyn Mains of JMM Photography and Julie Schmidt of Cincy Event Planning started out as a group of wedding vendors who were looking for office space to accommodate themselves and all of their stuff. But the ladies of 915 Monmouth knew it needed to be eclectic, just like them. Heard initially found the space on Monmouth Street in Newport. It wasn’t much to look at, but after six months of renovations, the space is now a mix of contemporary and reclaimed pieces that reflect who the women are. 915 Monmouth officially opened in October 2011, and it’s not just used as an office for wedding consultations and makeup trials. It’s also a space that members of the community can rent for weddings and receptions, baby showers, bridal showers, luncheons and personal parties. The women of 915 Monmouth have also hosted three Junk in the Trunk events, which serve as a flea market for brides-to-be. Before the event, former brides are invited to drop off ceremony or reception decorations they no longer want, and then future brides can come and shop. “We don’t want to be cookie-cutter or like other wedding vendors,” says Becker. “And although it’s not a new concept to have multiple vendors under one roof, it’s different to have all of us working in the studio and not just taking up one corner of the studio.” And just because a bride books one of the women for her wedding doesn’t mean she has to book all five vendors. “There’s no pressure or competition,” says Schmidt. 915 Monmouth was featured in the before and after section of Design*Sponge, a Brooklyn-based design blog. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
Woodland Vistas, a new townhome project, will be developed by Andy Howe from Cranewoods Development and will be designed by CR architecture + design. Construction was halted on the project when the market went south, and Howe purchased the property, threw out the old developer’s plans and drew up new ones. Howe, a Cincinnati native, previously purchased two stalled Cincinnati projects, redesigned them, recapitalized and sold them out. He just completed the conversion of a 1901 historic district stable and livery built by the Cincinnati Gas Light and Coke Company downtown into seven urban lofts. Woodland Vistas is Howe’s fifth project in Cincinnati. At Woodland Vistas, Howe down-densed the number of units from the previous developer’s plan, and is in the process of having it redesigned into a 16-unit authentic arts and crafts community. The townhomes will be grouped in twos and threes, with two floors each. There is one existing building on the property that will be transformed with similar details as the “to be built” buildings, says Howe. In addition to the river view, location and architecture, the private lane will have paver walks and drives, gas streetlights and a gas light at every door, plus an entertaining view terrace. The upper units will have Craftsman arbor patios with summer kitchens and planting beds, while the common “view terrace” will have a Craftsman arbor, fire pit and a restored set of coin binoculars from Niagra Falls, complete with a brass plaque that gives the dates the binoculars were in actual use at the Falls. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
The first beer to be produced from Christian Moerlein's new brewing facility in Over-the-Rhine made its debut in the Queen City’s oldest tavern, Arnold's. Watch the magic. Video courtesy The Queen City Project.
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