As of January 1^st, 2013, The Living Room by Seek is no longer by Seek.  We are The Living Room, complete with our very own employer ID number and platinum American Express (that’s how you know you’re official)!

In the coming weeks, be looking out for a brand spankin’ new website, phone number and email address for The Living Room, along with more fantastic news we can’t wait to share…Here’s a hint…we’re expanding our offerings and getting back to our roots!

Some of you may be asking, “Who’s Seek?” or “I didn’t know The Living Room was anything other than space at Seek.” Here’s an abbreviated version of The Living Room’s story, which we shared at our very last Seek Staff Meeting (two pages instead of six).  Hopefully this might answer some of your questions and provide you with a good story too!  So grab your favorite mug, pour yourself some joe and read on…

After leaving P&G, Tim Urmston, Seek’s founding owner, started Seek out of his home, then a qualitative research firm and now a full on innovation and research company.  He then picked up an additional employee, moved to an office park in Finneytown, OH and later to a boring office complex in Blue Ash, OH. By fall of 2005, after growing even more, Seek was busting at the seams.

This is where our story, The Living Room, begins…

I coordinated Seek’s very first company-wide offsite retreat in the winter of 2005, and wanted to find a space that was inspiring and comfortable. That’s when I found Sparkspace, and learned firsthand the incredible effect that an open, loft-style space with comfortable furnishings can have; our interactions were better, and the ideas flowed freely – way different than a dodgy hotel conference room.

As Seek entered its first growth spurt, tripling in size in the matter of months, our offices in Blue Ash were like working in a giant fire hazard every day. Seekers were literally working in closets and sitting on each other in staff meetings and design sessions.

As we started searching for larger space, it became abundantly clear that the typical business space was never going to work for us. So Ellen Karns, Seek’s Marketing Director, worked her magic, and we moved to a historic renovated home on 6th Street in Covington, KY.

Seek existed to push the boundaries in the research world, and before long, we didn’t have much use for the “traditional”, one-way mirror, research facility. Remembering the great experience we had at Sparkspace, and wanting to provide a similar experience for our clients in research, as Seek’s Senior Project Manager, I began contacting all the little creative meeting spaces all over the country.  These spaces met Seek’s need for open, inspiring spaces without one-way mirrors, but with a charm that hotel conference rooms could not possibly provide.

In 2008, Seek again began feeling the pressures of a growing staff. Think about it: there were 25 of us crammed into an old 2,000 sq. ft. home.  Ellen did what Ellen does best and started searching for property. One night, she called me excitedly, demanding I drive to Norwood to see the treasure she had found. That treasure was our current building, and it was perfect.

It looked like we’d have more space than we could imagine needing, and I live for starting new things, so Jerry, Seek’s CEO, gave me the go ahead to work on a business plan for a creative meeting space business within 2368 Norwood Ave.

The first year was so much fun and such a whirlwind at the same time.  Guests loved the warmth of our spaces, the intuitive helpfulness of our staff and the delicious meals provided by one of Cincinnati’s most favorite Chefs, Michael Shields.  It was just a contracted team member and I and we only had time to keep up with demand, which seemed to have a pretty far reach beyond Seek.  Back then, Seek was our main client, but we discovered lots of other folks were contacting us about offsite meetings, not even knowing what Seek was.  We always had the desire to reach beyond Seek to give others the opportunity to experience meeting space in a whole new way.  Knowing that we could make this reach, in early 2010, Pamela, Jordann (then LR Host, now a Seek RIC) and Ellen re-launched Seek Space as The Living Room by Seek.

While all this was happening, Seek was evolving, as it always does. They were incorporating more and more innovation and facilitation into their research methodologies, feeding a desire to dig deeper into human understanding.

We had an identity crisis on our hands. It seemed like Seek and The Living Room by Seek were moving in completely opposite directions. The Living Room needed to be not by Seek. In November of 2012, we began conversations to spin The Living Room off as its own separate company with me leading the way as CEO.  To be honest, there were a few tears…I have put a lot of passion and soul into Seek over the years and forever it will hold a special place in my heart.  But all that I built over the years led me to here, now, with a wide-open adventure of my own to share and I’m so happy to be sharing it with you!

Remember, more big news is coming in April, so stay tuned!

Martine, Jess and I hope to see you really soon!

Pamela Hickey

CEO, The Living Room

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We started delivering cookies around town, homemade in fact.  The Living Room signature cookies were born from something so close to me.  I made what I know and love.  My family’s butter cookie.

For years and years now, I’ve looked forward to these cookies every Christmas.  Aunt Becky would bring them to Aunt Sandy’s house and it’s all I wanted…no ham, no pie, just Aunt Becky’s butter cookies.  My only problem was that my family has never used homemade icing and I couldn’t handle the idea of icing The Living Room’s signature cookies with icing from a can.  So with the theme of keeping it all in the family, we got Mrs. Hine’s* butter cream icing recipe.  (*Mrs. Hine is the mother of The LR Host, Leslie Kochanowski).  What’s more personal than a family recipe? And the fact that we could make our signature cookies right here in The Living Room’s very own kitchen made it just that much more personal.

So far, all our neighbors have eaten up our cookies… and The Living Room.

It’s so fantastic to feel all the energy for a new, character-filled, feet-up, and fully equipped creative meeting space.  My team and I are so grateful to be a part of it.

The Living Room is here to provide a great experience.  From the space to the service, we are the regions best place to hold an offsite meeting and face-to-face consumer research session.  We’re relaxed, yet professional; not stuffy, but food snobs nonetheless.

So, how can you get your hands on cookies by The Living Room?  There are 3 ways:

1) Come see us!  We make a batch on the last day of every session held at The Living Room (this is the best way if we may say so ourselves).

2) Let us know that your office would like a package from our Cookie Campaign and we’ll get you on the list for our next delivery (currently, this an option for Cincinnati area businesses, but we’ll work on expanding…we promise!).

3) We’ve provided the recipe for you here.  Enjoy and come see us soon!

The Living Room

{Butter Cookies}

Recipe adapted from Becky Lucas*

*Aunt of The Living Room’s Pamela Hickey & Seek’s Deanna Nicholson

Ingredients:

1 C Organic Butter @ room temperature

½ C Organic Sugar

1 Organic Egg

3 tsp Bourbon Vanilla

3 C Organic Flour (we’ve been playing with only 2 C and we kinda like the butter to flour ratio in this option, better)

½ tsp Organic Baking Powder

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425°F

Mix all ingredients until combined

Break off a portion of the dough and work in small batches

Wrap remaining dough in plastic wrap and keep refrigerated until ready to use

Roll the portion of dough on a cold, floured surface to about ½ inch thickness

Cut with floured cookie cutters and arrange on a baking sheet

Bake for 5-7 minutes, not allowing the cookies to brown (5 minutes seems like too little, but it’s the best)

Once cooled, decorate with Barb Hine’s Butter Cream Frosting and a sprinkle of course sugar sprinkles to add a slight crunch…we like the multi-colored sprinkles.

{Butter Cream Frosting}

Recipe adapted from Barb Hine*

*Mother of The LR by Seek’s Leslie Kochanowski

Ingredients:

½ C Organic Butter @ room temperature

1lb Organic Confectioners Sugar

tsp Bourbon Vanilla

5 tbs Organic Half & Half

Instructions:

Lightly beat the room temperature butter with vanilla and add the confectioners sugar slowly until  desired sweetness.

Add the Half & Half one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.

Be careful not to get the icing too light and fluffy.  The more dense the icing, the better, we think!!

“Describe your office space to us

In 2009, we purchased and renovated our current building, which was built in the early 1900’s. We had two main objectives for this space: to house our ever-growing staff, and to create a space for our clients to get out from under the glare of fluorescent lighting, kick off their shoes, and innovate. We focused on keeping the history of the building intact while adding modern elements; we think we’ve created a great blend of the old and the new.

Functionally, we wanted the floor plan to encourage collaboration, celebration, and agility in order to provide crazy collaborative space to those who need to be loud and creative, as well as those who need focus time with nooks and crannies that allow them to hide away and get work done.

Where did the inspiration for your office space design come from?

In 2005, the seven of us employed by Seek (we’ve now grown to over 30) gathered around a single coffee table, seated either on the couch or the floor, with nothing more than a common goal, our collective brainpower, and a white board.  This took place in a tiny, class C office space smack dab in the middle of suburbia – we could only move up from there.

These tight quarters created an experience that evolved into what we have lovingly called “the living room factor,” a phenomenon that has produced some of our most innovative ideas.

As we’ve grown over the past decade, Seek’s Consultants, Facilitators, and Project Managers have experienced the best and worst spaces from around the country and around the world. We brought insights from these experiences back to Seek, and we’ve translated these experiences into a totally new kind of home for us and a totally new kind of meeting space for our clients.

What is your favorite part/design of your office space and why?

Our central staircase features photos from our staff that are displayed in a gallery format; each of these photos represents what inspires us as individuals. Just like in our work, we dig down past the exterior to understand what truly moves people in their work and in their life. These photos provide our people and our clients with a small window into the lives of each of us.

From a design perspective, this space also has many different textures to it – warm wood floors, crisp white painted trim, rough exposed brick, giant windows, and a fantastic bubble chandelier.

Do you feel that having a well designed and inspiring office has changed the way you and your employees work?

The design of our space and the people within it definitely makes for a different space to work in. The design encourages collaboration, which is necessary for our type of work. Our dress code also plays a big role. We come to work as we are, not with our business selves on, which results in a richer and more authentic experience for our clients. And since our clients spend a lot of time under the same roof as our staff, we hope that our space and culture encourages them to do the same.

If you could use one word to describe the feel of the office space, what would it be?

Transformative, like our people and our methods.

Tell us about your company

Seek is a boundary-pushing innovation boutique that integrates insight, inspiration and ideas anchored in raw consumer empathy.

insights
it’s one thing to “know” an insight, it’s another to feel it. our immersive learning experiences leverage consumer empathy to drive better, faster decision making.

inspiration
our in-house production team brings learning to life through multimedia and transformative experiences.

ideas
big ideas happen when insight, empathy and inspiration collide with creative and technical expertise. Our transformative ideation experiences leverage nine core neuroscientific principles to create this confluence with your team.

At Seek, we believe in the extraordinary creative potential of human beings; our job is simply to release it.

www.seekresearch.com

The LR by Seek is a business adjacency of Seek.

When you do ideation for a living, you get a good feel for what works, so when we built The Living Room by Seek we built the kind of space that we would dream of working in. (Hence, the modular writing spaces, the impossibly flexible room setup, the artisan local catering and the whatever-you-need service. We also built in a two-story indoor/outdoor slide because, who doesn’t want a slide?).”

The Living Room by Seek would like to thank Sayeh Pezeshki and her team for featuring this story! For more information on Sayeh, The Office Stylist, please visit her website at http://www.theofficestylist.com/.

At the Living Room, we try to harness every possible source of inspiration. Around every corner or stairwell, Seek is inspiration by design. I believe that Seekers and visitors alike should start their day with a little inspiration; it’s easy as grabbing a cup of coffee.

The actual origins of our mug collection vary, but few are alike. Deciding the perfect mug for the day can take time. What kind of day will today be? Will I default to my favorite mug or go to a different floor and scope out that selection?  That mug will stand out among the others, and for that day it will inspire you, even if for just a second.

Monday morning’s mugs might be slightly larger then Friday’s, but it was selected with a purpose. The design could be eye catching, reminiscent of home, or remind you of childhood cartoons. Each mug inspires us differently. I personally wouldn’t want it any other way!

So the next time you are at The Living Room, grab a cup of joe that truly inspires.

It made me wonder why that is. Here’s what came to mind…

Everyone has been a guest in someone else’s home before and typically you’ll leave feeling one of two ways. Either you’re feeling really, good looking forward to next time, or you’re on edge, thinking, wow, not sure I want to do that again–the answer is this:  it comes down to how comfortable your host made you feel.

Let’s paint two pictures.

Situation #1:

You arrive and the host is completely on edge. They are worried about burning the finger foods and they have a tense tone in their voice. Their body language says, “It’s nice to see you,” but in the back of their mind they’re wondering whether or not they have correctly folded the hand towels.

Their home is P-E-R-F-E-C-T, and you find yourself making sure your shoes haven’t brought anything in that isn’t supposed to be there. All of a sudden, you are thinking about all those things your mother taught you about when to place the napkin in your lap and which fork to use. In this environment, conversation will probably go no deeper than the weather forecast.

Situation #2:

You arrive and you’re greeted at the door by someone completely focused on you, a guest they have been looking forward to seeing. There’s familiar music playing in the background and the lighting is comfortable, not too romantic for a night with friends, but not too bright like you’re visiting a cafeteria. Even though your host still has a few more things to prep, they show you where your coat goes and ask you to join them in the kitchen. They have already poured your favorite beverage (because they just know those things about you).

After dinner, you kick off your shoes and enjoy the company–satisfied and completely at ease. You’re host has accomplished their goal–you have made yourself at home while still allowing them to serve you. That’s when the real conversation happens!

*furniture rental charges and set up fees may apply