Great Bedfellows

One of our key performance indicators is the company we keep. Put simply, it took a few years, but we’ve ended up partnering with trailblazing entrepreneurs, dynamic non-profit directors, and innovative intra-preneurs writing the rules. And when you work with smart people doing important things we figure it makes the most sense to let them do the talking.

The “Great Bedfellows” series is an ongoing project documenting our client’s issues, agendas and vision. Enjoy.

Chocosol

Chocosol’s chocolate and coffee are a delicious byproduct of their commitment to social justice, ecology and meaningful cultural exchange.

Founder Michael Sacco and his slow-values but tech- forward passionate team of ‘chocosolistas’ are reinventing the concept of “fair” by building an equitable

trade practice they call “horizontal trade”–working with farmers and producers in Mexico to ensure that sustainable agriculture and sustainable livelihoods are at the core of every exchange.

Chocosol made its first foray into formal package design for its coffee and chocolate so they could have these

products fund more of its tech-forward eco-centric social enterprise projects– both in Toronto and in Mexico.

They think big, work small, and somehow find a way to make room for all.

Lowfoot

Newer, “greener” ways to generate energy seem to be a “magic bullet” solution to our ever-growing energy needs. But any energy generation comes at a cost. What if we decided to ‘kick’ the energy habit instead?

Lowfoot’s glad you asked. This innovative company has figured out how to turn the

information tucked deep inside your Smartmeter into intelligence you can use to reduce your energy consumption.

And Lowfoot’s got the ‘human behaviour’ part figured out too. They’ve hooked members into a social network that lets them share everything from energy-saving boasts to tips.

They’ll even cut you a cheque if you meet your reduction targets.

But the greatest incentive they offer people is control over their own energy use. Lowfoot founders Phil and Steve are machiavellian geniuses for using our gaming habit to combat our energy consumption habit.

Push.ca

One of Canada’s most trafficked web portals, Sympatico was in the same difficult position as anyone else when it came to getting the attention of 18-24 year old males.

That is until someone had the bright idea to make something useful for them. Sympatico decided on a skateboarding + snowboarding portal.

More importantly, they decided to do it right. They put Matt Houghton at the helm,

and would have been hard-pressed to find a nicer, more qualified, more passionate and connected fellow.

Push.ca earned an audience by being a solid member of their community.

Our job was to get people outside their community sufficiently up to speed on their world to understand the value of Push.ca’s tools, team and tactics.

To introduce prospective advertisers to Push.ca, Hypenotic created day long interactive labs to help “non-endemic” brands learn about snowboarding/skateboarding culture from an insiders perspective.

The sessions not only established Push.ca’s credibility, but attracted the right advertising partners too.

Sustain Ontario

Too often, the critical connections between food and our health, economy and environment are ignored.

Sustain Ontario focuses on breaking down these policy silos and working across sectors to fix our broken food system.

When we met Lauren Baker, Sustain was a new organization with a challenging mandate.

Hypenotic was excited by the chance to help connect and animate a like-minded community, informed by groundbreaking works like the Metcalf Foundation’s

‘Food Solutions’ and the ‘Menu 2020′ papers.

Today Sustain links a thriving network of farmers, policy makers, environmental organizations, educators and activists working together to demonstrate a connected and innovative food infrastructure in Ontario.