February: iQ on the move

After 8 years in the Docklands Innovation Park, we moved into our sprightly new Clarendon Street offices:

March: Feeling generous – to the tune of 10k

At FOWA, Morgan stunned us all (yes, even us) when he announced the iQ Prize: a competition to find the best business plan from an Irish internet startup, with €10,000 for the winner. The 5-page submission format and no-strings attached prize combined with something called the ‘Global Recession’ fueled a whopping 246 entries.

After we somehow managed to get our prestigious (and extremely busy) judges all into the same room not once, but twice in the same month – they finally hashed out a winner. The oversized cheque, big bottle of champagne, and that infamous orange horn went to Robin Blandford’s Decisions For Heroes.

Plus, last week we invited all our shortlisters in for some feedback on their Dragon’s Den experience – all 8 finalists are still kicking away, and you can keep up to date with their progress on the iQ Prize blog.

June: Bootcamp 09

3 days, 22 workshops, and nearly 100 happy attendees. This year’s annual iQ web conference had us run off our feet but there were great perks: giant scrumptious cookies, a glimpse into how things could be at our FutureNow session, and cocktails for charity up in the Radisson’s Skybar.

November: Introducing the iQ Studio

After years of converting all manner of hotel and meeting rooms into user testing spaces, we finally decided to build our own testing and market research viewing facility. Dubbed the iQ Studio, it has everything you need to conduct a focus group or usability test – and we’re open for hire now!

Keeping busy: Client work in ’09

We completed lots of projects this year, including:

• Redesign of permanent tsb’s website
• Redesign of Vodafone at Home
• Redesign of ESB’s corporate website
• Redesign of NUI Galway’s website

Also, we talked. A lot.

This year, iQubers were invited to speak at loads of events, including:

• Search Marketing World
• FOWA
• FOWD
• EI eBusiness Seminar
• Dublin Bizcamp
• Dublin Web Summit
• Irish I-HCI Conference
• t44u
• DEFUSE Dublin
• IIA Workshops

Brian and Belen got to venture to Copenhagen for Euro IA, while Niamh and Clodagh attended the annual Google Analytics consultants’ summit (GAAC) in California.

John and Conor were also part of the People’s Choice Award-winning team in Dublin’s first 24-Hr Universal Design Challenge, where sleep deprivation and design collided to produce MyWay – a social networking application which allows users to find the best route through the city based on their needs.

Handy things you may have missed

This will be our 104th blog post this year – so if you’re new to the iQ Blog (welcome!) or you haven’t checked in all that often, here’s some of the most popular things we’ve conjured up this year:

• Niamh and Peter’s free script to track all file downloads in Google Analytics
• Shane’s diagram of website governance
• Our features which included: How to set up Google Analytics, Ethnography for Design, and The Future of Online Supermarkets
• The iQ How To video debut: How to do a Card Sort

The year of making lists

This year we made Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 (the 50 fastest growing tech companies in Ireland) and their EMEA Fast 500, as well as the Irish Times Tech 50 – not sure what it all means, but yay!

iQ: Now with 28.5% more iQubers

This year our team grew from 21 to 27. A big welcome to Conor, Finán, Randall, Peter K., Cory and Noelle who joined us throughout the year.

Thanks and onto 2010

A big thank you to our blog readers, newsletter subscribers, everyone who commented, linked and twittered, people who invited us to speak, listened to us speak, and partied with us after. Keep an eye on the blog and also @iqcontent for everything we’ll be up to in the new year.