With a website, What Cheer answers the question: Why do you live in Omaha?
So, why do you live in Omaha? John Henry Müller, owner of What Cheer, a local web design studio, hopes to get people to answer that question. And thanks to last week's launch of iliveinomaha.com, John Henry's got plenty of answers.
"There are many reasons to live in Omaha and in an age where it is possible to go just about anywhere, many residents make a conscious choice to live here," said John Henry. "I wanted to illustrate that."
In a press release, John Henry shared that he was inspired by Twitter and the work of Jonathan Harris, and that What Cheer created the site as a public forum for residents to brag about their city and connect as a community.
"What's been interesting is that the site is a completely grass roots project spread by word of mouth only and in three days we had more than 1,000 visitors and over 100 unique reasons for why people live here," he said.
With 120 characters, participants are sharing their favorite restaurants or attractions, education or employement history, and, of course, love stories. And some are even sharing the unexpected. To keep things positive and family friendly, every post is first approved by the team at What Cheer (they say their analysts are working around the clock). In addition, T-shirts are available for purchase on the site, with all profits going to the Omaha Community Foundation Fund for Omaha grant program.
The site is simple and easy to use - participants just need to enter their reason, name, email address and add a picture (optional).
We're excited about this and we encourage you to check it out. If you're not from Omaha and you're wondering if you can participate, here's their answer from their PMATQ (People Might Ask These Questions) page:
I don't live in Omaha, can I write a reason? No.
Please??? Okay. As long as you are speaking from personal experience.
ARCHIVED COMMENTS
I actually live in Papillion, but that's close enough to Omaha to say I live in Omaha. I live here because Uncle Sam, and in particular, the U.S. Navy, have a very sick sense of humor. It really wasn't my choice to come here, knowing that it would most likely be my twilight tour before retiring from the Navy. I would much rather have been ordered to Florida, or somewhere where the temperature never gets below 40 degrees F. My kids assimilated into the schools very quickly and have enjoyed the Papillion La Vista Schools (PL South), so we have accepted the fact that we'll be here for at least 7 more years. That's long enough to get the daughter through college, cause I know she'll want to stay here with her friends for that experience.
Anyway, it hasn't been all that bad. There are some really cool things going on in the Greater Omaha business community through the Innovation Accelerator Foundation. It'll be interesting to see how our community grows through those efforts.