This Place Matters Community Challenge 2011 Unofficial Results
The 2011 This Place Matters Community Challenge concluded yesterday at 5pm. Official results will be posted on this website today at noon.
UPDATE: Results will be posted at 5pm on July 6
From my perspective, yesterday was a day of epic proportions for Over-the-Rhine. The stage couldn’t have been more perfectly set…
June 30 2011 was social media day around the globe. And two days before that (6/28/11) Mashable named Cincinnati the most social savvy city in the world in honor of social media day. If you haven’t heard of Mashable, all you need to know is that it’s the world’s “top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture.”
The tweet posted below was sent to its 2.3+ million followers:
Here’s the nomination video:
So on social media day in the most social city in the world, Over-the-Rhine couldn’t have relied on social media more. I woke up to find OTR had fallen from 1st place in the Community Challenge down to a distant 2nd. The Dreamland Ballroom of Little Rock, Arkansas came out of nowhere in the middle of the night to take a lead of nearly 3,000 votes by mid-morning. The predicament as I found it at 5am yesterday was chronicled in my morning blog post here. I wrote then that:
This deficit could be erased if an even more extraordinary effort than has already been seen on behalf of OTR happens today before 5pm.
Well, something extraordinary happened yesterday.
Over-the-Rhine rose to an unofficial first place by 5pm as shown in this screenshot:
And the final facebook likes for the top 3:
The results have not been finalized so it’s not time to celebrate, but it is a good time to give thanks.
I’ve been drafting a post about gratitude for awhile and will include a more complete list of thanks in that post. But for now, here’s an inexhaustive list:
Thanks to:
- Chad Shack for creating the now ubiquitous QR code, profile picture, storefront poster that did so much to spread the word about the competition and Over-the-Rhine:
- Nick Dewald for thinking of creating a website (and email addresses) for everyone who loves OTR.
- Nick Thomas for creating that website at iheartotr.com, a website that garnered nearly 20,000 hits in its five days of existence. Nick Thomas plans to carry iheartotr.com into the future and I look forward to seeing what he does with it and its growing email list…
- Caitlin N for making a list of contacts to help get the word out, a form letter and this Youtube video in support of OTR’s nomination:
- Thanks to Dhani Jones for tweeting about the competition:
- Soapbox Cincinnati for being a publication of which any Cincinnatian should be proud and for publishing this excellent article.
- The bloggers that did so much to spread the word. 5chw4r7z, Cincinnati Blog, Cincinnati Readventure, Queen City Tour, Jenny Kessler at UrbanCincy (here and here) and so many more…
- The Cincinnati Enquirer for publishing the posts by Lisa Bernard-Kuhn, Laura Baverman, and Puddintopia
- Local TV media like Local 12’s video report and Fox 19’s interview with Sean Rhiney of the OTR Foundation (can’t find the link to it…but it’s out there).
Winners will be announced today at noon!
So, do we know the results, yet???!!!
They will be announced July 6 at 5pm.
Wow, I lost track of this. So glad to hear you won!
We don’t know yet, results will be announced by July 18.