This Place Matters Community Challenge 2011 Unofficial Results

Posted by OTR Matters on July 1, 2011 · 4 Comments 

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:

Cincinnati Takes Most Social City Title for Mashable’s Social Media Day – http://on.mash.to/mRduky #smday

— Mashable (@mashable) June 28, 2011

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:

2011 Voting Results, via UrbanOhio forum user Cygnus

And the final facebook likes for the top 3:

3,397 likes for the Over-the-Rhine Foundation

188 likes for the Friends of Dreamland Ballroom

840 likes for The Preservation Society of Newport County

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:

VOTE OTR NOW, created by @ChadShack

• 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:

@OTRCincy a national treasure/historic district & needs votes to win 25K for historic preservation. C'mon Cincy…vote! http://t.co/7R0f2bV

— Dhani Jones (@DhaniJones) June 30, 2011

• 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).

Of course, there are many more thanks to go around. I haven’t even mentioned the OTR Foundation or the organizational support in the form of email blast, fan page updates, etc. The outpouring of support has been awe-inspiring.

Main Street, OTR as photographed by well-known New Urbanist Steve Mouzon

Yesterday, after I wrote the blog post that chronicled OTR’s rapid fall from 1st place, I posted this video on the facebook profile from which I manage a few facebook pages. Thanks for coming through when OTR needed you most.

Winners will be announced today at noon!

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Filed under Over-the-Rhine Cincinnati, Over-the-Rhine photos · Tagged with Over-the-Rhine Foundation, This Place Matters Community Challenge