What'sUp 24/7 Blog

By Phillip Anderson ,  lifeoffthehighway.com  and What’s Up 24/7  Do this exercise.  Look at a map and ask yourself: how far do you typically drive from home to work? From how far away do you hire service providers? What about shopping for groceries or other necessities? Where do you go for leisure? Do you commute to school, take care of parents, or cart kids around to their activities?  Now pick the farthest distance you regularly travel (in miles or minutes) and use that to draw a 360º circle from your house. Next, identify the valuable resources, opportunities, and activities that exist in your circle. Like me, you will be amazed at what’s available for living, learning, working, and playing. *** If there is one thing we are learning in this pandemic , it is that we crave human interaction . It is critical to our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. For many, the pace of life has slowed and we are catching our breath. Instead of jumping back in...

I think we all have friends that have left where they grew up to pursue big-city dreams. I know people that have moved to Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Sometimes it's everything they wanted, and sometimes they quickly realize that there's no place like home. Maybe you have been that person yourself, dying to leave your town for somewhere a little more glamorous. I, however, am going to be the one explaining at my high school reunion that I left Denver Colorado to go live in tiny midwest towns in Missouri, Indiana, and Kansas. That is a long story that I share more about in this blog .  For today I want to dive into the cost of living comparison between small towns and big cities. I'll preface by clarifying that I am in no way a financial analyst, a real estate agent, or an expert on the economy. I'm just a girl that has lived in towns of all sizes, and I'm fascinated with the difference your location can make in your quality of life. I'll s...

Growing up in Denver, I felt like I had everything. There were always lots of things to do and endless opportunities to seek.  As a child, I had plenty of parks, rec centers, and kid-friendly events. Every summer we went camping in the Colorado mountains,  and I was lucky enough to witness some of the most stunning views in the country. When I got older I never had much trouble finding a job. There were plenty of bars to check out on my 21st birthday, and any band I ever wanted to see always came through Denver. It never crossed my mind that people in other towns struggled to find jobs, or that they might have to travel to a bigger city to catch a concert. Denver's population is over 700,000 and a couple million if you count surrounding counties. I've traveled a lot but I never really considered moving to another town, bigger or smaller. When I finally did make the decision to move to a small town, I had no idea how life-changing it would be. In my mind, it was mor...

Hey everyone! If you knew us from the days of our Beta version you might have wondered what we’ve been up to. The short answer: retooling, collaborating, redesigning, dreaming bigger, reaching farther. ‘No pain, no gain’ isn’t just a catchy, overused slogan. As anyone who’s accomplished anything worthwhile knows, there’s an unfortunate amount of truth in those words. But here we are, making gains! And we are stoked about all the communities that are and will be gaining right along with us. Because for us that’s what it’s all about; seeing your hometowns--and our hometowns--position themselves for growth. Shining with pride and creating a place where our kids want to stay and raise their own. 2019 was big for us! We really got our footing and hit the ground running. Early in the year we rolled out our new MVP (minimum viable produce) and partnered with some visionary communities across Indiana. Communities that were ready to lead by connecting and promoting their entire region on a w...

At What’sUp 24/7, the goal for our community partners is two fold. First, we want optimum connectivity internally, and to other communities in your region (because together we are stronger amiright?!). And second, we want to increase awareness. We want eyeballs on the unique quality of life and quality of place you offer. Our community promotion platform does exactly those things. But we are taking it a step further by personally advertising some of our early adopting partners, and having some fun with you along the way! Coming soon to a town near you* are the What’sUp 24/7 Travel Writers  (your Personal Hype Squad) . Their job is to visit select What’sUp 24/7 Communities, experience all their ‘best kept secrets,’ and share them with the world through blogging and social media! If we’ve got your attention and you want in on this opportunity, here’s how it works: STEP ONE: You host our Travel Writers (your Hype Squad!): This looks different for every communit...

What's a Website Widget? What'sUp 24/7 Widgets are plug-ins for your website that allow you to display: Event calendar(s):  Promote your organization's events only and/or the events of organizations that you are co-promoting. A local business directory:  Promote organizations in your zip code and/or organizations you are co-promoting. A listing of area destinations:  Promote destinations in your zip code and/or destinations of organizations you are co-promoting. Example: What'sUp 24/7 Event Widget on blackfordcounty.com See How It's Done: Step-by-step Instructions: Login to What'sUp 24/7. If you help manage multiple organizations, you can click the User Profile icon to ensure you have the correct organization selected. From the main menu in the upper right, click "Organization," then "Create Widget." Click the "Select" button on whichever widget you'd like to create (Event, Directory or Destination). Use the checkboxes "D...

Why do you need a personal account?  For those part of an organization:  Anyone that wants to accept various roles in a What'sUp organization (i.e. member, administrator, owner, etc.) will need a personal account. This is also the first step in taking ownership* of an organization on What'sUp 24/7. *Taking ownership means you become an owner of an organization that is listed on whatsup247.com, that you own, but that you did not originally register for. For our end users (patrons looking for events, businesses and attractions): Currently, this means that we will save your search area, based on zip code. Coming soon , this will mean you can access new features that will allow you to create and customize notifications, rsvp to events, follow events and organizations for updates, and more! See How It's Done: Step-by-step Instructions: Start here . Enter your name, email, password and zip code and hit the "create account" button. You are in - welcome to the What's...