“What a ridiculous name for a town!”

My wife and I promised each other if we ever had a rock and roll band we would name it after the joyfully named Iowa town.

As it turns out we are not musically talented :/

When it came time to name the business several years later, Denise suggested: “What Cheer.” It was perfect for the personable, light hearted culture we wanted to create.

The phrase what cheer with you is an early English settlers greeting.

We share our name with some other interesting things: The What Cheer House, The What Cheer Art Company, What Cheer Antiques, a Children’s book, the first sound of spring and actual musicians: The What Cheer? Brigade.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Omaha’s very first Startup Weekend wrapped up Sunday evening. We had the great opportunity to host the 54 hour event.

We met lots of fun/talented people and saw brilliant ideas executed in a very short amount of time.

The winning team (GiftBright) included our very own Alex P. Gates and our good friend Cody Peterson. Congratulations, dudes!

The event attracted a bit of media attention: Silicon Prairie News, WOWT and KETV.

Gigantic thanks to Shane Reiser and Corey Spitzer for organizing the event, all the sponsors for helping to make it happen and the judges who came out Sunday evening.

We are looking forward to the next Startup Weekend. Hopefully our home office and factory is big enough to host it again :)

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Yo! We are hosting Omaha’s first Startup Weekend! You should totally come.

For event details and sign-up visit:
omaha.startupweekend.org

We are giving away a couple tickets. If you would like one, leave a comment and we might just send it your way.

See you next weekend!

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Thanks for coming to the What Cheer OPEN HOUSE. We had a blast! We hope you did, too.

Your photos are online here: what-cheer.com/oh2010

Weeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

We are settled into our new home office and factory. There will be an open house on Saturday, January 30, 2010 starting at 7:00pm CST.

There will be snacks, drinks, prizes and more.

Prizes include an iPhone, “I live in Omaha” merchandise and more. The drawing will happen around 9:00pm CST. Enter at the door. You must be present to win.

For additional chances to win, tag your twitter posts with: #whatcheer

More information can be found at:
Our site | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

See you on January 30!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

After a month of transition we have finally moved into our new home office and factory!

Our new space offers us an open creative environment and a lot more much needed space. We already miss our old studio and our office mates.

We have some thank yous to extend to some really great people: Ryan Ellis (our agent), Bob Grinnell, (owner of the Mastercraft Building) and Paul Nelson (architect).

We will be having an open house sometime after the first of the year. I hope you can make it.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Friday night was the Nebraska chapter AIGA award show. It is always fun to catch up with the local design crowd and view the great work from our friends (and enemies?) over the last year.

Five of our websites were recognized this year with bronze awards. Congratulations to RehabVisions, Jeffrey Koterba, Painted Light Stained Glass and Geoff Johnson. Our own project (I live in Omaha) was also on the wall.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Woah! It has already been one year since we launched Made with Joy™ (this weB LOG). Only 17 blog posts in a year? Lame!

Sounds pretty unkempt to me. We will try to do better to keep our promise.

We have some exciting things coming up, including: moving into a larger studio, our three year anniversary, some very exciting site launches and much more! To get the latest, follow us on Twitter: @whatcheer.

Woooolololololo!
John Henry Müller

Paul Rust is an actor, comic and writer living and working in Los Angeles, California. He is also a lifelong friend. We recently finished his new website/blog: paulrust.com.

The site look and feel was inspired by Paul’s playful and animated sense of humor. Oh! And if you click on Li’l Paul, his outfit changes.

Paul has received a lot of attention for his online videos which we have gathered for your convenience. He is also in some really great/silly rock ‘n roll bands.

Last month Paul starred in I Love You Beth Cooper. He has a supporting roll in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds which opens tomorrow.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
John Henry Müller

Meet the newest member of What Cheer: Alex P. Gates.

Alex is our in-house back-end developer. We are thrilled to have him here.

Adding Mr. Gates broadens our skill set to include online applications, e-commerce, content management, blog-craziness and pretty much anything else you can dream up.

You may already be familiar with his work. Alex helped us develop the I live in Omaha website and created @OmahaWeather, an automated Twitter weather application.

Alex has two daughters and a wife who packs lunches that evoke jealousy. Although he is very modest about his way with words, Alex is also a master of puns.

Welcome him to the posse:
yo-brotha-hambone (at) what-cheer.com

I can’t wait for you to meet him.

Wooooooooooooo!
John Henry Müller