The home page of the 'I Love Boulder' website.
Open to businesses, individuals and organizations, the new site hopes to be a virtual gathering place for the residents and supporters of Boulder.
CU Spokesperson Bronson Hilliard said the effort to incorporate “I Love Boulder” is not a PR campaign, but a consciousness campaign to involve the community of Boulder, including the University of Colorado, in a stronger partnership.
“You know, it’s not designed to be an event driven activity,” Hilliard said. “It’s designed to be a consciousness raising guerrilla campaign wherein people brand their activities with the ‘I Love Boulder’ symbols and language and talking points and concepts.”
The website will address ‘town-gown’ issues – those items affecting the relationship between the city of Boulder and the University of Colorado.
The city and the university have sometimes had tensions in the past due to issues of growth and property use. Hilliard said he credits the “I Love Boulder” website as being part of a growing partnership.
“[It’s] a great symbiosis between the university and the city,” Hilliard said. “[It’s] an expression of a good relationship that’s only getting better.”
Launched Feb. 13, the “I Love Boulder” website aims to involve the community in sharing stories, ideas and happenings from around the city.
According to the website, it is “celebrating the cultural, traditional and happily unconventional characteristics of Boulder life, work and play” and is designed to be a forum for fans of Boulder, touting everything from “a dinner party featuring local ingredients” to “a community-wide yoga flash mob.”
Organizations throughout Boulder, along with individuals and businesses, have been invited to incorporate the “I Love Boulder” campaign into their messages and marketing.
Community partners include the Boulder Chamber, Downtown Boulder Inc., the Twenty Ninth Street shopping district and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Kyle Drennan, a 2009 graduate of CU, said he sees the website as a work in progress.
“If you’re going to use the word love, you need to be passionate,” Drennan said. “That doesn’t show me that you love Boulder.”
CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano said he has long praised the Boulder community.
“The combined cultural, artistic, recreational and intellectual resources are unparalleled, and the quality of life on campus and in the city is unmatched,” DiStefano said in a news release. “I have lived here for nearly 40 years and am still in awe of this amazing community.”
Hilliard said the website’s attitude about Boulder is one of greatness.
”[It’s] a great place to do business, a great place to go to college, a great place to live,” Hilliard said.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Thomas Cuffe at Thomas.cuffe@colorado.edu.
