Humans of Strat Comm: Jeffrey Orr
Columbia, Mo. (May 25, 2017) — Everyone can relate to the “fear of missing out,” or FOMO, especially those under the age of 30. These younger millennials value life experiences over material possessions and are more likely to spend money on concerts, social events and cultural experiences than belongings. They want to see more, do more and experience new things like never before. To help satisfy this experiential craving, newly-minted strategic communication graduate Jeff Orr has created a solution that millennials suffering from FOMO will appreciate.
Orr created a mobile application called Maply that is a location-based social media platform for sharing and discovering local events. Users can open up the app and see what events are going on in their area so they can put FOMO to rest. Maply gives users the ability to add content to each event, rank popularity of events, comment, share and interact with other attendees.
“My idea for Maply came from being tired of missing out on cool local events,” said Orr. “There’s always something new and exciting happening in Columbia and I always found out about it when it was too late. Maply can eliminate that problem and increase event attendance, safety and engagement.”
The free app works in real-time and allows users to add and create new content to the map. It works like normal social media platform like Facebook or Twitter, so it’s easy for users to maneuver.
“Building an app is both time-consuming and rewarding. I love the feeling of building something that someone else can hold in their hands and use,” said Orr. “Our iOS version of the app took about 10 months to complete.”
Once Orr had completed Maply, he had to put his studies and extra-curricular activities on hold for more than a week to debut his app at South by Southwest, or SXSW, which is an annual conference in Austin, Texas, that converges the interactive, film, and music industries and fosters creative and professional growth as well as a variety of networking opportunities.
“The experience was great,” said Orr about SXSW. “I got to meet a lot of interesting people in the tech scene and do networking that’s helping me pursue this full time.”
When Orr wasn’t the CEO of Maply, he was a full-time student in the strategic communication department, an account executive on his AdZou team, as well as being involved in Greeks Go Green, a recycling initiative for Greek Life.
Now that Orr has graduated, he plans to move Maply to Austin and continue to expand the company there. He will build new maps for different areas, test out larger local events and network with other business professionals. His drive and entrepreneurial spirit has helped him grow personally and professionally at Mizzou and will undoubtedly make a splash in the real world.
Download the Maply app for free on the App Store.
Updated: October 22, 2020