Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Clifford Snow]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 10:33 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:

> I think that is partly due to a failure of tools and expectations. Too
> many tools are still geared towards the initial large scale acquisition
> of data. There indeed you will likely have a pattern of a few
> contributors contributing the bulk. But for keeping data current and of
> high quality, you will need many people who passively observe the data
> to (implicitly) check for errors and then occasionally make the odd
> edit, if there is indeed a mistake. At the moment, however, it is still
> to tedious from noticing an error in your every day use of OSM to fixing
> that mistake. Particularly if your every day use of OSM is not on
> osm.org but some other app or site, as so far editor integration on
> third party sites is still more or less non existent.
>

+1


-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kai Krueger]

On 07/19/2013 09:57 PM, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Clifford Snow  
> wrote:
> 
>>> Similarly, when the Washington Post covered the local DC hackerspace,
>>> we had two people stop in at the space (only two!) and neither of them
>>> joined.
>>
>> I'm not sure that two events are enough data points to state that publicity
>> doesn't work.
> 
> Let me give you more datapoints.
> 
> We actually has two stories about MappingDC, one in the Post, and one
> in a government publication. Neither of those created any sustainable
> community.

How do you measure sustainable community? Not everyone is going to come
in person to one of the OSM events and that is perfectly fine. Many
people might also hear about a project, become aware of it but then not
contribute until months later. And for many there is the need for
"repetition". The first time they read about something, they might think
it is an interesting project while reading and then forget about it. The
second time they hear about it they might think it seems like it is
catching on. Only the third (or likely even more often) time they hear
about it will they think, this really sounds like a worthwhile project
to contribute to, I should give it a try.

To get a sustainable community, you need sustained PR. At some point a
project is well known enough that just normal social interaction between
the general public talking about it is sufficient to sustain the
community. But with about half a mapper per 1 million population, OSM is
still far away from that level in the US.

> 
> Atlanta had a huge event through Cloudmade's ambassador program, with
>> 200 attendees, and CNN coverage. Thea (the ambassador) invested a ton
> of time and energy into that community. But a couple of years later,
> and they were gone.

That's a real shame that all that effort didn't lead to more. It might
be an interesting case study to try and figure out what went wrong
there. With 200 people that likely was one of the bigger events in OSMs
history. Much bigger than many of the other activity in OSM that has
lead to sustainable communities.
> 
> Their community consisted mostly of OSM consumers, people working for
> groups interested in consuming OSM data, or talking about imports, but
> not of mappers. I really wanted Atlanta to work. There was enormous
> investment of time and resources in it, and outreach to universities,
> government agencies and businesses.
> 
> I was hopeful at the time that data consumers would turn into
> contributors, but it largely didn't happen. These organizations are
> very interested in OSM as a datasource, but contributing is another
> matter, and organizing is yet a different matter still. These people
> were interested in OSM, but they weren't invested in OSM emotionally.
> 
> I want to be clear that I think there's a very important place for
> outreach to data consumers, but I've learned not to expect that these
> people will turn into OSM contributors (I'm thrilled if they do, but I
> no longer come with the expectation that they will).

The conversion rate is likely going to be low. That is always going to
be the case. But if you have millions of users, then even if only 1% map
that is already a large group. And if the download stats on various sat
nav apps for smart phones based solely on OSM data alone are anything to
go by, then OSM already has millions of users. However, for average data
consumers to become mappers, it requires them to recognize OSM and know
the data source is OSM. For that to happen, it needs a lot of PR to
build a brand name for OSM, as well as more help from the various data
consumer developers to make end users more aware of "powered by OSM".

Continuing to work more on both "contributor marks" and "attribution
marks" with strong brand ties to the existing logo could hopefully help
in that respect.
> 
> I also feel that I owe both Russ Nelson and Richard Weait an apology.
> It's because of Richard's initial visit to DC that I heard about OSM
> and became interested in it, and it's because of Russ Nelson's visit
> that Kate Chapman, Steven Johnson, Katie Filbert and I all started
> MappingDC (and we started it together, as a group).
> 
> So yes, it's possible to spark a community by a visit, but AFAIK, for
> all both of their hard work, DC was the only community where the work
> was sustained.
> 
>> Any thoughts on what sustains members?
> 
> Yes, it's consistency. That's the #1 most important thing that
> sustains members. Run events regularly, monthly is best. And if you
> can, make it the same day. And if you can, make it the same place.

Well, in the end, it is likely going to be a combination of all three.

1) People first need to be aware of OSM, as otherwise they won't
contribute or come to any events.
2) There needs to be a reason to contribute. For many that is going to
be products based on OSM that a
3) Finally the social events to turn casual mappers into power mappers
and community orga

Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Clifford Snow  wrote:

>> Similarly, when the Washington Post covered the local DC hackerspace,
>> we had two people stop in at the space (only two!) and neither of them
>> joined.
>
> I'm not sure that two events are enough data points to state that publicity
> doesn't work.

Let me give you more datapoints.

We actually has two stories about MappingDC, one in the Post, and one
in a government publication. Neither of those created any sustainable
community.

Atlanta had a huge event through Cloudmade's ambassador program, with
>200 attendees, and CNN coverage. Thea (the ambassador) invested a ton
of time and energy into that community. But a couple of years later,
and they were gone.

Their community consisted mostly of OSM consumers, people working for
groups interested in consuming OSM data, or talking about imports, but
not of mappers. I really wanted Atlanta to work. There was enormous
investment of time and resources in it, and outreach to universities,
government agencies and businesses.

I was hopeful at the time that data consumers would turn into
contributors, but it largely didn't happen. These organizations are
very interested in OSM as a datasource, but contributing is another
matter, and organizing is yet a different matter still. These people
were interested in OSM, but they weren't invested in OSM emotionally.

I want to be clear that I think there's a very important place for
outreach to data consumers, but I've learned not to expect that these
people will turn into OSM contributors (I'm thrilled if they do, but I
no longer come with the expectation that they will).

I also feel that I owe both Russ Nelson and Richard Weait an apology.
It's because of Richard's initial visit to DC that I heard about OSM
and became interested in it, and it's because of Russ Nelson's visit
that Kate Chapman, Steven Johnson, Katie Filbert and I all started
MappingDC (and we started it together, as a group).

So yes, it's possible to spark a community by a visit, but AFAIK, for
all both of their hard work, DC was the only community where the work
was sustained.

> Any thoughts on what sustains members?

Yes, it's consistency. That's the #1 most important thing that
sustains members. Run events regularly, monthly is best. And if you
can, make it the same day. And if you can, make it the same place.

In DC, we used a bar in downtown DC that had a lot of space, and we
had a monthly event that was just us sitting around and drinking. Kate
coined it Mappy Hour (if you were wondering what the origin of the
Virtual Mappy Hours were- that's the story).

We can mapping parties too, but the drinking events were super popular.

The reasons we haven't done that here in NY is that I have some
medical issues that make it difficult for me in a bar environment, and
bar space is limited and very noisy in Manhattan (for the most part).
If we found a good place, though, I'd try again.

BTW, Russ, our mapping parties have been good- we get Brooklynites
coming to Manhattan, we get Manhattanites coming to Brooklyn, folks
coming in from Jersey, even Connecticut, so it can happen.

And after several months of this, we're finally starting to see
"regulars", folks who will come to most or all the events, and it
takes a long time. It's also can be pretty hard work in the beginning,
even lonely work, when you set up an event and 30 minutes before the
event, half the RSVPs cancel, but those that do show up regularly,
they stick with the project, they map, and they stay involved.

> Maybe we need to ask people, what got them interested in OSM and what keeps
> them active. Maybe one of the activities we should undertake is to collect
> that data to help develop plans go active mappers.

I think the commonality between dedicated mappers I know is that
they're usually already involved in an existing project of similar
ilk. They're FLOSS developers, or they're Wikipedians (or both).

We get other people, from other backgrounds, but in my experience, the
ones who stick around for months and years tend to be people who
understand why OSM is so important. We get others to come out- they
hear about the project, we get them through their first edits, but
they don't stick around.

I think there are things we can try to do to bring those people
further along, but I think we also need to recognize that OSM has the
same issues as Wikipedia does, and that other projects of the same
type have- that sustained user involvement hovers at around the same
level, and that a very large percentage of contributions come from a
minority of users.

So in addition to more people, the thing I think is most important is
understanding the supermappers near you, bringing them into the
one-on-one community, and also making sure that those people are
happy.

- Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Charlotte Wolter]

Hello all,

While I agree with Clifford that more publicity is essential 
to grow the organization, another strategy that might be effective is 
to work through organizations that could have a use for the maps or 
for mapping as a teaching exercise. We don't have direct access to 
large audiences of potential members, such as students or business 
people, but we could work with their organizations to reach them.
Groups, such as science teachers, could add OpenStreetMap to 
their lesson plans. They could be reached through their national convention.
Local business can be reached through groups, such as the 
Chamber of Commerce or Jaycees. Articles in their national 
newsletters or presentations at their national conventions could 
reach large numbers.
I'm sure you all can think of other examples of 
organizations that might work this way.
Of course, in cases such as this we would have to reach out 
and establish relationships with their national organizations. This 
is the kind of thing that needs to be done in a coordinated fashioin, 
not just someone going out and doing it on their own. But it would be 
a lot more cost-effective in reaching large numbers than trying get 
to individuals directly.


Charlotte




At 03:08 PM 7/19/2013, you wrote:

Hello,

Most people would agree that we don't have nearly enough people 
mapping. Clearly, transcending our early adopter types of GIS and 
open source software people will be needed. However, effective 
strategies for on boarding the next million people are going to be 
very different than what was needed to get the first say 100,000 
people signed up. I know this is very un PC to say, but things like 
mapping parties/local chapters which were absolutely essential to 
recruit the first 100,000 people, really will not matter much going 
forward. Even if you get 100 people per mapping party, its 15,000 
mapping parties, to get the next 1.5 million mappers! We need to be 
thinking about things that will scale to lots, and lots of people.


Clifford, of your 4 ideas only getting coverage in mainstream press 
would probably be effective. Besides working on mainstream press, 
getting people using our data is *and* understanding they can come 
in and change it is probably our best hope because it scales.


1. Push back on high volume down stream data consumers that do the 
absolute minimum on working with us. For example, foursquare, who 
has 30 million users, is doing an awful job supporting us. They have 
the OSM credit buried in a blog posting which a bunch of other 
items. They don't even mention that anybody can go to OSM to edit 
the map. Shame on them!! Cragslists, does a much better job. They 
have an OSM link on the bottom of the map and have a way of 
reporting problems on the map from their interface via our notes 
features. I am sure Cragslists has been drivings new mappers into 
the project. Other high volume consumer need to look more like 
Cragslists, and not foursquare, or Apple.


2.We just had a big thread on this on the main talk list, but we 
need to support using our main web page for using our data for 
finding stuff, getting directions, and for mapping verticals 
(hiking, golf, bike, trains, hunting, etc).  Just today we took a 
step in this direction, and enabled the ability to use the location 
services to find your current position on the main web site! Our 
second fund raising round, includes a computer for router, and more 
tile servers. It looks like we are moving in this direction.


3. Last bit, which we are also doing, is to improve our conversion 
rate. The new ID editor is pretty nice and I think will help.


Its coming, I'm optimistic about our direction. But, we do need to 
understand that the project is at a new phase now. Even though it is 
lots of fun, getting together for mapping parties is not getting us 
the next 1.5 million people.


Thanks
Jason.






On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Clifford Snow 
<cliff...@snowandsnow.us> wrote:
We have over 200 mappers contributing to OSM in the US driving us to 
second place, but way behind Germany. Look at OSM Stats for the 
details. 
http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=countries


Second place is good, but I wonder what we could be if we made it 
our goal to increase the number of active mappers. When you look at 
our numbers against our population, there is a lot of room for 
growth. See the chart of the top 10 below. The data was taken from 
osmstats along with population data from Wikipedia.


Rank Country Population Mappers Nodes Created Nodes Modified Deleted 
Nodes New Nodes Per Mapper Mappers per 1M Population

1 Germany 80,493,000 564 72992 40981 7174 129 7.01
2 United States 316,278,000 202 62036 18103 23815 307 0.64
3 Russia 143,400,000 191 84192 17872 3008 441 1.33
4 France 65,684,000 182 116333 14463 13497 639 2.77
5 Italy 59,70

Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Tod Fitch]

I agree that getting mom & pop websites to use OSM will help a lot in getting 
people aware of of the project and primed to assist. But that is not possible 
now. There are two things needed for any mom & pop site to use OSM:

1. Some quick, easy no hassle way to embed a slippery map.
2. Routing available on the main OSM website so that when they click through 
the slippery map they are setup for getting directions.

I'm using Google right now at http://www.nordicbase.org/about because of those 
two missing features. I thought I could use http://open.mapquest.com/ but if it 
is possible to do this it is not obvious how.

-Tod



On Jul 19, 2013, at 4:33 PM, Bryce Nesbitt wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Serge Wroclawski  wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:
> 
> >> We need publicity!
> >
> > Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and should
> > try and work on as a group.
> 
> I wish this was the case, but it's not. I'll elaborate.
> 
> I feel that driving adoption of OSM on small mom & pop websites is a type of 
> publicity that could work.
> As of now there's no easy way for a website owner to drop an OSM map on a web 
> page and be sure it will
> work in the future.
> 
> Millions of people using the map, could result in thousands of new editors.
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Russell Deffner]

 

>Maybe we need to ask people, what got them interested in OSM and what keeps
them active. Maybe one of the activities we should undertake is to collect
that data to help develop plans go active mappers. 


I'll jump in on this quickly, I first saw OSM as a background in Depiction
  - went and looked at my local
area and was completely overwhelmed by how bad it was (TIGER desert to the
max).  If I had not have found OSM-Colorado
  (I think just by searching around the
wiki, or web search) I may not have even tried to start mapping, I thought
'they' might be the answer and help me map.  That didn't happen, but more
importantly I learned how to map, and that there were people I could talk to
if I had questions.  I stay active because there is a done of mapping left
to do and I also enjoy 'stewarding' my area looking for edits by others
(especially new mappers) and reach out to invite them to the local group and
answer questions.

 

=Russ

russdeff...@gmail.com

russdeffner on OSM

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Russ Nelson]

Serge Wroclawski writes:
 > The real lesson of the ambassador program was that running mapping
 > parties in other cities than your own results in press (sometimes),
 > results in various size turnout, but has no track record of creating
 > sustainable community.

Except for MappingDC, for which you can take more credit than me.

 > That is how you create a long term sustainable community.

Agreed.

 > I'm trying to reach out to groups outside the direct NYC area (less
 > than two hours away) to see if we can run combined events.

Hey, I couldn't pull people from Brooklyn into Manhattan. "It's too
far". New Yorkers are very parochial.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [Talk-us] Shield rendering and detours; tagging nicknames?

[Paul Johnson]

It helps that these are actually signposted as black-on-orange "DETOUR"
bannered routes.  The severely multiplexed and complicated situation this
creates causes passengers in my car to giggle when the Garmin announces
that you should make a movement following the detour routes, since it'll
say things like "Exit left to..." then rattle off all the refs and detour
refs, then the highway name.  Even with speed limits reduced to 30-45 MPH
on the freeway, it still takes just long enough that it's time to announce
the next turn as soon as it finishes rattling off one.  But it's better
than watching folks who don't have OpenStreetMap on their GPS...since it
won't be aware that all traffic is being squeezed through on what is
normally the westbound 244/southbound 75 span.  Their nav trying to
reconcile driving the "wrong" way on the freeway is bound to cause navrage
with the folks who don't know about OSM on Garmin...


On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Bryce Nesbitt  wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 5:28 PM, James Mast wrote:
>
>> Still, I think detour routes might be a good idea, but only if somebody
>> is willing to keep track of the projects and fix everything once the
>> construction is finished.
>>
>
> If the rendering is really really orange and really ugly, it will help
> drive updates post construction :-).
> If you just make route relations without rendering, they are easy to
> forget.
>
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>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Clifford Snow]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Serge Wroclawski  wrote:

> >> We need publicity!
> >
> > Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and
> should
> > try and work on as a group.
>
> 
> When I was in DC, t the Washington Post to covered MappingDC. The
> Washington Post is not only the largest paper in DC, it's one of the
> largest newspapers in the United States, but the result of the story
> was that we got a few signups to our list, but we saw no increase in
> our events, and no one came to a mapping party saying they'd heard
> about us from the newspaper.
>
> Similarly, when the Washington Post covered the local DC hackerspace,
> we had two people stop in at the space (only two!) and neither of them
> joined.
>

I'm not sure that two events are enough data points to state that publicity
doesn't work.

>
> > So perhaps instead of setting targets of that we want to achieve X
> number of
> > active mappers in a certain time frame, we could set a target of aiming
> to
> > have Y articles about OSM in the press and Z talks / booths at
> conferences
> > by then.
>
> I love publicity, but what's really important to us is sustaining
> community members and mapping activity.
>

Any thoughts on what sustains members?

Maybe we need to ask people, what got them interested in OSM and what keeps
them active. Maybe one of the activities we should undertake is to collect
that data to help develop plans go active mappers.


-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Shield rendering and detours; tagging nicknames?

[Bryce Nesbitt]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2013 at 5:28 PM, James Mast wrote:
>
> Still, I think detour routes might be a good idea, but only if somebody is
> willing to keep track of the projects and fix everything once the
> construction is finished.
>

If the rendering is really really orange and really ugly, it will help
drive updates post construction :-).
If you just make route relations without rendering, they are easy to forget.
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Bryce Nesbitt]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 4:07 PM, Serge Wroclawski  wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:
>
> >> We need publicity!
> >
> > Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and
> should
> > try and work on as a group.
>
> I wish this was the case, but it's not. I'll elaborate.


I feel that driving adoption of OSM on small mom & pop websites is a type
of publicity that could work.
As of now there's no easy way for a website owner to drop an OSM map on a
web page and be sure it will
work in the future.

Millions of people using the map, could result in thousands of new editors.
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:21 PM, Clifford Snow  wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Richard Weait  wrote:
>>
>> This doesn't have to wait for funding, or permission!  There are
>> hundreds of OpenStreetMap "ambassadors" reading this list, right now.
>
>
> Are you saying that you are satisfied with the number of active US mappers?
> Really?

That's not what Richard is saying.

Remember that Richard Weait was a professional OSM Ambassador, and has
many years of experience with OSM community organizing,

The real lesson of the ambassador program was that running mapping
parties in other cities than your own results in press (sometimes),
results in various size turnout, but has no track record of creating
sustainable community.

What does show sustainable community is regular events. That's why in
DC, I tried hard to run an event every month, and why in NYC, I'm
trying to do the same.

Eventually, if you do this, you get not only people who are curious
about the project, but you get regulars, and you find that people hear
about the events, and they map regularly.

That is how you create a long term sustainable community.

> We already have an active local group that meets regularly.  It currently
> has over 125 members signed up.

Awesome!

>>
>> 3) Connect with other nearby local groups to share and enjoy.  Drop in
>> on Serge's group when you are in NYC.  Thank him for starting it!   Do
>> the same when you travel to other places with local groups.  Welcome
>> distant mappers when they visit your local area, too.

I'm trying to reach out to groups outside the direct NYC area (less
than two hours away) to see if we can run combined events.

This is a bit of an "experiment", but the hope is that if I can
connect with locals in other cities, they will take over and make
regular events.


>> "Ambassador Program"  Pah!  Just get on with it.  :-)
>
> Sorry, I believe we need to think outside of our current box.

Were you aware of Richard's background when he wrote this?

- Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[stevea]

Some ideas and thoughts in no particular order:

1)  There are a lot of mappers out there who use OSM data without 
even knowing it:  I'm talking about smartphone users with built-in 
GPS + an app that taps into OSM data (too many to list, yes, and 
still in the minority, but they are out there).  Quite related are 
users (like me) who have a non-smartphone GPS (Garmin brand is very 
well supported) and all they need to know is there is an easy 
download solution of a Lambertus-derived/daveh-produced map-on-a-chip 
that puts OSM on their Garmin device.  For people like hikers, 
mountain bikers and outdoors/sports enthusiasts who get into 
backcountry not well-supported by more commercial maps, having a map 
with tracks and trails is a huge boon.  ESPECIALLY as we stress that 
these data are EDITABLE, and by YOU!  I know for a fact that "a map 
that I can improve" inspires me deeply to go out there and get 
mapping of my local (and not-so-local) surroundings.  Others, with 
this simple educational message, will follow if we get this message 
out there correctly.


2)  The recent work on National Parks means we could use 
opportunities at NPs (ranger stations, infosign kiosks, gift 
shops...) to promote OSM.  "Uncle Sam wants YOU to improve this map!" 
is a bit cheesy, but something along those lines could work, and I 
mean in partnership with the parks, and right AT the parks. 
Especially with how NPs get high traffic in summer, we'd get a great 
deal of exposure right now.  The message needs to stick once folks 
leave the park so they "take the OSM spirit home with them."


3)  Something needs to target people on the Internet who are bored 
(with social media, whatever else is out there that gets ho-hum 
quickly) and the unemployed, underemployed or retired with the 
message that contributing to OSM is a great way to spend time.  It 
makes or keeps your technical skills sharp (if that is in fact your 
inclination), it builds community not just within OSM but within YOU, 
and it has that "feel good" volunteer spirit of giving back to the 
greater good (like writing for Wikipedia or helping out at a soup 
kitchen).


4)  Some of this might be done with carefully targeted ads on the 
'net.  Yes, this costs money, but not a lot.  If the OSM-US spends 
ANY money on "outreach" these ideas should be incorporated into those 
budget talks.  It shouldn't cost much to ramp up a simple banner ad 
that blends better aspects of the ideas in this thread and properly 
sparks new volunteers to join and begin contributing to OSM.


SteveA
California

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:

>> We need publicity!
>
> Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and should
> try and work on as a group.

I wish this was the case, but it's not. I'll elaborate.

> Looking at the data, it is clear that when ever
> there was significant publicity on OSM, the number of editors (particularly
> new ones) has shot up, at least for a while.

Unfortunately our long term trends aren't effected by this.

> While local mapping events are great and important, they probably only
> manage to get a handful of new mappers if at all. Having an article in a
> news paper or significant blog on the other hand is likely to get many more
> new mappers.

When I was in DC, t the Washington Post to covered MappingDC. The
Washington Post is not only the largest paper in DC, it's one of the
largest newspapers in the United States, but the result of the story
was that we got a few signups to our list, but we saw no increase in
our events, and no one came to a mapping party saying they'd heard
about us from the newspaper.

Similarly, when the Washington Post covered the local DC hackerspace,
we had two people stop in at the space (only two!) and neither of them
joined.

> So perhaps instead of setting targets of that we want to achieve X number of
> active mappers in a certain time frame, we could set a target of aiming to
> have Y articles about OSM in the press and Z talks / booths at conferences
> by then.

I love publicity, but what's really important to us is sustaining
community members and mapping activity.

> Those targets are much more tangible than the number of active mappers as
> how any given action will effect that number is rather more speculative.

It's not born out by the numbers in my experience.

- Serge

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Jason Remillard]

Hello,

Most people would agree that we don't have nearly enough people mapping.
Clearly, transcending our early adopter types of GIS and open source
software people will be needed. However, effective strategies for on
boarding the next million people are going to be very different than what
was needed to get the first say 100,000 people signed up. I know this is
very un PC to say, but things like mapping parties/local chapters which
were absolutely essential to recruit the first 100,000 people, really will
not matter much going forward. Even if you get 100 people per mapping
party, its 15,000 mapping parties, to get the next 1.5 million mappers! We
need to be thinking about things that will scale to lots, and lots of
people.

Clifford, of your 4 ideas only getting coverage in mainstream press would
probably be effective. Besides working on mainstream press, getting people
using our data is *and* understanding they can come in and change it is
probably our best hope because it scales.

1. Push back on high volume down stream data consumers that do the absolute
minimum on working with us. For example, foursquare, who has 30 million
users, is doing an awful job supporting us. They have the OSM credit buried
in a blog posting which a bunch of other items. They don't even mention
that anybody can go to OSM to edit the map. Shame on them!! Cragslists,
does a much better job. They have an OSM link on the bottom of the map and
have a way of reporting problems on the map from their interface via our
notes features. I am sure Cragslists has been drivings new mappers into the
project. Other high volume consumer need to look more like Cragslists, and
not foursquare, or Apple.

2.We just had a big thread on this on the main talk list, but we need to
support using our main web page for using our data for finding stuff,
getting directions, and for mapping verticals (hiking, golf, bike, trains,
hunting, etc).  Just today we took a step in this direction, and enabled
the ability to use the location services to find your current position on
the main web site! Our second fund raising round, includes a computer for
router, and more tile servers. It looks like we are moving in this
direction.

3. Last bit, which we are also doing, is to improve our conversion rate.
The new ID editor is pretty nice and I think will help.

Its coming, I'm optimistic about our direction. But, we do need to
understand that the project is at a new phase now. Even though it is lots
of fun, getting together for mapping parties is not getting us the next 1.5
million people.

Thanks
Jason.






On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Clifford Snow wrote:

> We have over 200 mappers contributing to OSM in the US driving us to
> second place, but way behind Germany. Look at OSM Stats for the details.
> http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=countries
>
> Second place is good, but I wonder what we could be if we made it our goal
> to increase the number of active mappers. When you look at our numbers
> against our population, there is a lot of room for growth. See the chart of
> the top 10 below. The data was taken from osmstats along
> with population data from Wikipedia.
>
>   Rank Country Population Mappers Nodes Created Nodes Modified Deleted
> Nodes New Nodes Per Mapper Mappers per 1M Population  1 Germany 80,493,000
> 564 72992 40981 7174 129 7.01  2 United States 316,278,000 202 62036 18103
> 23815 307 0.64  3 Russia 143,400,000 191 84192 17872 3008 441 1.33  4
> France 65,684,000 182 116333 14463 13497 639 2.77  5 Italy 59,704,082 116
> 42873 10047 2603 370 1.94  6 United Kingdom 63,181,775 113 36210 4111 2233
> 320 1.79  7 Poland 38,533,299 91 37578 4271 4112 413 2.36  8 Austria 8,464,554
> 77 18564 4414 948 241 9.10  9 Spain 47,059,533 70 25214 3745 712 360 1.49
> 10 Belgium 11,153,405 52 16430 2201 1670 316 4.66
>
> I'd like to suggest that we adopt a goal of increasing the number of
> active mappers in the US. I'm not sure how we accomplish it, but I'd like
> to solicit suggestions and feedback. Lets set some target goals.  I think
> this is a worth while project to work on.
>
> I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
>
> We need publicity!
> Increase diversity of mappers by attracting more women and minority mappers
> Support for local groups
> OSM Ambassadors (Like Fedora Ambassadors if you are familiar with the
> linux distribution Fedora)
>
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Clifford
>
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
> ___
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kathleen Danielson]

"Clifford, of your 4 ideas only getting coverage in mainstream press would
probably be effective."

Hey folks,  just a quick note to be mindful of the way we're responding to
each other's ideas, and to be especially careful since as we all know,
tone is easily misread online.

(And thanks to Jason for allowing me to unfairly pull out one line from a
thoughtful message and use him as an example)
On Jul 19, 2013 6:11 PM, "Jason Remillard" 
wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Most people would agree that we don't have nearly enough people mapping.
> Clearly, transcending our early adopter types of GIS and open source
> software people will be needed. However, effective strategies for on
> boarding the next million people are going to be very different than what
> was needed to get the first say 100,000 people signed up. I know this is
> very un PC to say, but things like mapping parties/local chapters which
> were absolutely essential to recruit the first 100,000 people, really will
> not matter much going forward. Even if you get 100 people per mapping
> party, its 15,000 mapping parties, to get the next 1.5 million mappers! We
> need to be thinking about things that will scale to lots, and lots of
> people.
>
> Clifford, of your 4 ideas only getting coverage in mainstream press would
> probably be effective. Besides working on mainstream press, getting people
> using our data is *and* understanding they can come in and change it is
> probably our best hope because it scales.
>
> 1. Push back on high volume down stream data consumers that do the
> absolute minimum on working with us. For example, foursquare, who has 30
> million users, is doing an awful job supporting us. They have the OSM
> credit buried in a blog posting which a bunch of other items. They don't
> even mention that anybody can go to OSM to edit the map. Shame on them!!
> Cragslists, does a much better job. They have an OSM link on the bottom of
> the map and have a way of reporting problems on the map from their
> interface via our notes features. I am sure Cragslists has been drivings
> new mappers into the project. Other high volume consumer need to look more
> like Cragslists, and not foursquare, or Apple.
>
> 2.We just had a big thread on this on the main talk list, but we need to
> support using our main web page for using our data for finding stuff,
> getting directions, and for mapping verticals (hiking, golf, bike, trains,
> hunting, etc).  Just today we took a step in this direction, and enabled
> the ability to use the location services to find your current position on
> the main web site! Our second fund raising round, includes a computer for
> router, and more tile servers. It looks like we are moving in this
> direction.
>
> 3. Last bit, which we are also doing, is to improve our conversion rate.
> The new ID editor is pretty nice and I think will help.
>
> Its coming, I'm optimistic about our direction. But, we do need to
> understand that the project is at a new phase now. Even though it is lots
> of fun, getting together for mapping parties is not getting us the next 1.5
> million people.
>
> Thanks
> Jason.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Clifford Snow 
> wrote:
>
>> We have over 200 mappers contributing to OSM in the US driving us to
>> second place, but way behind Germany. Look at OSM Stats for the details.
>> http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=countries
>>
>> Second place is good, but I wonder what we could be if we made it our
>> goal to increase the number of active mappers. When you look at our numbers
>> against our population, there is a lot of room for growth. See the chart of
>> the top 10 below. The data was taken from osmstats along
>> with population data from Wikipedia.
>>
>>   Rank Country Population Mappers Nodes Created Nodes Modified Deleted
>> Nodes New Nodes Per Mapper Mappers per 1M Population  1 Germany 80,493,000
>> 564 72992 40981 7174 129 7.01  2 United States 316,278,000 202 62036
>> 18103 23815 307 0.64  3 Russia 143,400,000 191 84192 17872 3008 441 1.33
>> 4 France 65,684,000 182 116333 14463 13497 639 2.77  5 Italy 59,704,082
>> 116 42873 10047 2603 370 1.94  6 United Kingdom 63,181,775 113 36210 4111
>> 2233 320 1.79  7 Poland 38,533,299 91 37578 4271 4112 413 2.36  8 Austria 
>> 8,464,554
>> 77 18564 4414 948 241 9.10  9 Spain 47,059,533 70 25214 3745 712 360 1.49
>> 10 Belgium 11,153,405 52 16430 2201 1670 316 4.66
>>
>> I'd like to suggest that we adopt a goal of increasing the number of
>> active mappers in the US. I'm not sure how we accomplish it, but I'd like
>> to solicit suggestions and feedback. Lets set some target goals.  I think
>> this is a worth while project to work on.
>>
>> I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
>>
>> We need publicity!
>> Increase diversity of mappers by attracting more women and minority
>> mappers
>> Support for local groups
>> OSM Ambassadors (Like Fedora Ambassadors if you are familiar with the
>> linux distribution Fedora)
>>
>>

Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Richard Fairhurst]

Clifford Snow wrote:
> We need publicity!

Harry Wood is trying to recruit more volunteers for the Communication
Working Group. You can e-mail him on o...@harrywood.co.uk .

cheers
Richard





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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kathleen Danielson]

Kai-- those are some really great ideas around publicity!

Personally, I think we'd need a dedicated PR person on staff to fully
accomplish this. That's not really feasible in the near term, though-- so
maybe we should think about ways that we can break that down into
volunteer-sized tasks? This seems like a great Birthday Sprint project...
(hint hint...)

Non OSM conferences and trade shows also seem like a great opportunity for
> OSM outreach and publicity, as those events can often also reach hundreds
> or
> thousands of people, many of whom might act as multiplicators as they are
> often the more active members in their community.


Can the folks who were at the Esri UC talk about the OSM presence, the
mapping party, and how that all went?


On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:

> Clifford Snow wrote
> > I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
> >
> > We need publicity!
>
> Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and
> should
> try and work on as a group. Looking at the data, it is clear that when ever
> there was significant publicity on OSM, the number of editors (particularly
> new ones) has shot up, at least for a while.
>
> While local mapping events are great and important, they probably only
> manage to get a handful of new mappers if at all. Having an article in a
> news paper or significant blog on the other hand is likely to get many more
> new mappers.
>
> Non OSM conferences and trade shows also seem like a great opportunity for
> OSM outreach and publicity, as those events can often also reach hundreds
> or
> thousands of people, many of whom might act as multiplicators as they are
> often the more active members in their community.
>
> So perhaps instead of setting targets of that we want to achieve X number
> of
> active mappers in a certain time frame, we could set a target of aiming to
> have Y articles about OSM in the press and Z talks / booths at conferences
> by then.
>
> Those targets are much more tangible than the number of active mappers as
> how any given action will effect that number is rather more speculative.
>
>
> As a group in osm-us, we can perhaps work on identifying likely magazines
> and  conferences that would have an interest in high quality open maps.
> Which groups with interest might be particularly underrepresented and
> therefor good candidates for outreach? Furthermore, we can exchange ideas
> of
> what worked best at those events in order to improve the "marketing
> message". E.g. how does one convince an editor that writing about OSM is
> worthwhile thing to do for their audience. How can you become a "guest
> author" to write an article for them and get it accepted? Which aspects of
> OSM are particularly amenably for writing good articles? If you go to have
> a
> booth at a show, what are things easiest to demonstrate? What are the demos
> that spark most interest?
>
> Then we can find local volunteers who actually go to the events or talk to
> editors to do the real outreach.
>
> We still have a long way to go from the 0.6 mappers per 1M population in
> the
> US to the 9 mappers per 1M population in Austria, but collectively we
> hopeful have enough skill and enthusiasm to really work on improving our PR
> and push those numbers up.
>
> Kai
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Steady-increase-in-the-number-of-mappers-in-the-US-tp5770307p5770442.html
> Sent from the USA mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kai Krueger]

Clifford Snow wrote
> I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
> 
> We need publicity!

Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need and should
try and work on as a group. Looking at the data, it is clear that when ever
there was significant publicity on OSM, the number of editors (particularly
new ones) has shot up, at least for a while.

While local mapping events are great and important, they probably only
manage to get a handful of new mappers if at all. Having an article in a
news paper or significant blog on the other hand is likely to get many more
new mappers.

Non OSM conferences and trade shows also seem like a great opportunity for
OSM outreach and publicity, as those events can often also reach hundreds or
thousands of people, many of whom might act as multiplicators as they are
often the more active members in their community. 

So perhaps instead of setting targets of that we want to achieve X number of
active mappers in a certain time frame, we could set a target of aiming to
have Y articles about OSM in the press and Z talks / booths at conferences
by then.

Those targets are much more tangible than the number of active mappers as
how any given action will effect that number is rather more speculative.


As a group in osm-us, we can perhaps work on identifying likely magazines
and  conferences that would have an interest in high quality open maps.
Which groups with interest might be particularly underrepresented and
therefor good candidates for outreach? Furthermore, we can exchange ideas of
what worked best at those events in order to improve the "marketing
message". E.g. how does one convince an editor that writing about OSM is
worthwhile thing to do for their audience. How can you become a "guest
author" to write an article for them and get it accepted? Which aspects of
OSM are particularly amenably for writing good articles? If you go to have a
booth at a show, what are things easiest to demonstrate? What are the demos
that spark most interest?

Then we can find local volunteers who actually go to the events or talk to
editors to do the real outreach.

We still have a long way to go from the 0.6 mappers per 1M population in the
US to the 9 mappers per 1M population in Austria, but collectively we
hopeful have enough skill and enthusiasm to really work on improving our PR
and push those numbers up. 

Kai








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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kai Krueger]

On 07/19/2013 11:06 AM, Kathleen Danielson wrote:
> Kai-- those are some really great ideas around publicity!
> 
> Personally, I think we'd need a dedicated PR person on staff to fully
> accomplish this. That's not really feasible in the near term, though--
> so maybe we should think about ways that we can break that down into
> volunteer-sized tasks?

One good start might be to collect information about what has already
being done.

e.g. on the site
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_in_the_media

i.e. make sure that all of the articles that are known about are listed
and whether anyone in the community worked with the press to make it happen.

For events like conferences or trade shows, it might be worth to create
a little wiki page about what was done, when and by whom ( e.g. like
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Boot_D%C3%BCsseldorf_2012 ) and add
it to the wiki category
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Promotion So far the ones
listed are mostly in German speaking countries. We need to be able to
add some things in the US as well!

That might give some help to figure out who to talk to if you are
planning something yourself.

 This seems like a great Birthday Sprint
> project... (hint hint...)

Yes, that would be a good topic and might go well with beer, cake and
celebrations...

> 
> Non OSM conferences and trade shows also seem like a great
> opportunity for
> OSM outreach and publicity, as those events can often also reach
> hundreds or
> thousands of people, many of whom might act as multiplicators as
> they are
> often the more active members in their community.
> 
> 
> Can the folks who were at the Esri UC talk about the OSM presence, the
> mapping party, and how that all went? 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Kai Krueger  > wrote:
> 
> Clifford Snow wrote
> > I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
> >
> > We need publicity!
> 
> Yes! Publicity is in my opinion one of the biggest things we need
> and should
> try and work on as a group. Looking at the data, it is clear that
> when ever
> there was significant publicity on OSM, the number of editors
> (particularly
> new ones) has shot up, at least for a while.
> 
> While local mapping events are great and important, they probably only
> manage to get a handful of new mappers if at all. Having an article in a
> news paper or significant blog on the other hand is likely to get
> many more
> new mappers.
> 
> Non OSM conferences and trade shows also seem like a great
> opportunity for
> OSM outreach and publicity, as those events can often also reach
> hundreds or
> thousands of people, many of whom might act as multiplicators as
> they are
> often the more active members in their community.
> 
> So perhaps instead of setting targets of that we want to achieve X
> number of
> active mappers in a certain time frame, we could set a target of
> aiming to
> have Y articles about OSM in the press and Z talks / booths at
> conferences
> by then.
> 
> Those targets are much more tangible than the number of active
> mappers as
> how any given action will effect that number is rather more speculative.
> 
> 
> As a group in osm-us, we can perhaps work on identifying likely
> magazines
> and  conferences that would have an interest in high quality open maps.
> Which groups with interest might be particularly underrepresented and
> therefor good candidates for outreach? Furthermore, we can exchange
> ideas of
> what worked best at those events in order to improve the "marketing
> message". E.g. how does one convince an editor that writing about OSM is
> worthwhile thing to do for their audience. How can you become a "guest
> author" to write an article for them and get it accepted? Which
> aspects of
> OSM are particularly amenably for writing good articles? If you go
> to have a
> booth at a show, what are things easiest to demonstrate? What are
> the demos
> that spark most interest?
> 
> Then we can find local volunteers who actually go to the events or
> talk to
> editors to do the real outreach.
> 
> We still have a long way to go from the 0.6 mappers per 1M
> population in the
> US to the 9 mappers per 1M population in Austria, but collectively we
> hopeful have enough skill and enthusiasm to really work on improving
> our PR
> and push those numbers up.
> 
> Kai
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context:
> 
> http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Steady-increase-in-the-number-of-mappers-in-the-US-tp5770307p5770442.html
> Sent from the USA mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Clifford Snow]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 9:03 AM, Alex Barth  wrote:

> The local dimension of OpenStreetMap was exactly why OSM US decided to do
> #editathons. There's one happening this weekend, join us.
>
> http://openstreetmap.us/2013/07/july-summer-editathon/
>

Our group is signed up.  (Seattle)

>
> Well I've been promoting this event quite enough on this list so I'm sure
> everyone of you already has this on the radar :) But share it in your
> networks if you haven't yet. It's not too late.
>

We have been. We have invited members of the local open source gis
community to attend as well as the City of Renton's gis team to attend. We
are holding the event in the suburb of Renton. Additionally we have reached
out, as best as we can, to new mappers. Unfortunately OSM doesn't make it
easy to do a mass mailing. It actually doesn't even give the ability!

>
> In terms of publicity, it's exactly stuff like this that gets us into the
> papers, like here:
> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/what-happens-when-everyone-makes-maps/277850/(interesting
>  to point out that the coverage of the NYC event is the merit
> of the local group btw, and not the OSM us chapter).
>
> Editathons are just one thing to encourage people to get together and
> organize a local event. There might be other things that the OSM US chapter
> can lend support with. Speaking as the OSM US chapter Secretary:
> suggestions and active help are always welcome!
>

Alex, what I'm trying to do is get us thinking about how to increase the
number of active mappers. If you are happy with the track we are on, fine,
you don't have to do anything. But I believe that increasing the number of
active mappers should be one of our goals. I threw out
a brainstorming list. It certainly wasn't complete nor even tested. The
ambassador program was just a suggestion. I certainly wasn't suggesting
that people are not  acting as ambassadors already. But would more help?
Would funding help? I think the answers are yes and yes. It makes for sense
to me that instead of everyone looking for funding, that having it
centrally managed make sense.

-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Simon Poole]

Am 19.07.2013 12:06, schrieb Kathleen Danielson:
> Hi Clifford,
>
> Wow--thanks for sharing those stats! They are really interesting! 
>
> I just took a look at the link you shared and it looks like we're
> seeing the number of mappers contributing on any given day. Do you
> know if it's possible to find the number of mappers contributing in a
> week or even month? That might give us a better sense of the "real"
> number of mappers in the US. (They would all still be relative to
> other countries, but it might give us a better indication of how we're
> doing. For example, when I first saw that 202 number, I was surprised
> at how low it was compared to SOTMUS attendance (380+), but knowing
> it's a daily tally makes far more sense. 
>
Well yes it is possible, however is essentially boils down to analysing
a full history extract of the US, the changeset bounding boxes are just
too unreliable to be useful (further: such an analysis just counts
people who mapped in the US which is naturally a larger number than bona
fida US mappers). Anyway pre-licence change there were contributions
from roughly 24'000 mappers in the US extract.

To compare that with a random (:-)) other country: number of mappers
with contributions at the same point in time as above: 6500, daily
editors typically 50-60 (pop 8 million) so the ratio total mappers to
daily mappers is roughly the same.

Simon 


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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Richard Weait]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Clifford Snow  wrote:

[ ... ]
> As I envision an OSM Ambassador program, the goals would be similar to
> Fedora[1],
>
> Organize OSM participation at events
> Demonstrate OSM to the public
> Promote OSM at local events with talks, handouts and swag
> Promote Switch2osm
>
> Provide training in iD
>
>
> Funding should be made available to the ambassadors for reimbursement for
> travel and other related expenses. The most likely candidate to handling the
> funding would be the US Chapter of OpenStreetMap. A budget and someone to
> authorize expenditure would be required.

This doesn't have to wait for funding, or permission!  There are
hundreds of OpenStreetMap "ambassadors" reading this list, right now.

1) Start your local OpenStreetMap group.  Meet on a regular schedule.
Monthly is best.  Make your goal, "be available to answer questions
about OpenStreetMap".  Everything else is okay too.

2) Grow your local "ambassador team".  You don't have to do it all
You don't have to do it alone.  Include people in your group who like
to reach out to other groups.  Include people who like to speak at
events.  Include people who can host at a venue.  Share the load.
"Replace yourself" with assistant- and alternate-organizers to
strengthen the local team.  But YOU have to start it.  Just do that
much.

3) Connect with other nearby local groups to share and enjoy.  Drop in
on Serge's group when you are in NYC.  Thank him for starting it!   Do
the same when you travel to other places with local groups.  Welcome
distant mappers when they visit your local area, too.

"Ambassador Program"  Pah!  Just get on with it.  :-)

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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Alex Barth]

+1 to just get going in your city or in your community. Let nothing stop
you.

The local dimension of OpenStreetMap was exactly why OSM US decided to do
#editathons. There's one happening this weekend, join us.

http://openstreetmap.us/2013/07/july-summer-editathon/

Well I've been promoting this event quite enough on this list so I'm sure
everyone of you already has this on the radar :) But share it in your
networks if you haven't yet. It's not too late.

In terms of publicity, it's exactly stuff like this that gets us into the
papers, like here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/what-happens-when-everyone-makes-maps/277850/(interesting
to point out that the coverage of the NYC event is the merit
of the local group btw, and not the OSM us chapter).

Editathons are just one thing to encourage people to get together and
organize a local event. There might be other things that the OSM US chapter
can lend support with. Speaking as the OSM US chapter Secretary:
suggestions and active help are always welcome!



On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Richard Weait  wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Clifford Snow 
> wrote:
>
> [ ... ]
> > As I envision an OSM Ambassador program, the goals would be similar to
> > Fedora[1],
> >
> > Organize OSM participation at events
> > Demonstrate OSM to the public
> > Promote OSM at local events with talks, handouts and swag
> > Promote Switch2osm
> >
> > Provide training in iD
> >
> >
> > Funding should be made available to the ambassadors for reimbursement for
> > travel and other related expenses. The most likely candidate to handling
> the
> > funding would be the US Chapter of OpenStreetMap. A budget and someone to
> > authorize expenditure would be required.
>
> This doesn't have to wait for funding, or permission!  There are
> hundreds of OpenStreetMap "ambassadors" reading this list, right now.
>
> 1) Start your local OpenStreetMap group.  Meet on a regular schedule.
> Monthly is best.  Make your goal, "be available to answer questions
> about OpenStreetMap".  Everything else is okay too.
>
> 2) Grow your local "ambassador team".  You don't have to do it all
> You don't have to do it alone.  Include people in your group who like
> to reach out to other groups.  Include people who like to speak at
> events.  Include people who can host at a venue.  Share the load.
> "Replace yourself" with assistant- and alternate-organizers to
> strengthen the local team.  But YOU have to start it.  Just do that
> much.
>
> 3) Connect with other nearby local groups to share and enjoy.  Drop in
> on Serge's group when you are in NYC.  Thank him for starting it!   Do
> the same when you travel to other places with local groups.  Welcome
> distant mappers when they visit your local area, too.
>
> "Ambassador Program"  Pah!  Just get on with it.  :-)
>
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> Talk-us@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
>
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Clifford Snow]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Richard Weait  wrote:

> This doesn't have to wait for funding, or permission!  There are
> hundreds of OpenStreetMap "ambassadors" reading this list, right now.
>

Are you saying that you are satisfied with the number of active US mappers?
Really?

>
> 1) Start your local OpenStreetMap group.  Meet on a regular schedule.
> Monthly is best.  Make your goal, "be available to answer questions
> about OpenStreetMap".  Everything else is okay too.
>

We already have an active local group that meets regularly.  It currently
has over 125 members signed up.

>
> 2) Grow your local "ambassador team".  You don't have to do it all
> You don't have to do it alone.  Include people in your group who like
> to reach out to other groups.  Include people who like to speak at
> events.  Include people who can host at a venue.  Share the load.
> "Replace yourself" with assistant- and alternate-organizers to
> strengthen the local team.  But YOU have to start it.  Just do that
> much.
>
> 3) Connect with other nearby local groups to share and enjoy.  Drop in
> on Serge's group when you are in NYC.  Thank him for starting it!   Do
> the same when you travel to other places with local groups.  Welcome
> distant mappers when they visit your local area, too.
>

Great idea.

>
> "Ambassador Program"  Pah!  Just get on with it.  :-)
>

Sorry, I believe we need to think outside of our current box.


-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Clifford Snow]

On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 3:06 AM, Kathleen Danielson <
kathleen.daniel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyway, I think that a goal of increasing active mappers is really
smart-- perhaps we could set annual or quarterly targets for ourselves?

Tracking and publicizing the data monthly should be step 1. Editathons can
help increase the number of active mappers, but realistically, we need more
mappers. US isn't low because we don't edit enough, it's low because we
need more mappers. Step 2 might be setting an annual target. But just
setting a goal isn't enough. We need a plan a strategy to get there.

Can you talk more about what an OSM Ambassador would do? I'm familiar w/
> Fedora, but not its Ambassadors.


As I envision an OSM Ambassador program, the goals would be similar to
Fedora[1],

Organize OSM participation at events
Demonstrate OSM to the public
Promote OSM at local events with talks, handouts and swag
Promote Switch2osm

Provide training in iD


Funding should be made available to the ambassadors for reimbursement for
travel and other related expenses. The most likely candidate to handling
the funding would be the US Chapter of OpenStreetMap. A budget and someone
to authorize expenditure would be required.

We already have people that give talks to outside groups so you might ask
why we need a formal program. A formal Ambassador program would allow
individuals to travel to events that they might otherwise not be able to
afford on their own. It could cover the cost of printed material and swag.
Training could be included to make sure our Ambassadors are knowledgeable.

An Ambassador program is just a suggestion to help us increase the number
of active mappers.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors

-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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Re: [Talk-us] Steady increase in the number of mappers in the US

[Kathleen Danielson]

Hi Clifford,

Wow--thanks for sharing those stats! They are really interesting!

I just took a look at the link you shared and it looks like we're seeing
the number of mappers contributing on any given day. Do you know if it's
possible to find the number of mappers contributing in a week or even
month? That might give us a better sense of the "real" number of mappers in
the US. (They would all still be relative to other countries, but it might
give us a better indication of how we're doing. For example, when I first
saw that 202 number, I was surprised at how low it was compared to SOTMUS
attendance (380+), but knowing it's a daily tally makes far more sense.

Anyway, I think that a goal of increasing active mappers is really smart--
perhaps we could set annual or quarterly targets for ourselves?

Can you talk more about what an OSM Ambassador would do? I'm familiar w/
Fedora, but not its Ambassadors.




On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Clifford Snow wrote:

> We have over 200 mappers contributing to OSM in the US driving us to
> second place, but way behind Germany. Look at OSM Stats for the details.
> http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=countries
>
> Second place is good, but I wonder what we could be if we made it our goal
> to increase the number of active mappers. When you look at our numbers
> against our population, there is a lot of room for growth. See the chart of
> the top 10 below. The data was taken from osmstats along
> with population data from Wikipedia.
>
>   Rank Country Population Mappers Nodes Created Nodes Modified Deleted
> Nodes New Nodes Per Mapper Mappers per 1M Population  1 Germany 80,493,000
> 564 72992 40981 7174 129 7.01  2 United States 316,278,000 202 62036 18103
> 23815 307 0.64  3 Russia 143,400,000 191 84192 17872 3008 441 1.33  4
> France 65,684,000 182 116333 14463 13497 639 2.77  5 Italy 59,704,082 116
> 42873 10047 2603 370 1.94  6 United Kingdom 63,181,775 113 36210 4111 2233
> 320 1.79  7 Poland 38,533,299 91 37578 4271 4112 413 2.36  8 Austria 8,464,554
> 77 18564 4414 948 241 9.10  9 Spain 47,059,533 70 25214 3745 712 360 1.49
> 10 Belgium 11,153,405 52 16430 2201 1670 316 4.66
>
> I'd like to suggest that we adopt a goal of increasing the number of
> active mappers in the US. I'm not sure how we accomplish it, but I'd like
> to solicit suggestions and feedback. Lets set some target goals.  I think
> this is a worth while project to work on.
>
> I'll start by just listing a few of my thoughts:
>
> We need publicity!
> Increase diversity of mappers by attracting more women and minority mappers
> Support for local groups
> OSM Ambassadors (Like Fedora Ambassadors if you are familiar with the
> linux distribution Fedora)
>
>
> Cheers,
> --
> Clifford
>
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
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