The members of OSM’s Future Group and several other community members have been working hard in the past weeks to create the first outlines of a SWOT analysis of OpenStreetMap. It’s still in a brainstorming phase, so that’s why you can find the SWOT on a discussion page instead of a better looking quadrant. That will be done later this year.
We would like you to take a look at it and update the SWOT with your own thoughts: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Future#SWOT_Analysis_of_OpenStreetMap Why spending time on a thing as a SWOT and not spend thát time on mapping? Well, that’s because OSM has got an enormous potential, which for some unknown reason still isn’t unleashed very well. A SWOT is one of the tools in the process to find out what could be done to change that. Three examples. 1. 1. In a recent discussion on osmf-talk http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2013-July/002179.html Michal Palenik wrote this: "I am teaching a class at out department of cartography of comenius university. classes openstreetmap 1 (editing in josm) and openstreetmap 2 (postgis, leaflet basics). since 2010. However i am not aware of a single student becoming a regular mapper" The logic for a SWOT: strength: a community member teaching on OSM. Weakness: no structural effect of his efforts. A potential weakness: the community not helping him in ideas/understanding (he did the last post on this topic). Opportunity: the ideas other community members have how to change students into regular mappers. 2. 2. In my country thousands of hours have been spent on mapping the country. The map is looking better than any other map. When surfing to websites which use a map (local soccer clubs etcetera), OSM is never used. Others are. What’s the reason for that? And what’s the opportunity here, what could be changed? Translating this into the logics of a SWOT: ‘weakness = low usage of OSM on websites’ ‘opportunity = [please fill in whatever you think is the opportunity here]’. 3. 3. In several countries (tens of) thousands of people are part of the GMM community and the WAZE community. They are not only contributing in terms of gps traces, but also massively in the respective map editors. What are the reasons that OSM is relatively small in these countries, and what are the opportunities/potential changes for OSM? Translating this into the logics of a SWOT: ‘weakness = too few contributors’ ‘opportunity = [please fill in whatever you think is the opportunity here]’ If you have any questions on the SWOT or on the process the Future Group interactively follows, don't hesitate to ask. The OSM Future group will be present @ SOTM with several members for a workshop on the future of OSM. We'll also interview several community members. More information on that will follow later. OSM Future Group Johan (user: It's so funny)
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