Unfortunately I missed State of the Map in Girona, Spain this year. I seem to be making every other one – which means I’ll be attending the first State of the Map US being held in Atlanta this coming weekend.

The United States had a much later start in OpenStreetMap than Europe and other parts of the world – but we also have a long history of open-government data that created less of a demand or need for grassroots mapping. However, the benefit of this culture is that the US government, from the local and state levels, all the way to the Federal level, are interested in utilizing OpenStreetMap and connecting with the community.

I’ll be speaking on Sunday about the necessity, and benefits, of moving beyond merely open data to instead focus on collaborative data gathering and mapping. Through our work on GeoCommons, OpenStreetMap, and deployments of data sharing to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Haiti and how citizens with organizations need to engage together in dicussing the need for data, methods for collectively gathering, and ways to open share and capture feedback in order to improve the overall quality as well as impact of open data.

OpenStreetMap has understood this from the beginning in promoting through “mapping parties“. These parties had the explicit goal of mapping a region and training new mappers, but implicitly they created a community of like-minded local citizens that self-identified their desire to spend time and energy in working together to gather and open data. It is basic initiatives like this that are vital at the local and regional levels.

If you’re near Atlanta, or can come by to the conference, hope to see you there. And regardless, think about how you can connect within your community of interest to start a dialogue and collaboration around open data.

Next week I’ll be at Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) conference joining a panel of illustrious peers that should result in quite a rousing discussion on open data, standards, viable business markets, and good ol’ neogeography. Peter Batty is moderating and includes James Fee, Ron Lake, Steve Coast, and myself.

I’m also giving a talk in the afternoon on Tuesday at GITA about crowd-sourced and volunteer crisis response. I will be discussing the history behind GeoCommons as a means for fast, collaborative map production and analysis, and the amazing work by the global communities such as OpenStreetMap, CrisisMappers, CrisisCommons, Ushahidi, and others as it applies to the advancement of geospatial technology and where it’s leading.

Camp Time!

In talking with the GITA organizers about the communities that responded to Haiti, and in general the ground-swell around technologists in crisis response, they were interested in supporting a CrisisCamp as part of the Conference. So I’m excited to say that there will be a CrisisCamp in Phoenix, Arizona on the Sunday, April 25th before the conference at the convention center. You can register at the EventBrite page

Obviously with so many geospatial people around, it’s going to be very map focused. It’s a great opportunity to look at some of the possible integration of the crowd-sourced data and community tools into more traditional, and analytic, platforms. In CrisisCampDC, volunteers such as Scott Broo did a slope analysis of LIDAR data in analyzing IDP camp placement and potential flood areas. How would GIS experts coordinate with the larger CrisisCommons community to identify and support these types of efforts. What are the other potential uses of LIDAR, remote imaging, surveying, mobile reported data, field analysis and paper map printing. And beyond just maps, we’ll be picking up on the number of CrisisCommons projects that continue to grow and evolve. And if you have ideas, suggest some or discuss on the CrisisCamp Phoenix Wiki page.

If you’re a technologist, volunteer, geospatial expert, NGO, government, or just interested, sign up and stop by and join the community! I hope to see you at CrisisCamp GITA Phoenix, or at the conference itself.

Last night I spoke at Ignite Where2.0. The community and ecosystem of Where2.0 continues to utilize cutting-edge technology to provide consumer and business services and needs. You can locate activities, friends, stores, media and more and have it integrated into mobile lives and online personas.

These are all great advancements, and are blurring the lines between the online digital data and our interaction with the real world. However it’s vital that we realize the real potential application of these technologies and what our legacy is on the entire world. How can we engage with global citizens, understand their needs and desires, and collaborate on building channels of information and tools that serve our individual and collective goals.

Almost two years ago I moved from Michigan, with stints in California, to Washington, DC. I moved at an auspicious time in our nation as the highly contentious presidential election approached at the same time concerns on transparent monitoring of democratic elections and process loomed. Social media and streams such as twitter, smartphones, voice technology and visualization provided the components to demonstrate how we can enable citizens to share their experiences, their problems, and for us to openly see problems and victories as they occurred.

This same concept applies just a well around the world. Open platforms such as Ushahidi have helped bring citizen reporting in elections in India, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan – each to different outcomes – but still in a way that harbinges a more open and transparent government process.

Now through my experiences with CrisisCommons, working with multinational organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations, and the federal and local governments, it’s clear to see how the leading edge of the Where2.0 community can have an amazing and unparalleled impact in providing understanding and change in global and local issues: Environment change, food security, humanitarian development, education, and disaster response.

In looking at the various open government initiatives, the questions arise in looking past the press release to the realized value of sharing data with businesses and citizens. I was struck my the foresight of the Arkansas AGIO team in the realization of how sharing data as broad and wide as possibly helps mitigate their vulnerability to disaster by enabling responders open access to vital information that would assist in response.

This concept is apparent in how OpenStreetMap was successful in Haiti. With the lack of official, government supplied data the best solution was to crowd-source the information from varied sources and rebuild the national data infrastructure, external to the government itself. While it has been unpredictably successful, the value continues to be the open access of the data by any and all organizations, and the eventual adoption by the government itself in rebuilding its capacity. The hope is that the government continues to openly collaborate with the global community in managing and maintaining this data so that the situation doesn’t need to reoccur.

In summary, the community is making a difference. The tools we develop in WhereCamp, IRC, open-source communities, and from companies are changing the capabilities of crisis response and development. My message is to urge the larger community to continue to think how their solutions can have a more broad impact.

If your technology can help a consumer find a great $4 latte, that’s good for your business. If it can also help a child find clean water near their village, that’s good for the world.

It has been an incredibly busy and interesting summer in DC and the geo-community. In the past few months I spoke at Reboot11 in Copenhagen, was wowed by the progress of the OpenStreetMap community, tools, and data at State of the Map, and did a little preparatory GIS tête-à-tête at GeoWeb.

This was perhaps most summarized by the experience at Gov2.0 Summit. The conference, held in DC but led by O’Reilly and TechWeb saw the convergence of technorati with government agencies, and beltway consultants. There was Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sitting next to Vint Cerf – old and new, talking about government leveraging social and internet tools – and then the White House’s Macon Phillips, Aneesh Chopra and Vivek Kundra talking about revolutions within the agencies themselves.

I was fortunate to share my thoughts and our work with various agencies and their ability to leverage location and geospatial tools as a common collaboration point between citizens and government agencies and municipalities. Besides, it’s always fun to follow Jack Dangermond on stage.

Upcoming Events

Of course, summer isn’t over. Next Monday I am speaking about geospatial search at the EPA Search Summit here in DC. Then heading over to UK to AGI Geocommunity’09 to really discuss the current state, and possible futures of geospatial technologies.

In general, AGI Geocommunity looks like a great lineup of talks. The different perspectives of problems (UK postcodes & MasterMap anyone?) and solutions (OpenStreetMap did emerge from the UK) is very enlightening.

While in England – I just may hop up to Oxford Geek night on Saturday, September 26 and try and foment some more interest in CrisisCommons and CrisisCampUK. Let me know if you’re around – it would be great to meetup.

This November, I’ll be a faculty member at the UVA Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship along with several other well known geohackers.

We’ll be holding a series of talks on software tools, data formats, techniques, and scholarship of geospatial data. The institute is accepting applications for attendees until September 1 – so you can apply through the UVA Scholar’s Lab.

Through the generosity of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Scholars’ Lab will host a three-track Institute for Enabling Geospatial Scholarship at the University of Virginia Library in November 2009 and May 2010. This Institute will bring scholars, cultural heritage professionals, and software developers together to support and develop geospatial projects and methods in the digital humanities. The NEH’s Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities program will support travel and lodging for 40 attendees as well as Institute faculty members. Dedicated funding is available for graduate students as well as faculty attendees.

You can read more on Bethanie’s blog
In addition, to cap off the institute, I will be giving the GIS Day Plenary talk on Wednesday, November 18 in Charlottesville, VA. The event will be open to the public.

It’s truly an honor to be teaching at my alma mater – albeit in quite a different discipline than the one I learned while attending.