<div dir="ltr">Martijn's recent diary post "How can we double the number of active mappers in the US in a year?" has an interesting proposition, rather than one big annual Meetup, we hold smaller regional meetups. The problem is that the big meetup doesn't produce more mappers. I've attended three SOTM-US conferences. Common to the three I've attended is the small number of active mappers. I wonder what percentage of attendees are active mappers? My sense is that it is small. I don't doubt that a great number of attendees have made an edit or two. But most are either users of the data or supporters of OSM, not contributors. Certainly most don't go back home figure out how to build a OSM community. <div><br></div><div>Before we can tackle mapper growth, let's collect data to help quantify the problem. Let's survey mappers to find out what got them here and why they stay. Further, let's attempt to contact mappers that have be absent to find out why. We should also reach out to Meetup organizers to find what works, what doesn't and what additional tools they need. For example, we have an active Meetup group in Seattle. But we need more help contacting new mappers. Currently the only why is to manually look for new mappers. We need better tools. When we conduct mapping parties, it would be nice to have handouts to give businesses. </div><div><br></div><div>Some other crazy suggestions:</div><div>Partner with incident response teams and create a tool to people to map their neighborhood. [2]</div><div>Fund people to travel and give talks at events</div><div>Reduce the cost of admission to SOTM-US. Substantially increase the number of scholarships and lower the bar to getting a scholarship.</div><div><br></div><div>Martijn has given us an excellent goal. I hope the Board decides to adopt this is one of its priorities. </div><div><br><div><div>We have a chance to influence future of the US Chapter by voting for candidates that will focus on increasing the number of active mappers in the US. Remember, we are voting for a position of leadership, not who is the best mapper. Please ignore the silly suggestions coming from across the pond and vote for the best people to Lead OSM in the US.</div><div><br><div><br></div><div>[1] <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/36087" target="_blank">http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/36087</a></div><div>[2] <a href="http://mil.wa.gov/emergency-management-division/preparedness/map-your-neighborhood">http://mil.wa.gov/emergency-management-division/preparedness/map-your-neighborhood</a><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div><div dir="ltr"><div>@osm_seattle<br></div><div><a href="http://osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us" target="_blank">osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us</a></div><div>OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch</div></div></div>
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