[diversity-talk] Best practices?

[Steven Johnson]

Kate Chapman says:

       So the theory is by going into other people's

> > communities they will learn how they can contribute to OSM and how it
> > can be useful to them.
>

Wholeheartedly agree with this. I'm working with an informal group within
the US Census Bureau to get them started contributing to OpenStreetMap. I
find I have to introduce & re-introduce the topic, do A LOT of
hand-holding, and continuously make a case for the benefits. And there is a
range of benefits, including:

   - How to engage with geography on a 1:1 scale
   - How mapping activities help build community ties
   - Personal satisfaction of turning one's local knowledge into a
   community asset
   - And, perhaps peculiar to the Census Bureau, thinking like an
   enumerator in the field

> As for having a events and trying to get a different audience. I think
> changing the type of venue is one start. For example sometimes having
> kid friendly events or mapping parties aimed at a specific set of
> features that might appeal to a different crowd. For example we've
> discussed doing a women's health related mapping event. It would make
> sense in that case to do outreach to organizations involved in women's
> health.

Kate, your implicit point is that diversity is achieved through outreach &
education, which I also believe is the case. Stepping outside our normal
tech venues is a necessary step to introducing OSM to a broader audience
and welcoming new mappers. In that sense, I think that a sustained and
coordinated outreach effort would go a long way to increasing the diversity
of the OSM community. Natural targets for outreach could include women's
health orgs, but also boy/girl scouts, 4H, bike clubs, hiking/outing clubs,
and so on.

So, what are the next steps to putting these things into practice?

-- SEJ
-- twitter: @geomantic
-- skype: sejohnson8

There are two types of people in the world. Those that can extrapolate from
incomplete data.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/diversity-talk/attachments/20130627/adc794a2/attachment.html>