[Osmf-talk] logo update

[Kate Chapman]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 5:03 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> And I see a danger of these things getting lost in an almost fanatic desire
> to cater to non-geeks.

As a geek and a map geek no less I want to mention I've only been
contributing to OSM for three years.  Why?  Because when I first went
to the site before that I didn't understand!  Yes a programmer with a
geography degree couldn't understand what the point of the site was.
There are different ways to explain things to people to make
understandable by all.

>
> There may well be a way to open the project up to more and more participants
> from all walks of life without dumbing it down to a "fun activity for your
> spare time".
>

Exactly there are ways to explain OpenStreetMap to people.  I meet
with people almost on a daily basis who don't care about what many of
us thinks is most important.  They don't know that downloading the
data is important to them, what about when you make it clear and show
them?  Then they get it.

Explaining OSM as "you can download the data to use in your own
applications" doesn't mean anything to non-geeks.  "You can fix the
data and put it in your GPS," does.  I think there is a way to explain
that so that both groups can understand.

Best,

-Kate