[Talk-us] Increasing the number of US Mappers

[Clifford Snow]

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.

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.

Some other crazy suggestions:
Partner with incident response teams and create a tool to people to map
their neighborhood. [2]
Fund people to travel and give talks at events
Reduce the cost of admission to SOTM-US. Substantially increase the number
of scholarships and lower the bar to getting a scholarship.

Martijn has given us an excellent goal. I hope the Board decides to adopt
this is one of its priorities.

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.


[1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/mvexel/diary/36087
[2]
http://mil.wa.gov/emergency-management-division/preparedness/map-your-neighborhood

-- 
@osm_seattle
osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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