[OSM-talk] (1) news on mapping campaign in Milano and (2) check for procedure to generate complex statistics on portion of OSM planet

[Andrea Giacomelli (pibinko)]

Inge - Thanks for your appreciation!

See some comments below:

A) Concerning our approach to the radio: we (GFOSS.it) are putting a strong focus on communication and media relations in our awareness raising activity, and we have developed a good relationship with some mappers (some of which are members of our association, but this is not a constraint)

...I think this is the key to our approach...we have a combination of a "formal" presence (i.e. an association which is registered in Italy and can relate formally to other institutional subjects) with some brilliant mappers wreaking "GPS havoc" around the country...

We already had national radio coverage (live) for a Mapping party in Arezzo, and who knows what will happen next.. ;)

This also deriving from other parallel experiences some of us are conducting, and the radio is only one of the aspects.


B) ...thinking about other details...for example...we did put some thinking also on "localisation".

Rather than calling the event a "mapping party", we devised the "M(')appare" title, which has a double meaning in Italian: 

Mappare = to map

M'appare = something appears to me

...so to many this is more intriguing than a plain "party" (while we do like to party, anyway), as it suggests that the mapping we do is progressively "exposing" our territory...

Various Italian mappers liked the idea, so we are now having M(')appare Ferrara,  Portofino and very soon Verona etc.

"non-mappers" (including media) also like the title..

...and so forth...the combination of these aspects surely helps to propose the topic.

our radio hosts, following our "word game vibration", actually invented the "Mappy hour", instead of the "Happy hour", which we have in a cafe last Tuesday...

..all this is interesting...

C) On the other hand, it is true that OpenStreetMap is an extremely easy idea to "sell"...joking on the Italian mailing list, I even suggested that we should assign an award to the first person who says he/she DOES NOT like the concept ;)

The difficult parts are...

   (1) to make this happen in the broader context of awareness raising of free geographic information (of which OSM is a subset);

   (2)  insuring media provide a fair picture of what goes on...while the first impression of OSM is simple, some of its founding principles are not immediate for a general audience (and for journalists who serve a general audience);

   (3) striking a balance between demonstrations and actual opportunities that can be generated by OSM.

But overall I say that what we are doing an interesting challenge, and we are very curious of seeing the what will happen in Italy over the coming months.

D) ...possibly I slightly deviated from "operational" suggestions for your mapping party, but I thought that providing a broader picture on our drivers may still give you ideas on how to apply this to your home town.

E) ...one last point: you mention competitions for the public...

no, this has not happened yet: GPS remains "not for all"...but the Autumn may bring news in this respect..;)


Regards from Italy -

Andrea aka pibinko
http://www.pibinko.org


---------- Initial Header -----------

>From      : "Inge Wallin" inge at lysator.liu.se
To          : talk at openstreetmap.org,"Andrea Giacomelli (pibinko)" postdadaismo at libero.it
Cc          : 
Date      : Fri, 30 May 2008 20:14:27 +0200
Subject : Re: [OSM-talk] (1) news on mapping campaign in Milano and (2) check for procedure to generate complex statistics on portion of OSM planet



> On Friday 30 May 2008 17:15:36 Andrea Giacomelli (pibinko) wrote:
> 
> > UPDATE ON MAPPING CAMPAIGN IN MILANO
> > ====================================
.....
> > This campaign has been designed as a joint operation between GFOSS.it (the
> > Italian OSGEO Chapter), some of the Italian "free mappers", and a local
> > radio station.
> 
> This is very interesting.  I am currently planning a mapping weekend in my 
> home town in august.  I thought of trying to get a local newspaper to report 
> before, during and after the event, but perhaps a radio station is even more 
> interesting.  
> 
> How did you manage to sell the idea to the radio station?  What where your 
> arguments?  Who did you talk to?  Did they use the event in other ways like 
> competitions for the public?  Any detail is interesting.
> 
> 	-Inge

>