For David Percy, URISA GIS Oregon Developers group. Was asked to speak about some of the bottom up phenomena to complement the GIS expertise this group already had. Spoke to motives and pressures that are encouraging people to become citizen mappers.

1. what is neogeography?
 anselm@hook.org
 (415) 215 4856
 http://hook.org
 http://meedan.net

march 7th 2008

2. what does google say?
 Andrew Turner (Mapufacture) has some
thoughts:
 http://www.slideshare.net/ajturner/gisday2007-
neogeography-and-gis
 ”geographical techniques and tools used for
personal activities or for utilization by a non-
expert group of users; not formal or analytical”

3. can buzzwords capture it?
 openstreetmaps, openlayers, kml, georss,
microformats, ”community versus committee”,
exploration, explanation, digitization,
democratization, web 2.0, open data, creative
commons, citizen mapping, renaissance, social,
grassroots, gis, gps, ”wiki as a universal
solvent”, socialight, platial, plazes, flickr, google
mymaps, world66, fireeagle, mapufacture,
osgeo, geocodr???

4. is openstreetmaps it?
 free labour
 free source code
 open standards
 open data
 new standards,
schemas and
protocols
 sparked by ordance
survey
 ”wiki like”

5. is it merely an opposition?
 to the role of being just a consumer?
 to boundary makers that cut apart ecosystems,
economies and communities?
 to industrial cartography?
 to manufacturing perception?
 to licensing issues?

6. the industry struggles
 still evolving language
such as ”volunteered
geographic
information”
 industry extends to
meet new needs
(tiling, wfs-t...)
 amateurs do adopt
standards eventually

7. it may be a language?
 a kind of l33t speak
 a way to socialize
 ownership over terms
 with freedom to steal
 & freedom to rewrite
 just people talking
 like social practice art

8. mapping the unmapped
 volatile and transient
 censured; grafitti
 subjective; histories
 illegal; criticism
 copyrighted; britain
 ephemeral; first love

9. a response to obstacles?
 scaling to allow many participants
 signalling other people in real time
 noise and spam
 rights and trust

10. the scaling problem
 how do you let a million people contribute in
real time to a map?
 velocity, quality, cost-savings -> pick 2
 ”good enough” is the enemy of best
 see wikipedia, linux, craigslist, delicious...
 we see distributed, non-centralized,
aggregation centric strategies

11. the signalling problem
 the voice we had when we lived in small towns
 being able to stick a fistful of dollars in the air
 emerging real-time brokerages; fireeagle etc
 towards craigslist 2.0
 just in time negotiation; finding that hotel room
 landing at the airport in that strange new place

12. the noise problem
 my god it's full of spam
 (hint; knowing where starbucks is - this is spam)
 existing social networks can help filter
 previously seen interests can help filter
 apprehending the world from somebody elses
point of view

13. the rights problem
 unabdicate ownership
over representation
 reclaim responsibility
to map ourselves
 shows how important
creative commons
licensing will become
 ”salmon nation” is a
good example

14. the trust problem
 when it affects your
life – do you trust it?
 who made the maps?
do you trust them?
 Secrets and
reciprocal
disclosure...

15. towards future maps
 we may all begin to map every day all the time
 maps become a language between peers
 maps become more like video games
 maps help placemaking not just placemarking
 maps help us see how to reach a 'middle way'
between forest preserve and urban jungle
 professionals utilize ”eyeballs on the ground”
more.

16. my hope and interest
 maps become a way for all of us to collect
ground truth about our ecosystems; to
participate and to care more
 maps may even become predictive modelling
tools to help make argument
 maps become an equalizer between parties of
vastly different scales when talking about land
use policy
 we may understand and respect each others
and our planets needs better

17. Wherecamp 2008!
 Google Campus

May 17th 2008
 Free!
 All weekend – camp over if you wish
 Geek out, hack, socialize in an extended setting

18. a few fun links
 http://del.icio.us/tag/geo
 http://ecotrust.org
 http://urbanscout.org
 http://urbanedibles.org/
 http://cityrepair.org
 http://www.slashfood.com/tag/LocalFood/
 http://deliciouscorpse.com

19. reaching me
 anselm@hook.org
 (415) 215 4856
 http://hook.org/whereisanselm?
 http://meedan.net
 http://makerlab.org
 This presentation will appear on hook.org