The State Of The Map/Notes1

Target audience & Primary Aims

• mainly existing OSMers and geo people
• to bring the community together and talk lots, maybe map some of Manchester too
• and to figure out what we need to do to map the rest of the planet
• although it is being held in UK try to show somehow that OSM is global project

Session Format – Main hall only and/or less formal presentations

• main hall and break-out rooms
• The dining room is a big single room that can accommodate a small exhibition area as well as catering
• Parallel activities to get more in on the day
• Do we need a newbies track?
• poster/bring your own demo sessions in other places
• each presentation? Half hour? Longer for workshop ones
• may be good to have half day one track, second half two track for both days?
• if we thought that the formal style presentations is too much we could make one of the sessions a workshop session
• Start and end each day with "keynote" style presentations, witheveryone in the same room, then split off during the day - ensures everyone comes in on time
• Need a mix between formal and informal - not academic, we are about getting things done
• have some "go out and do some mapping" sessions
• workshops could be recorded on video

Workshops

• GPS / JOSM / Databases / GIS...
• hows about just opening up the Call For Presentations to workshops?
• There should be technical workshops for hackers and non-technical mapping workshops for mappers
• get groups of people to tag their tracks in a workshop, so we can highlight common questions
• GPS - show and tell the benefits and drawbacks of your GPS
• It will be light after the conference finishes so mapping could be done in the early evening
• total newbies can come on Saturday and get a lot out, gets more in to OSM on sunday?
• workshops in the morning and talks in the afternoon
• practical aspects of OSM to GPS/PDA for use in surveying tasks?

Session Themes & Chairs – Submission of papers/talk topics

• map features
• Themes: mapping, tagging, tech side
• p2p/distributed storage for osm-data
• converting from/to OSM
• Using OSM data to Make maps with the OSMRenders
• Extracting data from the OSM API
• automating the mapping-process
• integration in desktops
• wikify'ing osm
• Any other key "industry" people we can approach for a few chair positions? will help bring in non osm'ers
• Cartography! Principles - data integrity, scale, carto-licence (moving things small amount to get in), consistency, symbolistayion ....
• Country-by-country stuff
• how about we try and get a view from inside - someone who is opposed to free data collection, spur on a bit of a debate?
• someone from non-UK on problems of tagging/categorising across cultures?
• do we want people to submit papers or just a title and abstract so we can decide - abstract is ok, with links to previous work
• timeline for submissions - call for papers / participation immediately, deadline for submissions 1 March, provisional programme 1 April?
• Richard posted to the talk list on 18th January as follows:
  • "I'd like to see a theme of _using_ OSM data. How hackers, cartographers, and masher-uppers can extract the data and do funky stuff with it. As yet we've been a fairly inward-looking community, concentrating on collecting and presenting the data rather than shipping it out to the wider world; addressing uses of the data could increase the potential audience severalfold."
    A few specific topics/workshops under this theme could include:
    • Getting the data into a format you can use
    • Route-planning with OSM data
    • Licence musts, must nots and myths - what CC-SA means for your map/mashup
    • Mapstraction?

and, of course, all the cartography stuff could fall under this theme, too. It might be interesting to run with this and have a challenge of producing Manchester map mashups. How about a Manchester music map? Let's get Tony Wilson as a guest speaker. Or maybe Shaun Ryder. ;)

Sponsorship & Exhibitors/Posters

• There will be a whole host of costs for everything from printing posters and other publicity, handouts and catering
• Posters - How about everyone who wants to gets a bit of wall space to present their mapping - The wallmap of fame
• someone to sponsor meal on Saturday?

Fees, concessions, Registration processing

• £20, £15 concesssion
• £250 exhibitors

Audio/Visual & IT requirements

• we need 2 projectors. uni will have them (will ask) but backup always good. 80n can supply a projector
• Lecture space will have PC/laptop and projection in place. may need to ask for tech support
• www is must for workshop spaces
• wifi over 3G link?
• failover would be nearest wifi cafe. need someone to go find that
• battery chargers for all the GPSes?
• group photos from the conference?
• tent in the park
• Yahoo aerial photos needed and traces - we can completely map Manchester before the conference and just leave the streetnames
• someone needs to head up getting exhibitors?

Accommodation & catering

• Need to see if some halls of residence are available
• get some recommended places
• check if Uni will allow bringing in catering
• make sure guests less aquainted with british culture get looked after
• organise something on sat night, so everyone has somewhere to go to and meet up
• is anything happening in the city on the same weekend?
• go to Manchester beforehand, to check things out

Conference support services (front desk etc)

• just a cellphone-number?
• Timetable and where is evrything located, registration, payment, welcome packs
• email/wiki contact, if people can't find us, and go to an internet cafe or something
• many of those that attend will not know the location at all. The desk normally help a bit with pointing people in the right direction
• so when someone phones up with their lat/long, ability to direct them to the place...

Conference outreach

• Press, meadia, advertising
• opengeodata gets a wide readership
• contact all the usual local media outlets, but what about the national and international circuit?
• can probably do a pretty good job of this in the UK, what about overseas?
• front page of OSM can mention it
• get talk-de involved
• linux magazines
• do some of this soon to get interest outside of OSM
• Get listing in 'Calendars of events'
• online linux-radios, lugradio
• someone in each country to work on local promotion of the event
• call it an International Conference?

Social side

• Friday and Sat nights to consider (+ sunday eve for stressed organisers)
• get peoples pictures
• Would advertise the actual event as starting mid-morning Sat to allow reasonable chance of travel to from UKers
• Informal rendezvous point/time on Friday evening?
• need pub/restaurant recommendations

Misc

• 19 people showing interest on the wiki atm - there could easily be 200 on the day
• If this conference goes well it will make organising one outside the UK much easier
• most important thing is getting ppl in the EU interested and organising
• Do we need to set deadlines on anything other than the call for abstracts - Registration deadline, and early registration discount
• suggest to people that booking flights etc NOW is a good idea
• need to firm up prices and overall envelope
• should have a date for another IRC meeting - 24th January 2007 20:00 GMT