"Using OpenStreetMap for Neighborhood Development and Feedback." By: Andrew Wiseman. >> Is Andrew Wiseman in the house? Please welcome Andrew Wiseman. [Applause] >> Thanks, everybody, so my name is Andrew Wiseman, I'm with MaptimeDC, which is a local organization that's nonprofit all over the world that teach people mapping and geography. I'm also MappingDC, which is the local OSM community in DC. So we can talk about a project that we did a couple of friends and colleagues in our neighborhood, basically WDC and used OSM for neighborhood development and projects and things like that. Or another way to put it don't just map, we do a lot more. So field surveys, this is old news to everybody, but just in case. Also some of the tools we like to do. So basically you're collecting data in a field, field papers.org is a great tool we like to use. You collect data, walk around with it, write notes on your pieces of paper, go back to the library, community center, wherever it is put data in OSM. It's a great tool. It's free. Also a lot of apps you can use, Mapillary street view, there's also a bunch of data collection maps. I like pushpin, it's simple, I think it only works for iPhone, but it's a pretty cool tool. Also great for other phones and various devices and things like that. And so field surveys are fantastic. They're really fun also notice a lot of things you wouldn't normally notice. I don't have kids, for example, so if I walk down a neighborhood, I don't notice the kid infrastructure, the playgrounds, child care, stuff like that. I don't go to salons, but when you're mapping, you notice that stuff, and there's a lot more that I realized are in my neighborhood and also great for teaching geography for anybody, you're doing geography one to one scale Steven, my coconspirators describes it. So what happens next after the field survey? So let's connect with local groups, try to do a lot more with this. So these kids are from a group called TLC, basically it's a young -- it does all kinds of community projects, what we got involved is a summer project in entrepreneurship. So talked to people, talk to these students, mostly middle school and high school students, and basically went around and talk to the business owners, hey, how did you start your business? What's your background? Why did you choose this? Also taught each other elevator pitches, how to make a résumé, and also a mapping portion of it. There's inventory where they walk around and writing all of this information down, collect all the information, which is great. About then information sits on a PDF on this organization's website, so unless you knew it was there, you didn't find it. So it's information that sits there. So our idea, hey, why don't we do the same project but use OpenStreetMap on a PDF and hard drive, and they said that's great. So a little bit of George avenue, the neighborhood we worked in. A lot of small retail interesting businesses, funky buildings like these ones with the concrete blocks, we're not sure what they are, but we mapped them out. Also hip new places, this place sells tin fish. Which is a thing. Fancy condos coming up as well and then abandoned buildings. Also kinds of things on this block. Those stickers you see on the Windows, those are official stickers that say the building is vacate, taxes are higher rate. Also in this case people were doing art to make sure that these buildings were doing art history and stuff like that. And also plurality African-American and a lot of Latinos and Asians and things like that, a little Vietnamese neighborhood. So first we need data. There wasn't that much in DC, this was in 2014 I think we started this. So we started up task managing project, had volunteers adding buildings, things like that. A little bit later there was a DC building import from the city GIS supply, which is great, so now there's lots of buildings there, lots of data. And then we use the local form they had. This is what they used for the previous business inventories. Kind of collect all the information, went out with the students, filled all of those things out, and then came back to the community center and filled in the data map. There's students, some of the kids here. So, yeah, it was pretty fun. It was great. One of the kids in the back making a funny face looks like he was having fun. We had 20 mappers, we added almost 300 businesses with the group. Also the picture on the left Mapbox, a company based in DC, we told them, hey, you can do this for a living, there are jobs behind this. One of the kids was, like, this is awesome, I want to do this when I grow up. Which is cool to hear. And also on the right a community review meeting, which is something they frequently did in DC, hey, eights neighborhood we like, don't like, what should as we have more of, less of, things like that and then the students presented their findings there. So we had lessons to learn, they're on the OSM wiki, you can check it out. But one of the things we found interesting or difficult is that mapping is fast but the organizer part is slower. It's a little bit tougher. Some people had different schedules, some people don't use e-mail, or phone or all of these kinds of things. So once we got the flow going, it worked pretty well. So that's all great. All of this data, got kids mapping, which is fantastic. But it was sort of one of the program. Once the program was over, the kids went back to school, went back to their friends, things like that, which you expected but that's too bad. So we were trying to figure out how to keep this going, do more with the data, and keep people mapping. And supposed to work with local groups, things like neighborhood organizations, chamber of commerce, just local organizations that do stuff, have a mission and goal to get things done. They also have a longer term view of things. They kind of know not just a short thing we're going to finish, lots of ideas, lots of connections, volunteers, all of this local knowledge, all of these great things that you want to do mapping. So that was basically our idea. You can facilitate neighborhood questions, raise questions, and suggest projects by using OpenStreetMap. But what are those projects? What are those questions? And that's why you have to work with local organizations. We don't know how to collect data, we don't necessarily know what the questions and the problems are to figure out. But local organizations often do. So first we need more data. So we did some more field surveys, this was in DC an event we did, people came to show up, which was great. Mapped out more things. Steven and I just me and him collecting data to try to get as much data as possible to do more things. And then also decided to use carto DB, we've got residential, commercial, stuff like that because showing this to new person in mapping who's not familiar with OpenStreetMap is a lot easier than showing that; right? It's a lot more clear of what's what. You know, what are these little symbols? How come this isn't labeled, stuff like that. So that made it easier to help people understand and what we're trying to show the idea behind mapping. We find this local organization, they basically have a lot of project and doing lots of things, which is great. So we presented to them and they said that's interesting we have some questions, why not use Google Maps? It already exists. We had to kind of explain, well, Google Maps is often a little bit out of date, not details, we can't add things to it or download it and do all of these kinds of things. It has lots of data source, which is great but GI is not always perfect. So one of the things they came up with there's also a city facade improvement program for businesses, businesses can apply to make their building look nicer. This is a before or after you can see it looks a lot better than before. This wasn't from our program but the idea, hey, we can map out all the businesses that need facade improvements for houses and further projects. And there's also a bunch of abandoned buildings. That sticker like I mentioned means that this building is abandoned, it could be taxed had a higher rate and also talk to the local business owners, hey, your building is abandoned, in the meantime where you develop it, it's whatever you want. And kind of a common thing in this neighborhood. This is a grocery store, old grocery store that's been closed for a few years. And they're actually turning into a mushroom farm and microgreens farm just temporarily. Which is interesting. So basically developer owns it and going to do something else but the neighborhood said, hey, why don't instead of letting it sit open here empty, do something with it. So that's something we can do to get people do more good stuff with it. Another kind of abandoned storefront. In the neighborhood that was kind of interesting. Talked to Howard, hey, let's do something with it. Another idea was finding places that murals could be put. The city also has a mural program. This is a cool one, it's called mother ship. Like mother ship is landing. A good mural. So what if we find out big walls that exist and would you like a mural on this? And the circles and the Xs are places where there's security cameras. So the city also has a security camera grant program, they'll rebate a certain amount of money if businesses put up security cameras because we know it helps prevent crimes and things like that and also facade improvements and this one could use a mural and stuff like that. So to do this with local groups they have all of these ideas and connections and opportunities that you wouldn't necessarily know if you're just a person mapping in the area. They're also going to be there for a long time, they're invested and know a lot of local people. One of the things we found is trying to walk around trying to find out what one of these buildings was and there was somebody hanging around on the corner, hey, Mr. Jonas, do you know what happened to this building? And he knew everything about it. All the different kinds of things. These are folks that you wouldn't know but if you have people with you in the local community, you get a lot more detail, information that was helpful. So one of the things we learned was use -- always uses funny GIFs. Strike while the iron is hot. Kind of not wait. Okay let's go map. Let's go. Let's do it, you know? But then once you map out, here's the results. We did this. Great job, guys, here's the map. What's the next project? Next idea? So keep people engaged, keep people interested, this is the same from the field papers, the murals, cameras, things like that. So we have a bunch of next steps for ourselves. Kind of things we need to do is sort of do more of the interesting information, interesting project we're going to do. But you notice that most of these are not OSM so those three are not OSM at all, those are more other steps, which is interesting I think. So these are kind of my blue sky ideas too. What if your map changes over time using planet OSM file. What used to be in this neighborhood? What was there now? What left? What came in? What changed, why did it change that way? And people asked, hey, it would be cool if we had a website, neighborhood organization website that had a directory of all the businesses and it would be interesting to link that directory to live OSM data so it's always up to date. I don't know how to do that, but it's an interesting idea. That's why I put it up there. Technical best practices, so if you want to do it yourself, and I recommend. It's a little bit time-consuming to get it to export to overpass, but it worked pretty well, and it's all free, which is great. And then one thing they found is the building tag makes the building disappear from the map, which is confusing for people who are new. Why is this like this? So we need a better way to do it. Nontechnical things. Lots of data available. And also easier if you're part of a bigger organization too. Hey, we're Andrew with MappingDC versus we're Steven and like to map. And make sure you bring official nonmappers with you because they also notice a lot of things that you wouldn't know. And it's really fun but also more fun and rewarding when you do something useful with the data. And one of the things I was thinking we often collect all of this data hoping somebody is going to do something with it, sometimes that's you. Is sometimes you have to do something with it. And then the last take aways. More folks start doing the mapping, the more representative it would be and kind of a cheesy phrase, but it's accurate. Be the chase you want to be. You can do it. That's it. [Applause] >> Do you have a hard time with young kids mapping accurate things? Or they're, like, oh, I'm going to add a treehouse. >> Yeah. It definitely took some time. That's a good point. Especially when they ran directly in the editor, it's easy to move things around and stuff like that. One of the things we found we have a whole bunch of volunteers and made always kind of hovering around to make it easier. But no one is, like, purposefully messing stuff up, just, oh, I pushed this button, oh, what happened? Stuff like that. >> I actually grew up in Silver Spring Maryland, and I'm amazed at hearing all of the stuff this morning in Africa and all the parts of the world and this is right in the middle of Washington D.C. and there's actually stuff we can do right here, which is amazing. My question is how did you pick the Georgia core where you set up at the beginning and just missed it I'm just curious because how I remember it was a very underdeveloped neighborhood, it was with all the blown out buildings. Why there? >> That's where the project was, the mappers one. I also live pretty close to there, so it's my backyard, and I wanted to do things there. And also local organizations, a lot of interest in local groups that are doing stuff. But you're right. It is definitely a changing area, which is also why it's kind of important to map. Changing a whole lot. So I think it's important to collect that information as well. >> Did you find that the groups you worked with had ideas of what to map? Or did you have to really kind of see what ideas? >> Yeah. It was a little bit of both. We first said, hey, we could map out and serve building types and they said okay. That's interesting. But also other projects. What about this? What about the mural thing and the graffiti thing and the security cameras? All those different things. Those were their ideas. We just proposed ideas. You can map things. What would be useful to map and people had their own opinions. And that's kind of what drew it. >> Really interested in the community integration local organizations. I wonder for the kids themselves, what was your impression as far as their frame levels of digital literacy and familiarity to technology in general when you say mapping was a way for them to get a glimpse into, like, how technology, like, really actually works. >> Yeah. It kind of varied. Some kids were really good and jumped in immediately. Some kids hadn't used a computer very much. They had a hard time using the mouse even. So that would be interesting too. You could do a computer skills class and mapping after that or something like that. Also interesting hard time with e-mails, they don't want to use e-mail that much. They're more text message, Facebook, something like that, so they don't want to register because they don't have an e-mail and password and stuff like that. So it varied. >> Somewhere around the middle of the slide show you had a slide of the things you learned. And it went by kind of fast, and I didn't get all of those. >> Sure. Let me find out which one. Oh, yeah, it's also on the OSM wiki that's why. I didn't want to read anything on there. There's actually 20 of them on the wiki. Is this the one? Yeah, just search for that. Georgia avenue on the wiki, and you'll find. >> Any other questions for Andrew? >> Hello. How are you? Was attendance with the kids also at different, like, community talks consistent? Or was it sort of not always the same? I just know from being DC that sometimes it's difficult to get attendance. >> Yeah. That's true. We started with maybe 20 students. By the end it was maybe 10. People just -- they get busy, they have other stuff going on. So I think it's also good to start with as many people at first and then you still have enough people to do stuff. >> Hi, Andrew. In Mexico the ones we are also trying to map things that broke in the city. I remember you mentioned parts of the businesses. Also we are trying to see sidewalks and the ones there the people. So how do you do -- picture of what you're tagging also paper. How do you manage that? >> We mostly did field papers because it was the easiest way to do it. But, yeah, you could do it with photos and putting photos into cart DB, for example. >> A lot of times companies made some representative in this room are interested with having engaged with the communities they work in. And a lot of the companies that are here have a pretty significant mapping things. Based on your experience, would that be a good or bad if, like, a company said, hey, we want to take on a project to do some of this community mapping. Is that all good or all bad or somewhere in between? >> I think -- Dale has a thumbs. I think it's good as long as the community is mapping good versus the opposite. I think it's much better to do it with the community as sort of supporting rather than, like, leading that. >> I'm thinking a lot of times companies have interest in engaging their employees in community things and a lot of times for especially companies in this room, they have a lot of employees who are pretty good at mapping. >> Sure. Definitely. All that. [Laughter] >> Any more questions? Please provide Andrew with a warm thank you.