local communities session at SotM

Sorry to write in English - if I would try German, no one would understand.

At State of the Map, we’re going to have a panel discussion about local community building.
We’re not looking for national heavyweights, but people building contacts between mappers, trying to recruit more mappers, trying to increase visibility of OSM in their community.

The idea is that we can exchange views on what works and what doesn’t, about tools your missing or using.

As Germany is probably the most successful OSM community, it would be a shame if you weren’t represented on the panel. You do not have to speak perfect English, everyone on the panel will have a funny accent.

Please let me know if you’re interested.

The conversation will address these main questions. Even if you don’t want to be on the panel, your answers interest me!

A) What do you consider the most important lesson learnt in your own efforts to build a local mapping community? What worked for you or did not work when trying to expand your community.

B) Are there dilemma’s or challenges you face about which you would like to get other people’s opinions?

C) How could the global OSM community help you? For example in helping with the challenges you face. But also making sure the lessons you learned don’t have to be re-learned over and over again. Or in scaling up the solutions you found (e.g. make a global tool for something you use locally).

Sorry this is so last minute, I’ve tried different channels before.

Naturally it might be that not doing something that is the route to success …

PS: in relative numbers the Austrians are the most successful group in OSM, see https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SimonPoole/diary/36408 (I know you’ve seen that, but just as a reminder).

Hi Simon,
Well, I didn’t set out to find the most successful communities. In fact, we started off with a list of people who wanted to speak about their local communities, and we had to say no because they didn’t make it for the SotM program. I did post a general invitation on the talk mailing list a few days back.
Anyway, looks like we’re all set now, but I would be very interested in your opinion. Especially an overview of the many things you didn’t do would be very useful :slight_smile: