We’ve heard great talks on OpenStreetMap and there is a strong initiative to build community in the US. I also enjoyed the Public Earth talk, Kate’s talk on GeoCommons, and learning about Umapper.com!

I wanted to officially announce I’m running for election for the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

You can read my platform and manifesto here.

I will work to create a stronger, collaborative organization and encourage better communication across and through the OSM community (think language and media barriers crumbling).

I also plan to fire up social media use and public relations to bring OpenStreetMap to the masses and the masses to mapping!

It’s also an honor to help organize a bigger and better State of the Map for next year

… your ideas and comments are welcome!

Best,

Hurricane

First of all, let me say that it was a great ride working at CloudMade! What a trip to travel every weekend to fabulous cities across the western United States (and a short awesome trip to Germany ) evangelizing OpenStreetMap.org! I made new friends, learned great new mapping techniques and ate my fair share of local treats where ever I went (I do have to admit, my tummy needs a break from all the rich food).

In 7 of the 9 cities I visited, I have passed on the torch to an OpenStreetMapper who wants to continue mapping parties! I am quite proud of this and will support them in making their events a success.

There are things I’m not going to miss about the hectic travel schedule and living on planes, but I won’t list them. Mainly because even in my own lifestyle, as much as I say I want to ‘slow down’, I don’t think a girl named Hurricane knows how to

I’m still going to be involved with mapping. I’ll host cool hiking, biking and in the winter, skiing events in Colorado which I call Home Base. I am up for election on the OSM Foundation board! Please read my platform and manifesto as to what I would like to do for the 2009-2010 year. I will travel to London for the elections as well (didn’t I say I don’t know how to slow down?)

Besides OSM, my agenda for work, life, love and fun is like a 007 mission. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to force you to make me a slightly dirty martini (shaken not stirred with blue cheese stuffed olives. Three of them.) and then kill you.

I can guarantee that it’ll be bigger and better and I’m sure it’ll include sky diving, epic adventures that I just can’t make up and for a good measure of being normal: walks on the beach. But for now, I’m going with the title ‘Information Leaf Blower’.

What do you think?

The link to listen in is here and enjoy! Turn it on while doing your editing in Potlatch, it’s great entertainment and education value.

Enjoy!

Steve Coast. Thinking. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I am officially a geo-geek.

Where's Waldo? I mean, can you find the entire CloudMade team?

State of the Map– it has come and gone like a flash of lightening. If you didn’t make it to the conference, here is a link to some of the podcasts from Saturday and Sunday. The OSM-Foundation hopes to have an entire collection available shortly!

Friday

Friday was attended by about 220 geo-geeks for the pro-users day. My favorite talk was…well, I can’t pick a favorite as too many were really good (and, most of the speakers are good friends, can’t choose one over the other!) but I’d have to say Steve Coast, Peter Batty, Nick Black and Peter Miller gave entertaining and informative presentations. Henk Hoff gave a keynote on ‘A Day in the Life of a Mapper’ that had the crowd laughing and inspired to go out and map!

On non-mapping news, the lunch was really treaty. It was a traditional Dutch fish bar with the butcher cutting up fillets of herring right there in the lobby!

By straup on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/straup/3711693363/

Saturday

One of the most important things to happen on Saturday was Steve Coast signed over the trademark of the OpenStreetMap logo for 1 British Pound.

By ubabo on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/79774423@N00/3711053004/

We also enjoyed beautiful map cakes. The chosen maps were of Amsterdam, the Vatican City, London, San Francisco and Sydney, Austrailia. I had a nice slice of London

By ubabo on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/79774423@N00/3711053004/

Saturday night we had an organized dinner for everyone at a Chinese restaurant. It was a fun event full of Map themed poetry, fried rice, fried shrimp, fried chicken, fried shoes and/or fried small monkeys (no, really it was good, but I truly couldn’t tell what I was eating, but it had to be safe…it was fried )

Panoramic View around the best poetry table .

Sunday

Sunday held two of my favorite talks. Bringing OSM to Schools! given by Sarah Manley and The State of the USA by Dirk Munson. Sarah and Dirk are fellow ambassadors at CloudMade.

Sarah presented education projects using OpenStreetMap from around the world as well as highlighted university level curriculum she is building in the US.

Dirk had the audience practically rolling around on the floor laughing! He talked about TIGER data, where we were about a year ago with the OSM map, what our US map looks like now and where we’re headed in the future. It looks something like this:

Taming the 2010 TIGER

Russ , the ambassador for the Northeast area, had a workshop on Bulk Importing Techniques that was well attended! I’m sure it looked something like this:

All in all, the conference was attended by over 280 people from over 27 different countries! I can’t wait to see what the OpenStreetMap Foundation come up with for next year… I wonder where we’ll all meet?

]]> http://hurricanemcewen.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/world-wind-tour-of-amsterdam/feed/ 0 hurricanemcewen Dutch fish trademark signing cake P1010710 table 2 P1010712 crazy kitteh gouda http://hurricanemcewen.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/amsterdam/ http://hurricanemcewen.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/amsterdam/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:17:04 +0000 hurricanemcewen http://hurricanemcewen.com/?p=162 ]]> It’s finally here. The State of the Map conference! I’ve been counting down for six months and now it’s down to just hours…

I thought I’d write a quick update since I’ve been MIA for a few weeks. Read: there will be a big story coming soon about my adventures in Germany!

I arrived in Amsterdam this morning after an uneventful flight from Denver through Chicago. And mentioning that it’s unremarkable speaks volumes: no delays, no weather issues, no screaming babies, no TOWA* sitting next to me… I slept, I worked, the food was edible (dinner anyways. I didn’t attempt the ‘breakfast’)… I call that a nearly flawless flight.

The hotel is super swank and I’m diggin’ it.I have a loft style room with the bedroom upstairs and downstairs the bathroom and living room is divided by smoke glass walls. Pretty interesting that I can sit on the loo and have an uninterrupted view of the canal and the city outside. If your travels take you to the ‘Venice of the North’, check out Hotel Arena. They bar is hip and there is a club on Fridays and Saturdays I’ll be sure to report on.

But on to more fun subjects: maps! and world domination…

The State of the Map conference starts tomorrow officially, but many of us are already in town so we’re meeting up for drinks later in the heart of old town. You can find out more about it here.

This is also the country that has more bikes than resident human beings and I hope to take a bike tour while here.

Well, I’d love to go on about the great weather, the awesome outdoor bar and my dinner plans (as they include delicious Dutch cheese, beer and chocolate I’m sure), but I have to finish my paper mapping project!

More stories coming soon about SotM ’09 and the oddities I find inbetween

Hurricane

*oh, TOWA… you’re probably wondering what that means: Typical Over Weight American. Our obesity rate is alarmingly disgusting. Almost one in four American’s is classified as obese…. just a random thought.