NetSquared Mashup Challenge Finalist
First there was the comments and stars. Then there was the voting. Now we’re at round 3. The project that I’ve proposed for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge has been made a finalist.
The Accidental Tourist
Now I have to go to San Jose, California and give a presentation at the 2008 NetSquared Conference. Three winners will share in a $100,000 prize to implement their mashup. I’m going to be joined by Andrew Turner of Mapufacture.
Andrew Turner is a friend of a friend. (Well, after this he is most definitely my friend too.) I know Andrew through Edward Vielmetti and the Ann Arbor Bi Bim Bop mailing list. It is a mailing list for a standing lunch of a group of Ann Arbor types. After all this time, it’s hard to say what they have in common exactly, except that they all know Edward Vielmetti.
I’ve gotten to know these people better through my blogging, but primarily by following updates using Twitter. As I was leaving updates about my mapping work, some of the people who follow me on Twitter took note. One of those people was Andrew Turner.
Andrew called me and told me about the NetSquared mashup challenge. He told me that I should throw my hat into the ring.
It was more or less in one ear and out the other. Enough of a message stuck between the ears that I was able to fill out the proposal form. Then it was a matter of asking you all to comment and vote.
I knew there was prize money, but I didn’t realize how much it was until the voting was over. “Really? How much?” Now I’m surprised. I’m happy that Andrew got me to fill out that form.
I want to thank everyone who voted for the Think New Orleans proposal, and for those who left comments.
Neo-Geography
What is a mashup? It’s a an application built using the Google Maps API, like the maps that I posted here at Think New Orleans of various recovery issues. Andrew Turner’s firm Mapufacture has used the Google Maps API to create a website that allows people to build and update maps frequently, to create living maps like this map of parking spaces available in Ann Arbor.
Andrew Turner calls this realm of web based mapping, neogeography. Andrew Turner, incidentally, wrote the book on neogeography.
What so neo about it? Primarily that it is cartography demystified. People are able to create their own maps. It’s not cartography along the sextant lines. Neo-geogrpahy is is about relating data through maps that are accessible and up-datable. It is about showing how your data relates to the real world.
Telling Our Story to Silicon Valley
The next step is to refine the proposal into a presentation. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center is going to be publishing their demographic information using the Google Maps API shortly and making that information available to the neighborhoods for use in creating presentations and proposals. That data set will fuel the grass roots GIS activity, by providing us with real data to use in GIS coworking.
Again, this was a lark on my part. I was once a computer programmer. I dabbled in programming again one weekend. Then through the magic of “putting it out there”, P.K. Chan from EditGrid added the Google Maps. I didn’t even do it. Then Andrew Turner pushed for this Mashup Challenge proposal. I’ve just been fielding emails.
Look how people out in the world form Hong Kong to Ann Arbor pieced together this Mashup Challenge finalist. Now, I’m going to ask you New Orleans, to help piece together the presentation that will win this Mashup Challenge.
This is an opportunity, in the NetSquared presentation, to draw attention to the innovative use of new-geography and GIS in our recovery. It is an opportunity to go to San Jose, California and to tell Silicon Valley about the practical, real world application of new-geography.
I want to tell Silicon Valley stories of the unprecedented work at GNOCDC in determining population from postal data and the work they’ve done to make that accessible to neighborhoods. I want to tell Silicon Valley stories of how Say Local! used neo-geography to let us know which of our local businesses returned as they reopened. I want tell Silicon Valley stories about the application of neo-geography in advocacy like the Regional Modernism weblog of Francine Stock.
Essentially, I’d like to tell as many people as possible that New Orleans is a hotbed of enterprise and ingenuity. That people here are using information technology as if their lives depended on it. There are ample opportunities for Silicon Valley to plug in and support the recovery of New Orleans, enhance our use of neo-geography and social media, and to get a competitive advantage by learning from a user base that is committed to finding solutions to problems using the tools at their disposal.
What can you add to this story? How would you tell it?
As always, direct your discussions about maps and such to the GIS forum at Think New Orleans.
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[...] Andrew Turner is a renowned NeoGeographer. It’s ok, I had to look it up too. As some of our members may remember, our own Alan Gutierrez, along with Francine Stock from Tulane University, partnered with Andrew on the winning Net Squared mashup project. [...]