User:Glassman/Manifesto

About Me

I've been a contributor since 2011. I discovered OSM while attending a linux event, I dropped in on an OSM talk by Hurricane Coast. Ever since I've been hooked. My background is telcom and arts. Telcom taught me to embrace change and how to support teams. The arts taught me how to work in teams. In case you are wondering, I spent a number of years attempting to become a glass artist. I worked in teams to produce blown glass art objects as well as teaching glassblowing which gave me my user name, Glassman

Along with Chase Stephens we assumed the responsibility of the Seattle-OSM Meetup group. At the time we had about 60 members. Today it has over 1000. I am no longer an active host of the Meetup since moving north of Seattle. In 2016, on our second attempt, won the right to host the 2016 State of the Map US in Seattle. As local hosts, we were responsible to the venue, lodging, signage, and local events. Our goal was to create an event that would be appealing to OSM contributors. From the feedback we felt like we met our goal.

The first big project OSM Seattle I contributed to was the import of Seattle addresses and buildings. We had a team of over 20 mappers contributing to the import. The success of building a community through imports has stuck with me. Our current imports have been smaller in team size but it is still a team effort.

I also contribute to helping others map the US by creating a US Forest Service Basemap that can be used in JOSM to map forest service roads. I also have a Washington State roads basemap available in JOSM.

Every day, I welcome all new mappers in Washington State. Since 2014 I've been welcoming new mappers in the state. By my rough count, I've sent over 2500 welcoming messages. My purpose is to give new mappers a friendly message with some information about OSM and where they might find a local group to join. Research has found that a friendly welcome message helps grow the active mapper community. It may have even contributed to the Seattle Meetup group growing to over 1000 members.

Full disclosure - I am not on anyone's payroll. I did a contract with Microsoft to teach JOSM editing to their editors for a short time in 2018 and had a great time teaching not just JOSM, but how to be a good community member.

As a Board member I want to:

• Update our Core Values to include "embrace empowerment, inclusiveness, and respect for for all"
• Move the Board to be more strategic and less operational by relying more on Working Groups and paid employees. Support and build Working Groups as the operational arm of OSMF. Explore ways to involve Local Chapters as we more to a more strategic focus.
• Building a strong working relation with our corporation partners. Corporation have discovered and embraced OSM. Over 1000 paid mappers are at work every day contributing to OSM. From my perspective it's a good thing. As an example, I not into mapping turn lanes. Because of the corporation editors I don't have too. Yet I rarely see them adding parks, benches streams, or glaciers. They map what their paying customers want. I map sidewalks to help people with limited mobility safely find their way around town, something no one is going to pay them to do. Here is what I expect from corporations:
  • proudly attribute OSM
  • contribute to building a strong infrastructure
  • be a part of the global and local community
• Our infrastructure is vital to OSM. We need to build a network that not only handles the millions of daily transactions but is secure from hacking and is powered by green energy. I want to support the existing Working Groups building that network. I'd also like to see OSM host more quality tools to make them easier to find.
• See input from the entire community using various forums and in multiple languages