March olpcMAP update March 18, 2011

1.  Search made easy: now people come up first! Nick has rewritten search so that names take precedence over group names, and group names take precedence over descriptions, so these searches now show what you’d expect, and more common names (such as “Haiti”) still show the whole country in Google Maps.

2.  New way to move your markers or change your name on the map. And that is how:

* Don’t do it in Internet Explorer, it will not work, do it another browser.
* If you created a brand new marker, you can click and drag marker until you have left the page.

 * If you have an older marker that you want to move: click Edit, then click the new link on top of the window: “Change Name or Location”
* On the new page, click and drag your marker
* Follow the “Click to Confirm by Email” link above the map (this e-mail goes to the contact address for the marker)
* Check your e-mail and click to confirm (it’ll take you directly to your newly-placed marker)

3.  Profile pages: profile pages are different from markers.  It is easy to see all information about the person or deployment on the page and in the future pages will enable creation of groups. You can find a link to your profile page in your marker’s “Bookmarks” section. For example, Nick’s page is http://olpcMAP.net/page?id=359001

4.  We now have Featured articles or markers on the map’s homepage  http://olpcMAP.net/home If you want to suggest somebody’s blog post, article or a volunteer/deployment to be featured on the map, email us the link to a blog or website, or just the name, and we will feature them! Please, use beautify@olpcmap.net

5.  New view is http://olpcmap.net/?view=alt together with local views like http://olpcMAP.net?go=Jamaica&view=alt This view enables you to hide either volunteers or deployments by clicking the checkboxes in the upper left.  That’s also where you can check to view News/Articles. It’s possible to do geographic searches of news, just like we do with go=Jamaica, but until we have many news items, we show the most recent 100.

6. You can add more news/articles at http://olpcMAP.net/share/news  They become part of Shared and the news layer at the same time!  We post it openly at http://olpcMAP.net/geonews

7. It took several months to process, receive and upload all video interviews from SF OLPC Summit in Oct 2010, but finally it is all done. Please see all 28 interviews uploaded to youtube under user verhovzeva. Links to the Interviews were also added to interviewees’ markers on the map. Enjoy!

Counting Markers January 23, 2011

We have 465 markers on the map. Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay are very interested in joining, which will be great but we have to prepare in terms of scaling. Since we are a grassroots project that is not money-generating, we are trying to use free tools available out there for our map. One thing Nick experimented with was combining markers in clusters. Let us know if you can suggest anything else to deal with scalability issues, please contact Nick.

Norway’s team finished both Video and pdf Tutorials for olpcMAP and both are brilliant! Thank you, team, for your work and creativity! I adore Example project marker with koala picture! To be posted soon.

Adam is organizing Haitian event on Tuesday this week, if you are in Boston area on that day and willing to attend please contact Adam.

We are trying to finalize the look of our news page. It is high priority as we all want to know what initiatives are happening in different parts of the world. We could be following netvibes format, crowdmap format or creating our own format by separating the page into functional sections:

1. Updates from mapmakers… Here we would mention new feature as soon as they arrive, and other updates, examples: olpcMAP Tutorial is finished and where to find it…or how many new videos were uploaded from SF OLPC Summit, or link to poll “What front page should look like?”

2. Meet-up. Upcoming meetings/conferences/ideas. This section could accept posts from all markers. We can list all OLPC related events happening in the world, step by step, line by line. Here will be all upcoming sessions, meetings, conference calls (including Sunday calls) for all groups, no matter what region. Then people can join whatever event they like, also invite others to their meeting (just like Meetup). It could possibly be like Craigslist: post an idea and people will follow-up (off-map for now) with those who posted.

3. Autofeed to new markers activity from Google maps, so that people know who is new and who is active.

4. Blogs or links to blogs.

5. New jobs and internships (anyone can post here).

6. Featured marker or beauty contest winner of the week (with short explanation why).

7. Trivia question of the week or just a hard question

8. Autofeeds about OLPC and the map from other media, like olpcnews, youropenbook.org, twitter, etc.

For now, you can install Google Translate and it will translate the page to your language if it is not English, maybe we can come up with something even better in the future.

To implement postings we could have a form to fill out so that anyone can leave notes for every section and it will link to their markers(via bookmarks) or email. This makes easy for Alex to grab bits of news from here and create tweets… This page will be the heartbeat of our map.

Please, let us know what you think by writing to the team at beautify@olpcMAP.net.

2010 in review January 2, 2011

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

   Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2010. That’s about 12 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 152 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 157 posts. There were 293 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 298mb. That’s about 6 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was August 27th with 132 views. The most popular post that day was How To Be a Good Volunteer (Part One).

   Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, planet.laptop.org, wiki.laptop.org, my.yahoo.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for how to be a good volunteer, saigonolpc, saigon olpc, blue ocean strategy, and villa blanche hochiminh.

   Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1. How To Be a Good Volunteer (Part One) August 2010
1 comment

2. Volunteering and Fundraising in Social Media September 2010

3. About December 2009
3 comments

4. Happy Birthday OLPC Project! November 2010
5 comments

5. São Tomé December 2009
3 comments

olpcMAP Sprint: Day Four and Five January 1, 2011

On Thursday the team was creating landmarks (points) for both volunteers and schools/deployments, then beautifying  them, ie adding website links and photos. Different volunteers focused on different continents.  Special focus was on Kenya and Haiti. Mark Battley left, I mentioned to him that his pictures from SF OLPC Summit are on Mongolian website which surprised him http://laptop.gov.mn/

On Friday, I came around noon and again everyone was working hard on beautification, including  Carol and Sandra. I started adding video-interviews that Bill Stelzer made during SF Summit in October to the points.

Around 2PM we all got super hungry and followed Adam to show us where the food is. We tried his favorite Middle Eastern restau on wheels, which is a college truck selling very good inexpensive food. As we didn’t have a place to sit down (benches were covered with snow) and we couldn’t wait till we get back into the office to eat, we had to eat while standing there and then walking, which slowly became a walking eating tour of MIT. 

The highlight of the day was the visit to MIT Media Lab, that is where scientists contemplate and work on crazy things we don’t know about.  I always think of Kurt Vonnegut and his Cat’s cradle when think of MIT. 

Then we all got back to the office and had olpcMAP cake. The cake was decorated with special love by Charlotte from Watertown StarMarket, she likes the idea of OLPC for all children to use computers, communicate to each other and be friends. Thank you, Charlotte. The team liked the cake and especially smily faces, hearts and little xos!

Then we talked about geek’s dreams, which of course have something to do with video-games, time-traveling, guns and surprisingly Huckabee girl song…

Five people wrapped up the Map Sprint: Nick, Adam, Sandra, Benaja and myself. Benaja, who came all the way from Haiti,  is a brand new member of the support gang, and Adam had a plan to go and see Social Network with him. Mark Battley also joined the gang. Please, see pictures from the Map Sprint courtesy of Mark http://www.flickr.com/photos/55110273@N07/ 

Nick Doiron wrote about our progress:

“Today was our last day of olpcMAP Sprint! We came up with two front page concepts at olpcMAP Sprint. Both would feature colorful pictures of XO users to welcome potential volunteers and existing schools to the map.  Send us a link to your photos!  Upload to Imgur.com or Flickr if they’re not online yet.

* The CrowdMap concept from Marina (the picture of the map would be a link to the interactive map, the How to Help image would help people with editing the map, plus more links on the bottom to help articles) http://i.imgur.com/0IGWI.png

* The form-follows-function concept from Mark (info window would have links based on each type of user) http://mapmeld.appspot.com/frontpage.html

Our plan is to improve our beautification guide that can answer questions for a number of people: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OlpcMAP#To_add_a_marker  Some good news from that guide – you can use link: http://example.org to add links quickly, and we recommend IMGUR.com to upload photos (until we have our own photo uploader).  Please add a point or more to your favorite region, and spread URLs such as http://olpcMAP.net?go=Southeast_Asia

When we redesign the rest of the page, I think we should highlight the posts explaining what the map is all about! And then we’ll be seeing community maps like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNp9j1O3CKk

Have a Happy New Year!”

olpcMAP Survey Results December 28, 2010

Thank you for suffering through all 10 questions! We heard feedback that it was hard, confusing and even not logical, but we are positive it was worth it, as we received great answers from you which will help with our initiative. 

There were almost no multiple choice questions as we wanted you to brainstorm, because we don’t need to know what we already know. So with open text answers you had to be creative and generate a lot of new solutions.

I summarizes results of the survey in a presentation to share them with you: overall public opinion on every question and highlights. Download olpcMAP Survey Results, read, share with others and let us know what you think.

The second presentation is different, it comes with thorough analysis of main themes, since questions were more psychological than logical… Some questions were asked for different reasons and that is why they might have been confusing. So you will see our subjective interpretation of your answers to modify our strategy.

What we wanted to know: 

A)     What volunteer needs do you have?

B)      What recognition do you want for your work?

C)      What questions can we use for trivia?

D)      How can we help you?

E)      If you were to design your own volunteer gig, what would it be?

F)      Do you need social identity?

G)     Do you need help deciding what you need?

H)     What do you want to know?

I)       How can we use your answers for strategic good?

Stay tuned for Final Analysis of olpcMAP Survey Results to be posted and presented tomorrow Wed, Dec 29!

Blue Ocean Strategy for olpcMAP (Part Three) December 26, 2010

We had to set our priorities straight. Scalability was number one. Then we had to sort our ideas out. We have many of them, but what if we are creating cool unnecessary features that nobody will use? That is how we decided to create a Survey. By using certain logic we will not just know what users want to see on the map, but also learn about underlying motives for using the map.  We decided to send the survey to potential users, whom we divided in two groups, because they may have different needs (active volunteers and non-volunteers).  Then we decided to whom exactly and how to send the survey, how many questions and what questions exactly?

Where all content and storytelling is going? Where would people see references when they search for something? Should the map be floating or not? How can we incorporate games into the map? What do deployments really need? Lieutenants? Why people volunteer or not? How much engaged do they want to be? What do you see on the map? Etc. (Note: we sent the survey out on Fri, Dec 17 and collected results yesterday).

Then another big question was what do we need to focus on during our MAP Sprint? Potential areas:

1. Security settings/validation, flagged content, updated content (less than 6 months – maybe brighter color), full name issue, creating document describing our privacy policy, Privacy issue, opt in/out – fix names (ask dots/people to correct their names and info)
2. Beauty Contest – possibly to theme the event around a global MAP BEAUTY CONTEST where kids on every continents are *directly* encouraged to beautify their school.  What prize should we offer???  What imagery makes people’s IMAGINATIONS GO WILD, considering the event (in person and remote) mapmaking possibilities?   Like “Design contest for the developing world: save the rich world from itself”
3. Beautify -work for individuals and deployments? Or regions? Creation of landmarks? List of must haves. Adding contact link. Adding clickable links to website info, videos??? (contact Bill, he has videos!) Adding tags/specialty focus. Adding interests/needs. Find good articles about them.
4. Scalability, if not fixed earlier
5. Blue Ocean Strategy – to announce results, so that participants and steering committee know what we really need and our competitive advantage
6. User –friendly FAQ (by Nick) how to use it or manual to the map!
7. Technical features (adding search by name, geo, tag, adding archive, search by archive, add when was last updated, different layers– see only volunteers or deployments)
8. Storytelling (finding/writing description of deployments and best info about them, adding links/archive) Add sample work by students/schools?
9. Promote the map during event and after (blogging, twitting, transcribing, video stream special moments), to have an open channel on suggestions for open issues and questions…for virtual participants
10. GEO – Create a manual for any map or offline map activities to be uploaded and reviewed
11. Authority levels -designate Admins, who resolve issues and have other responsibilities/goals
12. Global OLPC trivia contest for both real and virtual participants of the Map Sprint

WikiMapia December 25, 2010

From Adam Holt:

Regardless of the fact I was talking at length with Russian support volunteer Nina Stawski last night — this is a critically important participatory-mapping precedent we need to study and learn from — I used them in 2006 and am Amazed they have not yet been clobbered/absorbed by Google

“WikiMapia is a privately owned, online map and satellite imaging resource that combines Google Maps with a wiki system, allowing users to add information, in the form of a note, to any location on Earth.^[2] Users may currently use this information for free; however, contrary to popular belief, Wikimapia is not creative commons and they make explicitly clear in their terms of service agreement that they retain the right to impose fees or usage restrictions at any time.^[3] Inspired by the success of Google Maps and Wikipedia, two Russian Internet entrepreneurs Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev launched the website on May 24, 2006.^[4] Its aim is to “describe the whole world”. It now has over 13,600,000 places marked.^[5] Although registration is not required to edit or add to WikiMapia, over 996,253 users^[6] from around the world currently are registered.^[7] All content uploaded by users is currently made available for non-commercial use through Wikimapia API.^[8]“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiMapia

The entire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiMapia  article is worth pondering carefully; just 1 excerpt for now:

     Voting and user statistics

Users can vote in favor of or against other users’ contributions, thereby allowing users to rise in status among the community. There also is a user statistics and ranking board which automatically ranks users based on their contributions. However, vote tallies and user statistics have no impact on a user’s user-level.

[edit] User accounts and levels

Optional user accounts were introduced in October 2006.^[14] User levels and permissions have evolved over time in response to the need to control vandalism or abuse. As explained in the WikiMapia FAQ, there are three user-levels.

• User Level 0 (UL0): Level 0 is the default user level assigned to all new users. UL0 are able to add places, edit existing places, and use the personal messaging system. New users are temporarily prevented from posting in the forum.
• User Level 1 (UL1): Users are automatically upgraded to UL1 after a few days. In addition to the regular UL0 functions, UL1 users are able to change polygons (place outlines), add roads, add rivers, add railroads, delete places, and contribute to the forum. The vast majority of Wikimapia contributors fall into this category.
• User Level 2 (UL2): A few hundred registered WikiMapia users have been granted Level 2 access. UL2 permissions include functions which are vital to maintaining site security (such as the ability to initiate ban proceedings on vandals) and anti-vandalism efforts on the map itself (such as the ability to delete a greater number of tags, to protect tags against editing by unregistered users, and to quick-delete certain tags).

[edit] UL2 status

UL2 status may be one of the most misunderstood aspects of WikiMapia’s hierarchy, in part, because the process of promotion remains mysterious to most new users.^[15] Level 2 permissions are granted solely at the discretion of WikiMapia Administrators (or site owners), and have been revoked in a few instances. Although Wikimapia Administrators have historically taken recommendations by senior users into account when promoting new users,^[16] they have also occasionally acted unilaterally to demote UL2 users.

[edit] Clutter and filtering

In some areas of the world with out-of-date or very expensive mapping, such as India, WikiMapia growth has been phenomenally rapid. This rapid growth brought problems of its own, however. Urban areas became covered with thousands of overlapping rectangles marking the positions of private residences, but there was no provision in the WikiMapia interface for distinguishing those residences from places of public interest.

Holiday olpcMAP Survey December 17, 2010

Dear all,

Your feedback is very important to us as we are preparing for the MAP Sprint (Dec 27-31) and changing the way the world sees XOs, Sugar and OLPC supporters.

olpcMAP was created to improve communication between potential and current volunteers, deployments, children, teachers and other contributors. Another reason is to provide volunteer-friendly experience.

We crafted a short Survey (10 questions/5 min) , which is totally anonymous and fun. Please take this survey now or by Saturday, Dec 25.

If you know about olpcMAP, please take this Survey.

If you don’t know much about olpcMAP, please take this Survey.

We are also collecting feedback from children/young adults, if eligible, please take this Survey.

Thank you for your support!

Have a great weekend and Happy Holidays!

olpcMAPpers

Questions for volunteer/supporter survey:

1. To whom would you want to show the map and why?

2. What do you want to know about others and others to know about you?

3. How would you want to receive search results and other data from the map?

4. What are your goals for the next 12 months that a map could help achieve?

5. What accomplishments or fun facts should be known about regions that matter to you?

6. Who do you want your privacy setting to be controlled by?

7. Do you want to participate in off-map events?

8. If the world were a game/contest, what would it be?

9. What recognition/incentive/ownership do you deserve?

10. Do you want to offer help or ask for help with anything else?

olpcMap Sprint is officially announced! December 2, 2010

From Adam Holt:

So where are those almost 2 million OLPC Laptops? After 3 years, in dozens of countries, we challenge the world to put the story of OLPC accomplishment on the map. Photographically, telephonically, viscerally — the passionate doers of our community movement now have the chance to connect more intimately than ever before. No matter their deployment size, their age, their creed.

implementor gurus and connected social cartographers & implementors across our global community of One Laptop per Child (http://blog.laptop.org) and Sugar ( http://SugarLabs.org) will fly to Boston Dec 27-31 — to physically map our geo-social fabric of small/medium/large deployments worldwide. In completely new and different ways — on and around CMU/Nick Doiron’s rapidly evolving deployment/adoption/volunteering map: http://olpcMAP.net

Just like a Book Sprint (writing an entire book within a week, like http://laptop.org/manual) we’ll beautify, rigorize and publish this community product within 5 business days!

We’re looking for the very best talent globally to join us, to lay critical seeds Connecting-The-Dots of OLPC/Sugar/ICT4Education around learning, support and content knowledge. Globally uncovering accomplishments unspoken. Starting with one single student’s eye-opening social visualization — that’s already powerfully captured our popular imagination, since its alpha-launch in October 2010 at the OLPC San Francisco Community Summit.

Boston schedule, attendee-list, venue & volunteer-based housing details are below.

PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE – SUBJECT TO CHANGE – CHECK BACK LATER:

Mon Dec 27	11AM – 7PM	Work session at OLPC: like a real book sprint, we’ll (re)finalize the “style guide” and “table of contents” (eg. who is cultivating each continent / ocean) enunciating Clear Tasks for all eager volunteers arriving Tuesday — depending on their skillsets — even where appropriate telephoning actual deployments and interviewing them on map. Cultivating photographic experiences, most important…
	7PM – 9PM	Boston exploration, led by volunteers like yourself (bring your toboggan & pray for snow!)
Tue Dec 28	11AM – 7PM	Work session at OLPC – Share 3 Cups of Tea with OLPC Staff
	7PM – 9PM	TENTATIVE HEADLINERS: Peru film presentation thanks to filmmakers Audubon McKoewn and/or Mark Battley, presenting in person!
Wed Dec 29	11AM – 7PM	Work session at OLPC – Cartography Focus, inviting Boston’s exceptional Open Source Geospatial Community to expand on new mapping ideas
	7PM – 9PM	Evening social event organized by Marina Zdobnova (Russia) & Benaja Antoine (Haiti), around the power of intl volunteer exchanges in general, as the 21st century rearranges the possibilities (and the limits) around what meaningful ecotourism/voluntourism CAN really be.
Thu Dec 30	11AM – 7PM	Work til you drop, with free dinner of your choosing, for those who’ve mapped & beautified a major deployment or entire country/continent!
	7PM – 9PM	Skating on Frog Pond, for those new to Boston, especially if you miss our lunchtime skating earlier in the week!
Fri Dec 31 (National Years Eve!)	11AM – 7PM	olpcMAP will be declared V1.0 at ***5PM*** and the MAP BEAUTY CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED. Skype Video call to the winner, no matter what country they’re in.
	7PM – MIDNIGHT?	Party thru the night!!!

Attendees:

1. David Farning (http://ActivityCentral.org Executive Director, Wisconsin, Dec 27-31)
2. Nick Doiron (Carnegie Mellon University, olpcMAP.net founder, Dec 27-31)
3. Kurt Maier (OLPC Support Gang founding member, Indiana, Dec 27-31)
4. Benaja Antoine (Haiti Partners Program Coordinator, Port-au-Prince, Dec 27-31)
5. Adam Holt (OLPC Community Support Manager, Sugar Labs Oversight Board, Dec 27-31)
6. Walter Bender (Sugar Labs Executive Director, partial attendance)
7. Caroline Meeks (http://SolutionGrove.com Executive Director, partial attendance)
8. Marina Zdobnova (management consultant, ChebVolunteer community organizer, Russia, evenings only)
9. George Hunt (OLPC NYC, programmer of XoPhoto (blog, Dec 27-30)
10. Jessica Curtis – Twitterer (OLPC NYC, Dec 27-30)
11. Claudia Urrea (OLPC learning coordinator for Latin America, partial attendance)
12. SJ Klein (OLPC Director of Outreach, Dec 27-28 especially)
13. Reuben Caron (OLPC global deployment support, partial attendance)
14. Matthew Tarditi (Univ of Pennsylvania, Grad School of Education, Dec 27-29?)
15. Paul Fox (OLPC hardware/software engineer, partial attendance)
16. Chris Ball (OLPC software lead, partial attendance)

For more info got to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OlpcMAP and follow the map on Twitter http://twitter.com/olpcmap!

Blue Ocean Strategy for olpcMAP (Part One) November 25, 2010

It was another meeting for olpcmappers, the day before Thanksgiving, at Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square. Adam was late as always, so was Nick, who had a better excuse as it was his first time ever driving or parking in Boston, which is always challenging. At last we all found each other and discussed the future of the map and desired features. Right now the map is still in the early stage of development.

The best part of the map is people, who empower the map. So if you are not there yet, please, create your dot on http://olpcmap.net. What is the map for?

1. Show OLPC/Sugar deployments and volunteers, including contact info, description, pictures and all content created (link to blog, website, etc.)

2. Find people and deployments

3. Offer or ask for help – specify what you need or what you are willing to help with

Three hours later we created a “to do” list and Adam came up with tentative layout of the Map Sprint event planned for the last week of December, when we implement new features.

Today I was trying to finish reading Blue Ocean Strategy book written by W. Chan Kim (from Boston Consulting Group) and Renee Mauborgne (INSEAD professor). I realized that we can apply the Blue Ocean Strategy to the map. Main idea is:

If you want to create a superior product/service in comparison to those of your competitors, who swim in the “red ocean”, you need to redefine market space and make competition irrelevant. The strategic profile with high blue ocean strategy potential has three complementary qualities: focus, divergence and a compelling tagline. There are 6 paths of finding your new strategy:

1. Look across alternative industries

2. Look across strategic groups within industries

3. Look across the chain of buyers

4. Look across complementary products and service offerings

5. Look across functional or emotional appeal to buyers

6. Look across time

If you look at the table attached, you will see that we completed only step number one, i.e. a) we analyzed how our map is different from other maps: we map people and XOs, and b) main change is to give power to contributors and make it even more interactive, so that perhaps people can speak about their experiences and laptops can show you what work has been done with them.  Now we are moving to the second column of the table and we need feedback from the field, meaning volunteers, employees and deployments – olpc/sugar contributors.

What do you want to see on the map?

Who should be able to use it?

What are the most important features the map has to have?

What do you want to use the map for – all desirable features?

Would you want to receive a newsletter or use archive of articles about olpc deployments and volunteers via olpcMAP?

Or any other comments…

Please, help us make the map more valuable, beautiful and user-friendly, send your comments and suggestions to beautify@olpcmap.net

Join our public discussion list by writing to olpcMAPmakers+subscribe@googlegroups.com

Happy Thanksgiving!