It has been one year since I started on working on openstreetmap.

Let me review how I got started.

Before OSM, I used google maps.
I did not bother with OSM, it was harder to use, the search functions were not as good, in general, for the average user, google maps seemed to be better.
Also when you search for things in google, you never see osm results.

of course they are excuses, the real reason is that I did not see any motivation for using OSM, and most importantly, it was not visible to me.

Even when I started to work on planning our kosovo conference, I noticed that the google maps were useless. They did not have anything useful for kosovo, but I still did not even bother to look for alternatives.

When I went to kosovo last year. I first saw the need for OSM.
I had a meeting with logistics plus, they showed me their gps collection device, and the infrastructure. www.logisticsplus-ks.com I saw the maps they used to display the results, and I asked if there was not an open source mapping toolkit. At that point I started to look for solutions for them.

Eventually we even got all of the gps data donated from www.logisticsplus-ks.com and we traced over them.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Kosovo_LogisticsPlus_Tracing2

Now we have built up a couple of cities, we have gotten gps devices donated from drlizau, from rrota.com, from myself, (yet none from gpstogo or from osmf)
We have mapped alot of Prishtina, Gjakova, Gjlian, Prizren, and other cities.

We have gotten support from the local government, and from the un on projects in Brod and NovoBerdo which are ongoing.

There is even an creative commons tourist guide for Kosovo based on osm data :
http://kosovoguide.com/

We have went on to work on the skoder flooding in albania.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/AlbanianFloodingCrisisCamp

So, I personally have learned alot about gis, about osm and I would like to thank everyone for making a great community and system.

I hope to have more to report next year, we have alot of projects in progress, and if you have any free time, our current focus is on the cad files of Pristhina.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Kosovo_Prishtina_Streets_Tracing

Thanks,
mike