A few weeks ago, I started something new for the Salt Lake City area OpenStreetMap group: Flash Map Mobs! The idea is to have a group of mappers descend on an under-mapped area and add lots of shops, restaurants etc. in a short amount of time. We do them after work, say from 5-6. Sometimes we get a drink or dinner afterwards.

We have done four so far and I wanted to share some results.

Flash Map Mob 1 - Sugar House

• Meeting Location: Sugar House Coffee - meetup
• Attendees: 3
• Focus: 21st South / Highland Dr area
• POIs added: 88 - Overpass Turbo

The first one! I decided to meet at Sugar House Coffee because I go there a lot. This place can get a bit crowded and loud however. This may turn people off so perhaps not perfect as a meeting place. The Mob itself (then still called ‘After Work Map&Meet’) was fun. We shared experiences and arrived at Pushpin OSM as the ideal iOS mobile editor for this kind of mapping.

Flash Map Mob 2 - Holladay

• Meeting location: 3 Cups Coffee - meetup
• Attendees: 3
• Focus: Downtown Holladay
• POIs added: 56 - Overpass Turbo

This was our first venture out into the suburbs. Very rewarding, because downtown Holladay has seen a lot of new development in the last couple of years, very little of which had been mapped yet. Met in a coffee shop again, which worked fine this time - this is a large, uncluttered space that is quiet at this time of day (suburbia):

Flash Map Mob 3 - Murray

• Meeting location: The cafe inside Barnes & Noble - meetup
• Attendees: 3
• Focus: Downtown Murray along State Street
• POIs added: 72 - Overpass Turbo

This was perhaps not an ideal location for a Flash Map Mob, but we managed to add over 70 POIs nonetheless. It’s just not a very attractive location to walk around - a lot of strip mall type areas. We decided to split up and have some folks drive to different clusters of shops and restaurants. We made it work, but perhaps we should check WalkScore or something similar next time before we settle on a location.

Flash Map Mob 4 - Magna

• Meeting location: Magna Library - meetup
• Attendees: 2
• Focus: Magna Main Street
• POIs added: 62 - Overpass Turbo

The library is a good location to meet. It is public and has great internet. Better than what I have at home! The one downside is that it is supposed to be quiet, so if you want to discuss mapping strategies or meet up after and share experiences, there may be better places. Even though it was just the two of us, this was an interesting Mob, because I had never been to Magna, an old mining town on the western fringe of the Salt Lake City urban area.

Let me know your ideas for how to make the Flash Map Mob more fun / effective! If you want to run your own and don’t know where to start, email me at m@rtijn.org or find me on OSM IRC as mvexel and I can give you some pointers.