Yesterday I gave a keynote talk to State of the Map Nigeria in Abuja. Despite numerous technical difficulties (I think I was on a phone giving the talk within a big room?!), I hope I got some ideas across to at least one person who needed to hear them.

I decided to focus my talk on what it’s taken to feel accomplished in OpenStreetMap. And I do, so much personal and professional success has come from being a part of this community. It broke down to 9 points.

Up front I acknowledged Connection. It still feels like a miracle that I could talk from Santo Domingo to the Obasanjo Space Centre. When I was growing up, this was pure science fiction. Today we can connect with nearly anyone in the world. The power of this can not be overstated, and is not nearly leveraged enough. It’s the essential piece of what makes OSM works in my opinion.

Next Inspiration. Have a problem that moves you. You don’t need to know the solution up front, that takes time. Figure out how data and community apply. I started working on the idea of HOT after the Indian Ocean tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. Disaster response is extremely hard, but it seemed like information flow about place could be a solved problem.

Translation is a powerful position to be in, sitting between two worlds and helping them to talk to each other. I don’t mean linguistic necessarily, but conceptual. HOT sits within two places that operate very differently – humanitarian and open source. In the OSMF, I’ve been working to help organizations and community better understand each other.

Commitment is essential. Working on hard problems takes years, at minimum. Map Kibera had a great map in OSM within weeks. But it took years until there was a direct benefit in Kibera. We could have celebrated in 2009 (and we did) but so what – we couldn’t stop there. I didn’t consider any solid impact until 2013, at the next presidential election, where the map became essential for the operation and participation.

Creativity. There is a massive place for repeating successful patterns, but creativity changes the game. Find novelty. There’s a tremendous number of not down things, but finding it requires reading voraciously, adapting ideas, identifying and contributing something new. It’s why I love the the name of the Youth Mappers chapter “Unique Mappers”. Every mapper is unique and has potential to have unique impact on the world.

Share that unique voice. And base what you learn in your journey rooted in your real experience. I used to blog extensively, and I found a network of incredible people who resonated with my ideas. A great recent example of this is from Hawa Adinani on how OSM transformed her.

Then Roll with it. Things will not end up like you expect. I joined Mapbox when OSM was a central part of its story and engagement. That changed – for understandable business reasons – but it was still hard. in my workday this led me to invest more time in social impact of maps, start the Community team, help all sorts of projects, including in climate. And that’s now where I’ve found myself with climate and environment data work at Earth Genome.

Remember, OSM is Not only mapping. So much is about organizing and supporting people to do work together. And isn’t getting humans to cooperate in new ways the ultimate challenge? OSM is a great start, a framework. YouthMappers is a very effective model to organize students. I’ve been on the OSMF Board for years, and didn’t start off with experience of non-profit Boards. I used to be pretty meh at it, but I think I’ve learned something. So valuable part of the OSM experience.

Finally Act don’t talk. There’s so many times I’m together with groups where we talk about doing something later. Let’s do something now! Even if it’s outlining a written plan in a document. If there’s ever a moment to actually do something, well do it.

And coming back to final note on Connection. That’s the common enabler of all the opportunity. Take part in our global community and see where it takes you.