Open Green Map, an innovation for change through social mapping
Location
About You
Location
Project Street Address
220a East 4th Street
Project City
New York
Project Province/State
NY
Project Postal/Zip Code
10009
Project Country
United States
Your idea
Will you launch your idea as a business or non-profit?
Non-Profit
Web site (url)
Name Your Project
Open Green Map, an innovation for change through social mapping
Describe Your Idea
Innovation
What is your idea? What makes it innovative? Why is it important?
Launching in spring 2009, Open Green Map (OGM) is an online participatory cross-cultural platform for exploring and mapping local green living sites, nature, cultural and social resources around the world. OGM brings local knowledge, universal design and open technology together to benefit all communities. Helping people access essential resources, OGM vibrantly highlights best practices and healthy choices. Everyone is invited to enhance each of OGM's sites with their own images, insights and impact assessments in any language, generating evocative maps with rich, sharable data.
The goal of this new media is to give people of all ages and backgrounds the skills, resources and awareness to live more sustainably. OGM uses the familiar Google Map and open source tools to delight and engage casual browsers as well as residents and visitors exploring a specific city, site or theme. Filterable by users, OGM is an innovative and authentic living repository that encourages comparison of site attributes, evolution and outcomes while promoting its replication in new locales. OGM makes patterns of progress and neglect apparent and actionable. It increases levels of participation as people use OGM to dine, shop, get around, work, play and vote.
For Mapmakers, OGM breaks down barriers of technology, time and money. Clear instructions, team management and handy resources from web banners to widgets will enable instant publication, promotion and interaction. Designed to maximize social inclusion in the mapmaking process, OGM engages the underserved by highlighting which sites are free and/or welcome children and wheelchair users. Financially, OGM has potential to benefit each site it promotes as well as Green Map System and the local Mapmakers.
Preview our sustainable community media vehicle today. Cleanly designed and built to reach encyclopedic proportions, OGM's data will be shared through mobile devices, blogs and other websites to maximize its usefulness worldwide.
Impact
What will be the impact of your idea?
A year into its development, the versatile OGM promotes every type of sustainability resource, supporting green jobs and eco-innovation alongside local biodiversity, network development and cultural uniqueness. Charting community progress, visitors can now explore the first 40 OGM maps from a dozen countries and see how this scalable platform presents and preserves resources. With its built-in Impacts Index that records actions taken in response to each site, OGM shares the wisdom of the crowd, leading to continual improvement. Each site's evolution can be archived along with map-wide outcomes, encouraging widespread replication and change.
Explore. Participate. Take action for a greener community and healthier lifestyle! Designed for all audiences, these OGM users will especially benefit:
Climate and carbon concerned communities
'Go Local' proponents
Eco tourists
Social justice advocates
Environmentalists
Green designers
Educators and students
Social entrepreneurs
Food security specialists
Water and resource conservers
Local officials, journalists and researchers
Initially designed to bring together the 500+ projects in our network and the hundreds of powerful Green Maps they have published in 50 countries, OGM will soon be open for everyone to add sites. Later, watch for inclusive new functions such as Select a Language, Share a Tour, Involve a Youth Group and Add a Site by mobile phone to give each green shop, garden or bike site a well-deserved global showcase.
This Entry is about (Issues)
People: We are looking for ideas from people who can make them happen.
Developing collaboratively since 1995, Green Map System has a strong partnership-driven foundation, including:
• a diverse global network that has published more than 360 printed and digital Green Maps,
• an award-winning universal iconography updated in 2008
• a 'web 2.0' presentation, collaboration and tool center at GreenMap.org that promotes our resources and hundreds of NGOs, universities and agencies leading local Green Map projects to 1,000+ website visitors each day.
Learning from 13 years of inclusively engaging adults and youth, managing complex relationships in both low income and well-equipped communities, producing multilingual/multimedia adaptable mapmaking resources, and publishing our own community's Green Maps (both as models and to benefit New Yorkers), OGM represents an important shift in how we produce mapmaking tools and communicate community progress and challenges.
During OGM's first year of development, our staff included 4 full time and 19 part-time/interns plus consultants/mentors joining our board and international advisory group in bringing their diverse experience to the table. Indeed, in 2008, OGM received accolades (see Testimonials), awards and articles (see About) even though its official launch date is still to come. Now, we're ramping up as there is so much we can accomplish with this cost-effective high impact platform, and involving more experienced (social) marketing and technology developers, translators and university students.
Sustainability
How much will it cost to launch your idea?
In 2008, we raised all $120,000 of OGM's first year budget as noted at OpenGreenMap.org/en/sponsors. Our goal, by the end of 2010, is to have OGM moving toward self-sufficiency with a revenue model that includes data usage, customizations, site cross-marketing, exchanges, promotions, sponsors, grants and donations. We'll need another $350,000 (plus in-kind multilingual outreach and translation support) in 2009-2010 to complete the many onscreen and mobile features (see In Progress) leading up to and following OGM's launch. We have over $200,000 in grant requests pending now. We welcome the advice, connections and participation of all who appreciate our approach to empowering local expertise and re-imaging eco-media.
Using popular free and open source Google and Drupal technology, we are preparing OGM to grow into an elegant resource for people everywhere. Today, with fewer financial resources available to everyone, especially the hundreds of groups, agencies, schools and small businesses that create Green Maps, OGM is arriving at a timely moment. For each team, the cost of designing, publishing and distributing maps drops away, and the diminishing outcomes of fundraising efforts can be applied to research and involving the community, building local networks, creating events, engaging schools etc.
Please join us in impacting eco and social conditions as we stimulate citizenship and influence public policy while garnering support for every sustainability resource in town!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Open_Green_Map_1-09.pdf | 1.08 MB |
 | Open Green Map, an innovation for change through social mapping has been chosen as a finalist in The Power of Us: Re-Imagine Media . - 1114 days ago |
| carlosmartinez said: Since its inception, Green Maps have changed individuals, communities and places. This new interactive communication tool will be ... about this Competition Entry. - 1118 days ago read more > |
Comments
Since its inception, Green Maps have changed individuals, communities and places. This new interactive communication tool will be bridging the gaps especially for projects in the global south. Looking forward to support this global-local initiative...