Ho Ho Ho, tis time for a bit of Christmas cheer…...Barrrrr humbug!!

To celebrate the season, Team Green Map have booked two lanes at AMF bowling, 1-39 Springfield Quay, Glasgow G5 8NP. Meet at the entrance (inside) between 6:30 and 7pm, Thursday 13th December (next Thursday).

Bring friends, relatives and anyone else you think might be up for a bit of bowling. There will be a few festive drinks and the option of going for food after.

http://www.amfbowling.co.uk/centres/details.aspx?centreID=6

Look forward to seeing you there.

Cheers Hannah

Spruce Carpet, Scotland's only carpet recycling enterprise is having a one day sale. Rugs, carpets, carpet tile, dozens of half price bargains,


Sat 24 November - 10am - 3pm

308 Broomloan Road, Govan. See Contact Us page for directions.

http://www.sprucecarpets.org.uk/news.html

The Glasgow Wood Project, and community recycling in general, was debated in the Scottish parliament on 21 November, in a members' business debate.

A motion was put forward by Glasgow SNP MSP Bill Kidd, who said in the debate: "Sad to say, there are at present only two wood recycling projects in Scotland - one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh.

"The Glasgow Wood Recycling Project is modelled on one in Brighton that now collects around 450 tonnes of waste timber a year.

"That is a fantastic achievement for a community-based project.

"The Glasgow project has a three-year plan to become a self-sustaining wood reuse and recycling business through the collection of wood from businesses, schools and households."

Mr Kidd also called for a one stop shop for environment projects: "There are too many hoops to jump through and no joined up idea of what funding is available. I want to see a one stop shop, which does these things, frees up time and encourages more people to set up new initiatives."

The debate was congratulated by a number of MSPs and the Minister for Environment Michael Russell.

Mr Russell said: "The Scottish Government recognises the valuable role that the community recycling sector plays in helping to deliver our objective of a greener Scotland.

"When the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth delivered his remarkable and most successful budget, he announced that, for the years 2008 to 2011, the Scottish Government would make £63 million available to the third sector for a development programme and £30 million available for direct investment through the Scottish investment fund.

www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/officialReports/meetingsParliament/or-07/sor1121-02.htm#Col3628

"The UK sent 22.6 million tonnes to landfill in 2004-5...This contrasted with 17.6 million tonnes from Italy, Spain which dumps 14.2 million tonnes, 12 million tonnes from France and Poland which dumps 8.6 million tonnes." ...Read the full article here

Now, I'm sure its true but for future reference and to show we're not spouting idle chit chat:

• Recyclying and reuse stats from Defra


• Defra

I couldn't find these specific statistics but we should definetly digg for interesting tid bits and facts. There is a lot of info in there that marries with us well.

Writers

As I mentioned last week, we're looking for writers.
We need people within Glasgow to excite others about the possibilities of reuse in their community.
We want some stand out individuals who can voice strong opinions on the current opportunities (or lack of) in Glasgow.
We're not interested in just shouting about it like lunatic eco warriors, thats not what we're about. Dear green place wants the attention of some conscientious people who would like to contribute to making a difference.

If you would like to write for deargreenplace.org please get in contact with us via info@deargreenplace.org
We'd like to soon have a short series of articles on the subject of "Recycling & reuse in Glasgow" how you interpret that would be up to yourself.
Outside of this blog, adverts have been locally circulated with the community recycling forum and will soon be passed around via Glasgow's "Lighthouse" art venue.

New Navigation

Now that we have dwindled down the categories to the bare essentials we're looking to beef them up (sorry veggies). But how are we going to accommodate all this info?
Our map navigation can be seen at http://dev.deargreenplace.org

The idea here is that you are switching your search context via the navigation as opposed to a form.
The benefits of this are that the user is presented with less superfulous information and has less form boxes to change on a new search.
One worry is that this will not be clear enough and confuse people as to what is being displayed.
There is a lot of information to be both displayed or hidden and we want to get the balance just right.
I've looked to take our inspiration from other sites like Digg who process a lot of information hourly. Looking at the differences between the two(http://www.digg.com/)
we can see that there is a visual indicator of what the bottom categories are on the front page.

After selecting any one of the categories it seems enough to just highlight the chosen category. I believe this is because once a user has chose a category it is taken for granted that this user now understands the relevance of the newly presented sub categories.
After the this there is colouring and a little separator which communicates the heading and links. This orginsiation of information is something that we can learn from and I'll work to see how the nav can change in order to make finding eco resources in Glasgow super duper easy!

New categories

So now we're thinking to move into food and events and Food What are we going to keep info about on these categories though?
Food: organic, farmers markets, local produce
An event: Name,location,time&date,tags,desc,pictures,ticket price,related events,contact,recurring

Where are you Juan?

Where are you Juan? We've started with the videos and we need our camera Juan.

It went like this:

Periodicals

Blogging the weekly meetings is one thing but we need regular, engaging content. Dear green place wishes to be taken seriously as a major force for pushing green issues to the fore front of Glasgow public awareness so we're going to need the kind of people that can start those fires in peoples hearts. Enlisting the help of writers will be a huge but greatly rewarding task. We need not necessarily only commission new work as there is plenty of pertaining content already available, we could also secure the rights to reprint certain articles with the kind permissions of the owner. There will be a whole host of ways to capture the interest of writers and as always we're open to ideas. Until we do secure the regular writers it's important to make our best efforts in generating this content to the best of our abilities.

Vodcasts

Video blogging (vodcasts) is relatively new in the whole scheme of web trends and has only recently been possible with widespread broadband web connections. Brandon took the initiative last week and set himself up in the first glasgow green map interview (You can see it here). We'd like to carry on this trend by getting our 'in housecamera Juan' to start making his way through a series of interviews with each of the green map volunteers to get their angles on to the phenomenon of green mapping and of course deargreenplace.org. A great bonus would be if we could enlist the time of an impartial third party journalist for the task.

Analytics

We were suprised to find there hadn't been as many visits as we'd hoped. Only 118 unique visits to the actual map as of the time of writing! At first this was a little disconcerting but really this highlights quite an exciting prospect. After a little reflection it makes a lot of sense that we're not receiving these visits, the majority of our visits came directly from google from people searching for words like 'recycling', 'second hand shops' and of course 'Glasgow'. The very reason that there is a need for deargreenplace.org is because there are not enough everyday Glaswegians talking and taking to heart environmental issues so we can't very well expect them to be searching for it ahead of Brittany Spears on google. That will be one more visit since I just mentioned her.

Every week we're in the eye of a quietly gathering storm but the storm in all its immensity has still to hit Glasgow's collective consciousness after nearly 8 months work. When it finally does hit, thats when we've begun to achieve our original goals.

Glasgow Green Events

We'll soon be implementing our events syndication area of deargreenplace.org where events of all the known Glasgow orginisations will be advertised. We'd very much appreciate if peeps could start getting in the habit of notifying us about any events well beforehand so we can do our best to advertise it to as many interested parties as possible.

New Design bits

We whittled down some of the categories, spoke about the forth coming design changes. In other news, Franki is currently troubled by a ghostly disc. No matter though, she taken an oodle load of shop pics which Kevin snatched to upload on to the internets.

Press release

The current press release describes our aims well but has no mention of the online map. We going to have to become more press and community facing if we wish to gain more public support and so we'll need to assemble a more comprehensive press pack complete with pictures names numbers and addresses, both physical and online. We changed a few things and then I said I'd add it to our Planner for future amendment.

Govan Green Space

Hannah will repping the green map this Saturday in at the Govan green space event in (a park). You'll be able to find her and maybe Frankie there in a little yellow hut. So go and say hi!

In ELDER PARK, GOVAN FROM 12 - 4PM ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8TH.
Only 10min walk from Govan underground, just through the Clyde tunnel from Partick!

Marketing

We want to get out there! Up and coming we have the joy that is Glasgow's legendary... freshers week. We should do our best to promote ourselves very openly to those who will most likely be the beneficiaries and biggest supporters of second hand shops in Glasgow for the next years! Just targeting the big three should be enough, Glasgow uni, Starhclyde and the Arty School. Also we have an open day coming up for the ekectron club coming up in October. It would be a really nice opportunity to mingle with all our fellow club mates and do our bit in repping the Electron club. Additionally, we could take advantage of the situation to garner a little public feed back and usability testing.

For the life of me I can't remember the tasks. But for those who got them, I'll add them to the planner.
Go, go you gosh darned green guys.

IN ELDER PARK, GOVAN FROM 12 - 4PM ON SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8TH.
ONLY TEN MINS WALK FROM GOVAN UNDERGORUND, JUST THROUGH THE CLDE TUNNEL FROM PARTICK!

LOTS TO FIND OUT ABOUT - REUSE, RECYCLING - MAKING JEWELLERY FROM RECYCLED STUFF, GLASS PAINTING, PLANT A DAFFY BULB IN A POT FOR THE SPRING - FIND OUT ABOUT ECO PAINTS! A FREE SHOP - COME AND SEE WHAT YOU CAN FIND( FOR FREE), GLASGOW WOOD RECYCLING PROJECT, INFO ON COMPOSTING, SPRUCE CARPETS, STARTER PACKS GLASGOW - THE SUNNY GOVA RADIO ROADSHOW! LUV TEXTILE RECYCLING CRFAT GROUP - GLAGAEL AND THEIR SUSTAINABLE TRADITOINAL CRAFTS, BULLWOOD WOODTURNERS
THE CRE8 BUS, C SPACE, GREATER GOVAN ENVIRONMENT TRUST , GREENPEACE, SWAG, FREINDS OF THE EARTH!
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT CLYDESIDE DEVELOPMENT

look at myspace/govan greenzone

SEE YOU THERE! THIS IS A COMMUNITY LED EVENT, PLEASE SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!

Ok this is a bit of brain dump because I want to get some stuff done for the map. So daddadaddaaa heeeeres last week..

Hannah had been working like an industrial weave machine at the turn of the 20th century, so she was feeling fairly knackered.
Regardless, she had pushed on with a killer submission to this years "Eco-Prize" which we should quite rightly win, if only for having the prettiest collection of eco-friendly faces.

Our newest recruit Beth pointed out the rather daunting fact that so far there is no mention of recycling no the map!

We discussed potential problems following the actual release of the map. Now that the map is released how are we going to make sure that reuse facilities and retailers are pushing it to their full benefit? how can we engage them into continued discussions?
How can we incent them to help us help them?


Hey Beth!

Brendan, bless his soul was eager to excite us all to jump into the food game. It is indeed an excellent idea to start getting some sort of organic/vegan restaurant icons on the map, but right now? Maybe we should start getting the model in order by which to collect that data and have a good think about how we can successfully build and maintain it as a relevant a resource.
We have to go away and have a think about how we can get that data. Who is already collecting that data? How can we incent organic restaurants/suppliers to provide us with that data?
How will we decide on what qualifies as a organic retailer/supplier? A good idea was that of having a percentage based system where we could deduce an organic retailer by the ratio by which they sold organic food.


Here are Joe and Gerry, posing in their best 'programmer think' pose.

Then peeps started contributing into the mix where we could find some of this data, suggesting that it may just be an effort to collect and collate.
Hannah suggested Green city. Beth suggested about Hugh Fearnley whittingstall who reputably is a Chef with lists of suppliers in the back of his books?
Post a list of orginisations for food.

We discussed the idea of the green map as a hub for all eco activity in Glasgow, and that it may just to be organic in its growth like it has been so far as the green map so far is not comprehensive enough to demand such a title. A good initial move towars that area would be to get an event RSS feed onto the site in the guise of "Green Events in Glasgow"
It would be nice to get to a position where we could start educating people a little in recycling, not that they don't know but just help the effort to push it to the forefront.

Joe exclaimed - "We need some media on the front page!, Media, whats all this writing?!!! No more writing, pictures."
To which Brendan and myself jumped up and said we would indeed project our greenest mappest feelings on to the web.


EVERYONE - Boil down sub categories
FRANKI - Add photos to usb
KEVIN - write page for auto dev build page
KEVIN - refactor button down to one
JOE - implement A-Z
CHRIS - Address parser
Hannah - Overview of categories
JOE - Implement Glasgow green events
BRENDAN - review categories and add movie
KEVIN - Add gerry to set up planner,repo,xplanner
GERRRY - add linux set up guide.
GERRY - setup localhost
KEVIN - add rake to docs
KEVIN - vishar to xplanner
VISHAR - data extractor for excel
KEVIN - Add Beth, James & Gerry to planner

Continuing to find out how our map fares up against the real world we had the help of some reuse organizationally related peeps. They turned up specially to help us with a bit of usability testing. All our regular volunteers now wise in the ways of usability attempted to extract all elements which frustrated them about our current Glasgow Green mapping solution.




Everyone seems to be right in the swing of things now an usability testing is becoming a very productive process. The good news is that all of the previous issues from the previous two weeks weren't even touched upon because they are a usability dream.

So here are the results summed up of our tests:

User #1 Erin, 20's, Helper: Brendan

• Go buttons can be merged into one


• Bag picture should link to map while that page exists


• move marker to postcode isn't understood well


• users could confirm postcodes and details on map

User #2 Paul, 30's, Helper: Sara

• Feels good about using map


• needs more explanation


• fix back button


• make submit buttons bigger


• more icons like DIY


• Street search needed


• Auto completion


• Shop owners and finders distinction


• Combine go buttons


• entering postcode needs to be made clearer


• home area for map?

User #3 Alex, 20's, Helpers: Kevin & Vichar

• Easy to achieve common tasks


• Good info coverage in details


• Simple searches


• more help with tasks to help suggest how to use the map


• Needs an A-Z directory


• Auto completion of streets in Glasgow


• Is everything on there? Not sure of completion of info?


• Back doesn't work


• No feedback for last search

Woo! Lots of good feedback but what can we deduce from it fair green mappers? Well I'd say that we're definitely in need of describing the information on the map more. Everyone realises it's a map with resuable stuff on it but what does that mean to them? What is that going to do for their lives? We have to start putting them into the picture, help them visualize how to use the map. We've spoke in the past about breaking the map into three concepts: what is this?, give something and buy something. So these are going to be moved to the front of the map.

Also we need signaling of where users are searching, we need more feedback of what they are looking at with icons and maybe more visual feedback.

Wooo, go green mappers.

hi everyone!

We've been having great sessions on the icon updating over here, and had a breakthrough in how we think about organizing the set. We are now building a different kind of online tool to review them. We are aiming to open this to the public and Mapmaker comment in early September.

You'll be able to take part and see the final version of Green Map Icons, Version 3 take shape this fall, with the goal of completing all (yes!) by Dec 1 (font-making, posters, etc will follow). More news on this soon.

Kit Robinson of the Lake Washington - Cascadian Watershed Green Mao (in Washington State, US) has made a really cool interactive map of the Green Maps - it's 'fed' by the Map Profiles in the Greenhouse. We'll be linking it in soon, and hope your projects will show up on it! (so hint, hint! if you have yet to re-register, click Participate! and if your Map Profile's not up yet, please add it.....

Congrats to Hannah Clinch & everyone at Radius Glasgow, the new Dear Green Place guide to Reuse is wonderful! It's got many innovative features to its design. See it at our site or www.deargreenplace.org.

We also received a big box full of new Green Map created in Taiwan - each one is a work of Art! Thanks to all involved at SOW.

and here is our latest press: http://www.licmagazine.com/

Feel free to add your news to the Blog! You can also add a comment to someone else's Blog anytime, too!

Note there are subtle changes underway on the website, too: Now you can see how many are using it on the home page (on the right) . Your suggestions are always welcome. all the best, Wendy

_______________________________________________
GreenMap mailing list
GreenMap@greenmap.org
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/greenmap

This is all from memory, so it's a little spotty. I'll open my database later.
I kept things minimal, with a separate layer per type of (related) feature(s):

ID
Symbol(The actual character for the thingy in the green map font)
Name
Weight
Verified
Notes (Street Address, Phone Number, URL; these could be individual fields)

Symbol allows you to conflate several related things (e.g; farmer's markets
and vegetarian restaurants) into a single layer for ease of managment. Also,
if you're not uber picky about symbol placement, or are working with a large
format output, leveraging the labeling features of your GIS package (esp.
ArcGIS + Maplex) can greatly reduce the amount of effort required to manually
cope with clutter.

Weight is *very* helpful, and sense "B" is unfortunately absent in most
greenmaps. I used this in three ways A) I am able to gather data on all
varieties of things with respect to the topic, regardless of importance, and
later filter them out from presentation as I see fit B) vary the size of the
symbol in proportion to its importance, thereby allowing for denser display
of information with less clutter (on the Cambridge Green Map the Zipcars,
community gardens, and subway symbols are all scaled) C) the city provided
data, in a rather natural manner, conflates no bicycle riding on sidewalk
zones with the bicyle lane geometry. I applied a negative weight to these
features to more clearly set them off in my own databse, while allowing for
easy integration of future data revisions by the city.

Verified is used in a similar way to the first sense of weight, anything I'm
informed of, or suspect might be relevant gets added. But final layout only
displays those things which I have been able to verify are present and correct.


Something I probably should have included was a field indicating the source
of the data. Yes, you can use FGDC metadata for this, but it's a PITA and
suboptimal in this case. For many themes I merged a handful of features from
several random datasets. More than once I had to go back and figure out where
this park or that pond came from.
--
Free map of local environmental resources: http://CambridgeMA.GreenMap.org
--

Hi Cip,

Susan (professor of planning at the University of Alaska) has just
uploaded a pdf and text file showing the form & fields for her
database for Fairbanks Greenmap
(http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/user/90) - it's in the Mapmaking
section of the Tool Center

http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/node/2268 (text file, tab-delimited)
http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/node/2268 (pdf)

Hope this is useful...

Thanks for putting these up Susan!

Cheers,

Thomas
- Show quoted text -


On 13/08/07, Jerrad Pierce wrote:
> This is all from memory, so it's a little spotty. I'll open my database later.
> I kept things minimal, with a separate layer per type of (related) feature(s):
>
> ID
> Symbol(The actual character for the thingy in the green map font)
> Name
> Weight
> Verified
> Notes (Street Address, Phone Number, URL; these could be individual fields)
>
> Symbol allows you to conflate several related things (e.g; farmer's markets
> and vegetarian restaurants) into a single layer for ease of managment. Also,
> if you're not uber picky about symbol placement, or are working with a large
> format output, leveraging the labeling features of your GIS package (esp.
> ArcGIS + Maplex) can greatly reduce the amount of effort required to manually
> cope with clutter.
>
> Weight is *very* helpful, and sense "B" is unfortunately absent in most
> greenmaps. I used this in three ways A) I am able to gather data on all
> varieties of things with respect to the topic, regardless of importance, and
> later filter them out from presentation as I see fit B) vary the size of the
> symbol in proportion to its importance, thereby allowing for denser display
> of information with less clutter (on the Cambridge Green Map the Zipcars,
> community gardens, and subway symbols are all scaled) C) the city provided
> data, in a rather natural manner, conflates no bicycle riding on sidewalk
> zones with the bicyle lane geometry. I applied a negative weight to these
> features to more clearly set them off in my own databse, while allowing for
> easy integration of future data revisions by the city.
>
> Verified is used in a similar way to the first sense of weight, anything I'm
> informed of, or suspect might be relevant gets added. But final layout only
> displays those things which I have been able to verify are present and correct.
>
>
> Something I probably should have included was a field indicating the source
> of the data. Yes, you can use FGDC metadata for this, but it's a PITA and
> suboptimal in this case. For many themes I merged a handful of features from
> several random datasets. More than once I had to go back and figure out where
> this park or that pond came from.
> --
> Free map of local environmental resources: http://CambridgeMA.GreenMap.org
> --
> MOTD on Setting Orange, the 6th of Bureaucracy, in the YOLD 3173:
> When awful things happen to me, I try to imagine how Douglas Adams would be writing it if I were a character in one of his books. --chaoticset
> _______________________________________________
> GreenMap mailing list
> GreenMap@greenmap.org
> http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/greenmap
>


--
_________________________
http://www.thomasturnbull.com
- Show quoted text -

Hi,

Green Map Bucharest will collect data in a GIS environment, and I need your help to start building the database (which are the attributes you used for print or web)
Whoever worked on this, already, and wishes to share the knowledge, will be greatly appreciated.

Looking forward to your reply,
Ciprian Samoila
Green Map Bucharest
Project Manager
www.greenmap-bucharest.ro

A beautifully inky smelling, brand spanking new Glasgow green map has now been published and is circling it's way around Glasgow's most exclusive second hand shops!

Where can I get one?

I hear you cry. You can email us for one at info@deargreenplace.org or you can pick it up from one of the second hand shops on the map. You'll soon also be able to download it here and from the main site.


Well done everyone!

So what are they doing now?

Oh but we've only just begun. Now that we have one notch in our belt we are beginning to turn our attentions to a web based green map that will be constantly updated by you!

Meeting #24 summed up

Agenda
1. News / What peeps did since last meeting
2. Coo over map.
3. Review most important functionality of online map.
4. Plan of distribution.
5. Online monitoring
6. Testing: Franki / Hannah
7. Dev: Kevin and joe change add place
8. Tasks!

We mostly justed cooed and had a think about where our efforts should be focused. We reviewed what we wanted first from the web site and found that first and foremost we need to get it to collect information based on the impact of the paper based map. A form to enable peeps to give feed back. Also its important for us to have it available in a downloadable form as soon as possible. Franki offered to break up her fantastical design into small palatable fantastical areas, each on a seperate A4 page(since most grans don't pack an A1 printer beside the biscuits).

The most important priorites for the web map are:
1. Feedback and distribution of the download map
2. Add categories of Environmental Proj & Reuse Proj
3. Content from the map for web

Usability testing

Usability testing was carried out by Fanki and Hannah to find that the user could carry out the tasks quickly and instinctively found the areas of the map needed, even with it broken. This user was the news browsing type and had a bit of experience with google maps and so knew how to use all the controls straight away. Notably she enjoyed the experience of adding an icon to the map and found it easy to click the next arrows during the process.

Points taken from testing:
Add place functionality has improved
Messages to help when adding a shop but could be revised.
User used home as point of reference
The area selection was the next stop after the map.

Tasks

Add stats to pages
Get Franki disk
Get Kevin illustrator
Make online form
fix zooming in again
Divide up map for web
Make a synchroniser for the spreadsheet and web DB

The first Glasgow wide Green Map, marketed under the eco brand name dear green place, has been published. 20,000 copies of the map will be distributed throughout the city over the next month.

This 'Reuse' themed map features over a 120 charity shops and community based enterprises that provide people with the opportunity to donate and buy reusable house hold goods.

This is the first time that information about these opportunities has been collated and published. Each year in Glasgow over 145,000 items that could be reused currently go to landfill. This project aims to encourage people to find an alternative way of disposing of these valuable resources and support the community based initiatives that provide these services.

The Glasgow Guide to Reuse has been developed by a dedicated team of volunteer map makers, coordinated by Radius Glasgow. Funding for the project was secured from The Glasgow Community Recycling Forum, SUSTand various other agencies.

The volunteers continue to develop the web based version of the map www.deargreenplace.org and hope to broaden the map’s content once it has been established.

If you would like to obtain a copy of the map please email info@deargreenplace.org

Now that the new GreenMap.org is closer to complete, it's time for the
next web project.

We're considering developing an online webmap tool that makes it
really easy for any Green Mapmaker to build an online Green Map. A lot
of people have been asking for something like this, so I want to make
sure that it's as useful as possible. The idea is that it should be
possible for anyone to do - you won't need to know how to set up a
database, or understand HTML.

If you would like to be involved in the discussion about this webmap
tool please email me and I'll put you on the list. The discussion will
be by email at first with everything posted on the Mapmaker's Exchange
section of the website.

I've put the outline of what I plan to do in the Mapmaker's Exchange
section at: http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/node/2182

If you have time, please could you answer these questions now to help
guide the development of the webmap tool:

1) Do you think this is a worthwhile project?
2) Have you made an online map already?
3) If you have made an online map, how did you do it?
4) If you have not made an online map, have you used one that you
like? Please give some examples & links.
5) Would you want to let the public comment on or rate sites on your map?
6) Would you want to let the public add photos to sites on your map?
7) Would you want to let the public suggest new sites?
8) Would you want to include lines (for bike paths, walking paths,
etc.) and areas (for parks, deforestation, erosion, pollution, etc) as
well as points (for sites)?
9) How important do you think it is to include your own custom local icons?
10) How good is Google Maps coverage of your area? Is there a better
alternative?

Even if you don't want to be involved in the discussion, please email
me any comments or suggestions on how you would like this to work.
This project will only go ahead if enough people reply saying that
they think it is worth doing!

The timing of this project is not certain yet as I will be away for
most of September.

Hope you're having a great summer!

Thomas
_______________________________________________
GreenMap mailing list
GreenMap@greenmap.org
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/greenmap

hi Mapmakers!

It's now 2 months since we switched over to the new website. Over 40,000 viewers have seen it so far! 87% are new to the site and they are staying longer and viewing more pages than ever before!

In July, we made the registration process easier. It's now updated in 5 different languages, as mentioned in yesterday's Multi-lingual Message.

We also have a new page! http://greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/all

This page has all the Mapmaking projects on it (past and present) - it's the first place many website users will visit, including potential Mapmakers looking for available cities and towns. Now, there are too many projects that are not linked to profiles or any information about the project.

If you are an existing Mapmaker, but have yet to register, we urge you to do so in August! In September, we'll be linking Green Map projects that have not registered or responded by email to the ‘Available City’ icon. Help us avoid confusion - please respond directly by email or register asap!

We'll also be doing major press and funder outreach in September*, so everyone, please add more images and details.

By then, we’ll add a “Featured Map’ box to the homepage. If your Map Profile has a Map image and either a downloadable or linked map, it will be eligible for this random selection. So be sure you have included both an image and a complete map the public can view.

We also have ANOTHER new page!

http://greenmap.org/impacts

As soon as you write about yours in your Map Profile, it will show up on this page, in random order. These impacts are being reviewed for a new book being written in Japan this season!

We've been listening to your comments and those of visitors, and are making other changes to encourage more social networking and exchange in the Blog & Resources section. We welcome your comments about this or the website at any time.

GODD NEWS! We have also added the updated Green Mapmakers Guide to the Tool Center! Many thanks to Tom Hammer, Soon Chung Lim, and Carlos Martinez for the many hours devoted to this project. Login and download from Mapmaking Resources.

Now, a request - we are changing the way the testimonials (in Blog) works, and will be adding comments like this:

What a wonderful new site, and what a privilege to be part of this network! Naomi Tsur, Director, SPNI-Jerusalem, 2007 July 31

(Thanks Naomi!) When we upload it, we'll link it to their profile. We'd love to have more comments (even longer ones) by you for this page, please send by email.....(and if you sent one before, opps! We lost it, so please send again!).

* yesterday, we found out Green Map will be in a book called "Cool Hunting" coming out soon in Australia, and a new US book on sustainable design will include the website and more. A reporter from Chicago called too, he is covering the ongoing Institute of Arts based project (yea! Nadine Bopp), and we're hearing from so many new bloggers, etc., it really is a good time to register, login & do more....(we will too, as we have news to add on our NYC projects as well).

It’s hot & sticky in NYC, but we are here, ready to help you show the world what you are accomplishing for your communities everywhere!

Thanks so much, Wendy

There are a couple of events for distribution and feed back of the green map that we need to be thinking about:

1.Hannah will broadcasting live on Sunny Govan Radio http://www.sunnygovan.org/ live on Friday 3rd 1pm

2. Glasgow Community Recycling Forum members – Thursday 16 August Eve – big backer and potential benifactors of green map are coming to do some user testing. They see the green map as providing them with city wide exposure, a key tool for marketing their services and raising their profile.

3. Govan Green zone – Saturday September 8 (time to be confirmed) a community event to engage people with green issues. Will be handing out green maps and talking to people about how they access information on reuse and recycling. Good opportunity to get feed back and do a bit of filming perhaps???

4. Govanhill Clean Up – Sat 15 September.
A community clean up where people will be issued with litter pickers and told to go forth and cleanse the streets, backcourts and closes of the area. Will be there handing out green maps and collecting community info on attitudes towards litter and waste. Perhaps a few additional people would like to do a bit of user testing and filming??

If you can spare some additional time on the saturdays let me know. Could probably do with about 4 people per event.

Cheers

Hannah

Here at the green map we've started usability testing on the dev map.
Development version of the Glasgow Green Map

Usability testing is the process of getting people to use a product and modifying it so they could use it better. Traditionally in web design the process of usability testing has been a bit of a mickey mouse affair, when actually it's one of the most important aspects of it's design. You can have a rocking web site but if I can't click the button I'm looking for in two seconds, I'll click something else or the back button.
The reason that usability tests are so affective is because they reveal that there is no norm. The norm web browser does not exist, everyone has different habits. It is the aim of usability testing to identify common actions between these many habits and tie them in as closely to your web site as possible.

Here is the structure of the green map usability tests:

1. Profile the User

Who is this user, what internet web experience have they? Do they have websites they visit regularly?

This part of the process identifies how close to the audience demographic your test candidate lies. You'll find out what sites they remember visiting, because if they remember visiting them chances are that these sites will affect their further perception of websites. Even if you only get google out of them you have identified that they can use a search engine, but if you find that they you use looksmart.com there will be a reason for them to have deviated from the norm, what did that site offer?

2. Clicky clicky

Once you've profiled the user let them go clicky clicky. Let them get a bit bored of going clicky clicky. Then after their thoroughly bored, you can move on.

Let the tester just click around the site. This part of the process is about getting them used to the site, the testing guide as much as possible must remain silent during this process so as not to influence the tester. The testing guide should decline to offer any advice or directions for the short period of this part of the test and should be vigilantly watching what the tester is doing.

The testing guide should be watching where the tester is moving the mouse, why they are moving the mouse there, what they are clicking on and how often they are doing these things.
On the most part the testing guide is not concerned with actual outcome of the actions but more with the process by which the tester executes them and how easily they manage to carry out their tests. While they are going clicky clicky the testing guide should be very quickly writing down notes that describe the actions of the tester. These don't have to be anything elaborate, just short words and phrases like "clicked home, down, up swirly mouse, clicked empty blue box, down, pause". The testing guides aim is just to capture as much about the process as possible, it can be reinterpreted into more comprehensive notes after the tests.

3. Tasks

The tester is given specific tasks to carry out on the site and the guide notes their progress.

The most important part of this process is that the guide must let the tester fail. They must watch them thrash about and get lost and ONLY at the VERY last minute offer them a very small piece of advice. The more clearly defined your tests are the better results you can hope to achieve so it is important that the testing guide is pretty experienced in using the site.

4. After the tests

After you've been through the tests (and not before) you can explain to the tester exactly what you were doing at each part of the process and why you recorded specific information. While divulging this information it is likely that the tester will want to justify certain actions and it is the right time for the testing guide to clarify exactly what was going through the mind of the tester at that moment. It's funny to have someone else identify your browsing traits and it should be treated this way. No one is under inspection and usability testing is not a competition. Everyones opinions and actions count.


If you'd like to do your own usability testing why not carry out this test on our map and then send us the results?
Development version of the Glasgow Green Map

Hi guys, this is Brendan - I've just joined your Glasgow Green Mappers group!

a bit about myself: I'm a displaced Canadian who is living near Merchant City in Glasgow and I think this city has a lot of work to do and this map project will help significantly in outlining the main areas of improvement. I work for a wind energy company and am involved in a couple other green groups in Glasgow.

Now down to business - some notes on the current state of the website:

1. The map doesn't show the extent of what has been plotted - this has its strengths and its weaknesses, but I'd kind of like to see, from the beginning, what this map has to offer


2. Will the map be larger? Whether you show the extent or show it in its current state, you need to zoom in or out - meaning this doesn't help anyone. I'm lazy and want to click my mouse as little as possible so put everyone on the same page, as opposed to favoring those in the city centre.


3. I'd like a box that says: "put in your postal code and we'll show you what is in your neighborhood", which then adjusts the map size to show what is local.


4. The settings behind 'name', 'address', etc. are too vague and will lead to people adding items which will look different. This needs to be narrowed down - what about the shop should they be saying? Otherwise, people will add too much or too little. Name - fine. Address - needs expansion. About - needs to be more specific. Opening hours - could easily become (I think?!?!?) a drop down menu. Contact - person I assume? So contact name. Telephone - do I put (+44) or 0 or what? What if I'm calling them from outside the UK? Fax - same as phone. e-mail could be _____ @ _________ and website could be http://_________________. Am I the best person to drop the location of this place? What if I'm just a customer of theirs and put it in the wrong spot? Would having a box for postal codes help?


5. Why would I ever want to show things on a 'small map'? Maybe use different language like 'fast map'


6. What does 'show random places' mean? Why would I ever want to see random places? If this is supposed to interest me in places I haven't heard of - perhaps this should just list the businesses which have just been posted instead.


7. I like the idea of the front page being a map on the left and a giant calendar on the right - then you cover 'where' and 'when' quite quickly.


8. I don't like the idea of seeing "show all categories" - why don't you just tell me the various categories? How do I even know that THAT is where to look for the categories listing?


9. Articles - I think you need to keep a tight wrap on the articles thing - as in, all articles that are posted have to do with an event, which will be posted as an entry on the big calendar (which then links to the article) or something new being offered by a shop or organisation. So then you need to split articles into "events" and "updates", which can eventually be localized.

hi Everyone!

Rockland County NY US - where a citizens group led by Carolina Svedberg is making a tourism and residential focused map

Ningbo China - where Huanqing (Calling for Green) Society has made a wonderful hand drawn map, concurrent with registration (thanks for your help, Friends of Nature!)

Most recently published includes:

San Antonio Texas USA - created for the American Institute of Architects annual meeting, this map came out great! It will be one of the first available in the Greenhouse, I bet, as soon as Steven Colley adds a Map Profile! Houston Texas will host next year's AIA meeting, and will register online in mid-May, too.

I'm the lead developer of a project called Theirwork. I'm based in
Dublin, and environmental designer Dominica Williamson, who I'm
working on the project with, is based in Cornwall.

Although not technically a Green Map project, Theirwork is influenced
by and shares a lot of traits with traditional Green Maps.

You can find out more about the project at: http://theirwork.org/home.php
And (a lot of!) detail of my involvement at: http://blog.thoughtwax.com/?p=220

Also, I think you have been in touch with Diarmaid and Seb in Cork
Green Map, right? I've worked with Diarmaid in the past and
contributed some early code to their project. Dom has previously
worked with Wendy Brawer (greenmap.org) in NY.

Emmet

Crack! Smack, we're back on track. The Glasgow green map was unofficially taking a little rest for two weeks since there wasn't really that much volunteers could do to help. The Paper based map was finally handed off to the designers at scratch design, meanwhile the web based map took a pelting to its productivity curve due to network infrastructure. The web map will eventually be deployed at the electron club ( CCA Glasgow ) and we have long term concerns in mind for both the Electron Club and Green Map at heart. In the short term we could just stick the site on a commercial web host but that doesn't take much community effort. The network within the Electron Club is thanks to the hard work of Andrew Back and Simon () who setup both internal/external access for the project server that is to be the home for the green map virtual host ( where the web pages and code will reside ). Additional thanks goes to Alex Suttcliffe for his snappy work to set up the preliminary configuration of our green map host; setting up accounts, installing programs and some configuration. Although the whole network setup took a little longer to get right it was a chance for some community efforts to really show their value to the project. When eventually this project is realized for the success it will inevitably become; those involved in setup, information gathering, think work, art & design, programming, distribution, promotion can not only feel proud about what they have contributed to, but can also rest assured that it was only realized through the team efforts of everyone equally. Every move we've made so far has been democratically voted upon or trusted to those with relevant former experience. All of these people are working to help one another in the electron club and in the process make Glasgow a greener city.


The Last Meeting
This was really a pat on the back meeting to sit back and review exactly where we were at within the Green Map. On the whole we are running dead on time but we now have to start planning out where exactly the bottle necks are going to be within the project in light of our former experience.


The Green Map is lucky enough to have just received some additional funding so we were having a think about how it should be best spent in the coming months.
Here were the expressed preferences:

1. Members of the club: It's members that are making the map happen and its important that they are valued for the work they contribute and that they in return receive from the project. We've thoughts of hiring people to speak, paying traveling expenses and pizza. If anyone else has any (realistic) thoughts please speak up.

2. Marketing: In order for all of our hard work to actually reach any kind of audience it will have to be intensely and well marketed. All products need good marketing no matter how good they are. Bad products are constantly thrown in our face and so generate an audience "just because" it was sheerly caught within the audience. All of those involved in the Green Map know its benefit to the community and it's going to be our responsibility it finds its way to those it will affect. If we can just get their interest once, the actual maps functionality will carry us through.

3. User / Usability testing: When making a product it would be arrogant and indeed ignorant to presume that those involved in developing the product share the exact tastes and preferences as those to which it is aimed. In order for the Online Green Map to be a success it will have to be useful within the first 10 seconds of loading up or the users are just going to get bored/frustrated and venture off. We'll achieve this by getting a few of those users in and watch exactly how they use the site and base our changes around what they actually need. To do this properly we'll probably need to pay a few select users.

4. Contingency: There's bound to be something else.

It has been considered that it may be wise to restructure the weekly meetings slightly by setting agendas before hand, me and Hannah will make sure that everyone will have access to them every week and people can decide if they want to come along based on what we're geared to speak on. Of course everyone is still more than welcome to attend every single meeting, we just want to make sure that the programming peeps and he marketing peeps can confidently 'talk shop' without anyones eyes glazing over.

To all the developers: The links page has been updated with our story planner and host. I'm going to stick up some stories soon and then we'll look them over with Liz, Frankie and co. If anyone wants to have a stab at adding a few go ahead and put them in the first iteration (Two weeks) we'll worry about cleaning it up once there's something to clean up.

We plotted out a small timeline that showed we were going to have to get a move on and start user testing soon but really showed everything was looking dandy. Well done to Hannah for getting her Job!

Oh deary me. The colours came out all funny, as they did with the images 'shopping 2-5' and I've not a bloody idea why. Don't worry Kevin, that's not how it's supposed to be, the colours haven't strayed that much.
I was trying to upload an example of how it should be, but it's not working very well. I will try again to upload them on the project planner. If anyone knows what's going on, please let me know! It's like when you're trying to print something but the printer has run out of one colour.
I promise they look better than the garish colours that have come out so far.


oops..


franki

Hi Folks, Franki and I met yesterday to devevelop the illustrations for the Green Map on a little further.

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO VIEW IN CORRECT COLOURS

I did very little apart from watch Franki and drink tea, whilst Franki slaved away at the computer, cutting out people, washing machines and bits of kettle.

The main illustration is designed to capture the types of goods you can buy and donate to community reuse enterprises and charity shops. The feel of the original illustrations have been retained, but the colours brightened up and the items/objects featured modernised to reflect the nature of the goods needed.

There are also a number of illustrations being developed to run alongside the text e.g the Community Can Cycle man on bike and the Give you buy and you give again bag. There will be more of these images woven into the map and we did discuss the possibility of placing key places on the map for navigation purposes that could also be illustrated.

Wow, thats nine meetings now. This week we spoke about the final slap dash to get the paper based map ready to go. Now that we have all the data fitting it on to the map is actually proving to be difficult! Franki also unveiled some of her working ideas for the identity of the map which sadly weren't all working at the meeting but fear not! I've plonked them about here for everyone to glaze over.




Like the last meeting, ideas of how the site would look was a focus. Timeless, contemporary or current fashion? Either way we'll of course be sure to design it elegantly. I tend to lean towards current fashion. There are definitely some very different mixed ideas about how the map will look and it will be great to have everyones ideas developing slowly out loud in opinions and on paper. Franki has been slowly working with Scratch design to emphasise the idea of finding both small hidden treasures and valuable items in charity shops. I think its starting to come across really well and shows a clearer purpose for the green map.

Honestly these are great Franki, its a shame we couldn't have chatted more about these images.





People keep coming up with very idilic communityesque ideas where in an environment with changing weather people are doing things in the background like riding bikes and carrying tables. Sounds nice to me. I'll post up some of my mocks soon as well and maybe we can put up others thumbnails if we get them scanned in.

Everyone has 2 tasks this week:
Little thumbnails of what a Glasgow Green Map web site could look like.
Lists of links that could be in the navigation of the glasgow green map site.
Good luck everyone!

Green Map Systems are just in the proces of testing their new Green House, designed to increase collaboration between Green Map projects worldwide.

Take a look if you have time and feed back any commments. http://www.greenmap.org/greenhouse/

Heres just a quick rundown since I plan to speak a little about some related topics on this very blog later. The last meeting saw us finally get our project host up and running with our story planner on it. Well done to all the efforts of those to get the initial data collection up we've put the very first version of it here.

We had a quick discussion about paper prototyping and I started introducing a few flashy web interface ideas.

One of the tasks I was assigned was to fix this very page. When you're building a web site the most important thing is surely that everyone can see it. So it was probably pretty bad on my part to neglect you internet explorer users out there. Most of these affected probably won't have realised but it remains that this very site displayed differently and now it’s (kind of) fixed. For all those budding web designers out there keep this list of hacks close to your heart. Browser hacks are a necessary evil.

Well done Alice for sourcing some good eco facts!
Alice just produced some killer facts

Hannah Clinch: Blog!
Hannah Clinch: Meet with the Six cities guy.
Hannah Clinch: Write out 2 lists of potential links from the home page.
Hannah Clinch: 15 thumbnails of web interfaces.
Joe Wright: Discuss Server setup/remote access with Andy.
Joe Wright: Play with Green Map PHP + DB
Joe Wright: Look over the writeboard blurb for the paper based map.
Eve McGregor: Look over the writeboard blurb for the paper based map.
Eve McGregor: Blog!
Eve McGregor: at least 15 thumbnails of web interfaces.
Kevin mcdonagh: Give Eve Password
Kevin mcdonagh: Style Dev site.
Kevin mcdonagh: Style X-planner.
Kevin mcdonagh: Add Scans.
Kevin mcdonagh: 15 web interface thumbnails.
Kevin mcdonagh: Blog!
Kevin mcdonagh: Think of more graphic identity ideas for green map.
Will Foster: Talk with Bob about interviews.
Will Foster: Put a start to interview questions in the project planner on the writeboard.
Get Scanner set up for Electron Club and Green map
Eve McGregor: Write out 2 lists of potential links from the home page.
Liz Eevwes: Write out 2 lists of potential links from the home page.
Franki Finch: Write out 2 lists of potential links from the home page.
Franki Finch: Thumbnails of web interfaces.
Liz Eevwes: Thumbnails of web interfaces.

Hello all,
I said that i would blog in the results from my Glasgow Eco search so here goes:

- Glasgow City Council is spending £4million on a clean up

- Over 20% of Glasgow is green space

- There are 74 parks, 600 outdoor children's play areas and 26 allotments

- Woodland covers 1,600 hectares (25% is ancient long established or semi-natural)

- The Glasgow farmers market is in Queen's Park 10 till 2pm on the 1st and 3rd sat of each month

- 400,000 tonnes of waste is generated in Glasgow every year

- 220,000 tonnes of household waste which 85% goes to landfill. Of which 60% could be recycled

- there are 220 registered Eco schools

All these figures are from the Glasgow Council website. I also found a report about the Eco footprints of all the 5 cities of Scotland (i can upload this if you want). there is lots of different facts and figures but the the main point is that Glasgow has the lowest Ecological footprint! but this data is from 2002 so I'm not sure how relevant it would be now.

I found it very difficult to get such specific facts about Glasgow, if you have any other websites that you would like me to look through then i would be happy to do so, i just don't know where to look!

Also, if Hannah could let me know more about the London map that you want to get that would be great.

I'm thinking green thoughts, promise!

Alice

hi Mapmakers,

Today, the 21st, is the 15th anniversary of the very first Green Map event here in NYC! And Sunday the 25th is the 12th anniversary of global Green Map movement - how fitting that we'll start the beta test of the Greenhouse tomorrow (assuming all goes well) and, hopefully, get back great comments and have the it all ready for you to add your Mapmaker and Map profiles around April 15. We hope you all can add content within a month, so when it launches publicly on May 30, it will have lots of wonderful maps, images, stories and resources on view!

Thanks to everyone who has already helped or will take part in the beta-test of the Greenhouse's content management system -- do let us know if you want to be a beta-tester (with comments due by April 2) or a translator (longer time frame)...

We're all working really hard here, so I will keep this short. Thanks to all in the office here too!

Nice fresh article here about Missoula Montana US's Green Map
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/city/article/green_map_guides_missoulians_to_sustainability/C8/L8/
and a cool video on the Jerusalem Green Map
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVl9K1al4Jk

All the best, Wendy

PS I will pass along the below for North American Youth leadership awards,

Do you know any teens or young adults in North America who have led a
dynamic environmental campaign or project? Do you work with youth groups or
inspiring new leaders? Are you someone 13-22 years old who fits this
description? Read on!

CALL FOR AWARD ENTRIES (Deadline May 15):

2007 Brower Youth Award
www.broweryouthawards.org

Awards for youth ages 13-22 working for the Earth

Has your effort been in the realm of conservation, preservation, or
restoration? Could you use the publicity and funds from an award to further
your work and support your group?

If so, apply today for a Brower Youth Award! Each year, this annual national
award recognizes six young people for their outstanding activism and
achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy.
The winners of the award receive a $3,000 cash prize, a trip to California
for the award ceremony and wilderness camping trip, and ongoing access to
resources and opportunities to further their work at Earth Island Institute
and develop leadership skills.

Who can apply?
...Young leaders ages 13 to 22 as of July 1, 2007 living in North America

When are applications due?
...Completed application must be postmarked or emailed by May 15, 2007.

More questions?
...Call or email Sharon Smith at sharonsmith@earthisland.org or 415-788-3666
x144.

"People have alleged that I have inspired many young people over the years,
but I say, it was just the opposite."
--David R. Brower--





_______________________________________________
GreenMap mailing list
GreenMap@greenmap.org
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/greenmap

hi, I'd just like to thank everyone who was involved in Saturdays Green Map session. Chris ,Franki and Sara your help has made a tremendous difference to the project. It was great to be working along side such talented and good looking individuals. I am just finishing off the data today for hand over. Will keep you posted.

Ta very much xh

This afternoon, Hannah, Franki, Sara, Tom and I met up at the Electron Club for some action-packed data verification fun in preparation for the paper-based map design.

Hannah has been working really hard to put together a list of green facilities across Glasgow and we've now got a database of about 130 organisations, with roughly 40 pieces of data for each.

Armed with a bunch of laptops, we set to the task of verifying all the information and plotting it on a map, ready to send to the graphic designers. As the Glasgow Green Map's resident software developer for the day, I came up with various wee tools to help clean up and transform the database for Hannah and Sara.

Meanwhile, Franki did some great Illustrator wizardry — incorporating feedback from Thursday's meeting into her amazing design ideas for the project's branding, while Sara showed off her Word and Excel prowess; trawling through the data and making sure everything was spot on. Hannah and I then used the prototype green maps, the Glasgow A-Z, Google and Hannah's aging laptop to locate each organisation and catalogue them on a map.

Many hours later, followed by a spectacularly depressing Illustrator crash, followed by another few hours of Hannah re-doing most of that work, the map was complete!

In an bid to get away from the Illustrator trauma, I wrote a program to extract addresses from our data set, making each of the organisations visible on Google Maps and Google Earth. It's not particularly accurate (some points are in the River Clyde, or hover around the equator!), but here are some links to the web-based map and the Google Earth version.


Have a nice weekend and happy mapping to all!

I too have learned how to blog.

I have learnt how to Blog.

I've posted this on behalf of Franki Finch since she can't seem to update the blog yet:

Franki said:
I uploaded a couple of ideas for the graphics. They’re a lot different to the stuff the graphic designers did. I tried to integrate the idea of a map into a couple of them. I don’t mind if they’re not really useable, I had fun doing them anyway!

Check em out here!

We once again explored the world of possibilities for the Glaasgow Green Map but for the first time we had a demo version of our map! Seb from the corkgreen map very generously donated an example base for us to start working upon. Our newest volunteer Joseph gave everyone a quick spin of the demo map to show everyone its wonders. We also had an appearance from Robb who came up with a lot of great ideas for the graphical branding of the green map.

We also had our first view of ideas for the Glasgow green map visual ID from the talented designers at Scratch design. There was a good response to some of the elements while mixed to others. Scratch had come up with some great ideas changing the environment of the logo with different related silhouette images depending on the particular area of the maps target audience. This was best achieved by placing the silhouettes against a heavy typographic face. The typography seemed a bit stark and the group would have preferred something with some serifs and less 'blocky'. It was unanimously agreed that a more naturalistic, closer to nature approach would be prefferable although we understood the approach scratch were moving towards.

Scratch had also came up with a nice idea of cascading arrows of reuse design which almost eluded to floating autumn leaves in the wind. These were all very early conceptions and we'll be looking forward to it evolving in future. The group all individually expressed some great ideas, like the actual geographic shapes of greater Glasgow, or the common iconic elements of a paper based map somehow playing a part in the logo. With so many ideas submitted by the group it was suggested that we all have a go at sketching some ideas based on our experience with the green map and let the graphic designer concentrate on the Layout of geographical data then later let them reproach it with the advantage of more of our input.

Tasks
-------
Hannah

• Blog! + facts
• Speak with recycling officer
• Add more graphics to planner
• Bring in Glasgow facts book to Electron Club

Chris

• Set up local dev greenmap
• Look at a feasible data extraction tool
• Blog!

Robb

• Review blog
• Ideas for Graphic identity

Liz

• Blog!
• Add intro to planner
• Add scans to planner

Joe

• Make Green map dev set up guide
• Fiddle with map code

Kevin

• Set up project host

Franki

• Think of more graphic identity ideas for green map