Hi everyone, I'm Lela and I am co-executive director of NiJeL.org - Community Impact Through Mapping and an organizer of the Phoenix Netsquared group. I'm thrilled to be attending and I'm particularly excited to meet with the other mapping groups participating. If anyone has time for a mapping sidebar (maybe at the bar) let me know.

At NiJeL, we are working with groups around the world and here in the US to develop web and paper-based maps to fundraise, advocate, understand community problems, and document results to diverse audiences. We are committed to open source mapping techniques and we also train organizations and help them conduct participatory mapping.

As there seem to be so many projects at N2Y3 that involve a mapping component, I though I would introduce myself and make some connections.

My mind is rather blown with some of the latest developments in online mapping, having just returned from Where 2.0 in San Francisco.

My background is in Drupal development, and I've done a lot with the Google Map module. You can see some of the stuff at the beta of Green Map's project for N2Y3 - the Open Green Map. If anyone has questions about how to do this, I'd love to get a mapping session going in the hack room at N2Y3.

Last weekend three US-based members of the Ushahidi project team were able to get together for two full days of planning for the upcoming Net2 conference. (Photo proof exhibited... Erik, David and Juliana)

This past summer, I helped three park groups place community public art in their parks. A few neighbors near one of the parks had concerns about homeless people sleeping in/near the sculpture, and it became necessary for us to generate and document overwhelming community support to obtain the required city permits.

I used Google Maps to see where the neighbors actually lived in relation to the proposed site, typing in each of hundreds of addresses by hand using the Google Maps "My Maps" feature. Recently, some awesome Google maps have been created about the So Cal fires.

Where o where is the app that imports a spreadsheet of addresses, lets you choose the markers and visually illustrates community support?

It's all about location, location, location these days whether it's Google Earth Outreach for Nonprofits, Flickr's new mapping function and Places Pages, Placeblogging or NiJel:

At NiJeL, we create maps that tell powerful stories and have real community impact. Across the globe, NiJeL uses high performance mapping to identify and mitigate social, economic, and environmental problems in poor communities now so they don't become humanitarian disasters later. We think our maps can be potent decision-making tools that can, among other things, help communities advocate for better living conditions. So, if you're working to make the world a better place, we're looking to help you tell your story though maps.

They offer high performance mapping, training and participatory mapping.

NiJeL was a presenter at the Phoenix NetSquared Meetup this month and will be speaking at NPower Arizona's Tech Tuesday on October 23rd.

NiJel was also one of the 150+ projects nominated to attend the NetSquared Conference in May 2007. You can read  NiJeL's proposal, along with other proposals, in the N2Y2 Project Proposals.

Personally, I am super excited to announce that the October 9th speaker at Net Tuesday San Francisco will be Steve Miller, Product Manager, Google Earth Outreach.

Ever since I saw the Jane Goodall Institute's Gombe Chimpanzee Geoblog made with Google Earth last fall, I've been excited about the potential for nonprofits to use this tool.

When I saw the geoblog that the Jane Goodall's Institute created with Google Earth last year, I was wowed by its potential for nonprofits and wrote:

"I can't imagine a more powerful tool for environmental nonprofits and NGOs than to 'fly' your supporters and potential supporters over the area of the world you are working in. It is really an awesome experience. It has the color, movement and visual richness of Second Life, but it is First Life, it is our Earth."

Net Squared Community Builder Britt Bravo has set up a map for community members to mark our locations on. If you are coming to the conference or are otherwise interested in connecting with the Net Squared community - you can click here to view or add to the Net Squared world map.

Check out MapBuilder to build a collection of items on your own custom map, then put it on your site or blog.  While there are other similar tools I've seen, I've not seen any this easy.

John
CompuMentor