This year brings a wealth of map-related attention to Portland, OR and the region, most recently, with props given to Dave Imus and his latest map of the United States. But that’s just the beginning. This year, the 2012 annual North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS) conference will be coming to Portland on October 17th-19th. The Doubletree (Lloyd Center) will be the epicenter of the conference with a timely segue into wrap up of WhereCampPDX on October 19th-21st 12th-14th. For those in town a bit earlier, the GISPro 2012/Northwest GIS User Conference will also be held in Portland on during the week of September 30-October 4th. But if you just can’t wait to get some carto-action, the GIS in Action conference is coming up this March 13th and 14th with three sessions dedicated to Open Source mapping solutions. The conference will piggyback the PLSO‘s regional conference (Land Surveyors). There’s even rumor of the State of the Map U.S. (SOTM) following WhereCampPDX (let’s hope!). And State of the Map US is coming to Portland. There’s so much to get excited about and there are many ways you can get involved. Here’s how:

• NACIS Planning Meetings: 3^rd Wednesdays of the month, 5:30p-7-ish, at various establishments.
• GIS Pro 2012
• GIS in Action
• WhereCampPDX

Kelso Cartography.

We are extremely excited to have Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso as our keynote speaker for this year’s WhereCampPDX — a free, volunteer-organized unconference for anyone interested in geography and technology. This year’s event will be held on September 24th-26th, with a full day of unconference sessions at the Metro Regional Center on the 25th.

Nathaniel Kelso has worked at The Washington Post since 2005 creating maps, programs and interactive graphics for their print and online editions in a deadline-driven journalism environment. He is also the project manager and chief evangelist for NaturalEarthData.com, a free source of vector and raster GIS maps. Nathaniel was lured to DC as an intern and, later, staff cartographer at National Geographic Maps, where he researched wall maps and collaborated on the 8th edition “Atlas of the World”. He received his BA from Humboldt State University in 2002, with a GIS and Remoting Sensing Certificate the same year. His work has won awards from the North American Cartographic Information Society the Society of Newspaper Design and other organizations.

Nathaniel encourages everyone to stay curious and travel more, whether it’s by passport, bicycle, or PBS.  You can catch many of Nathaniel’s musings at his blog, Kelso’s Corner or follow his never ending stream-of-consciousness on Twitter @kelsosCorner.

WhereCamp is a participant-driven event that inspires many talented individuals to share their knowledge and ideas. From GIS professionals to open source maphackers, this event is a chance to brainstorm, share and learn from people who are re-tooling the idea of the map. It is the event for the creative cartographer and we hope you can be a part of it!

So… What’s WhereCampPDX?

WhereCampPDX is a free unconference focusing on all things geographical. The best way to describe it is as a geo-happening where all types of geo-locative enthusiasts come together and have informal discussions on what interests them. An unconference is a conference planned by the participants and created on the spot. It’s about having a low threshold for participation, bringing ideas into the open, and hearing all voices. It is like the 20% of a traditional conference where the best parts happen. You meet people, make relationships, and get down to what’s important to you. It all just happens.

What happened at the last one?

Last year we had people come from as far away as Africa and a good number of attendees from all over North America. Session topics included OpenStreetMap, Portland’s open data initiative, post digital mapping, using geolocation to survive the zombie apocalypse, and harnessing crowd sourced traffic data. Geoblogger James Fee gave a keynote on “Data Interoperability on the GeoWeb.” Sunday saw a rousing game of Pac-Manhattan in the streets of downtown Portland.

“Location games were a great followup to the hacking and sessions of the day before. WhereCampPDX was one of the best unconferences I’ve ever attended. It was well organized without being too controlled with a great a mix of people. Thanks everyone who organized as well as attended, it was an enjoyable time.” – Kate Chapman

The Main Ingredient is You

Sign up here and come to WhereCampPDX 2010! You made this a great event last year, and we want to see everyone again. If you are new to WhereCampPDX or have never attended an unconference, it’s time to make the jump.

There are so many ways to get involved and be part of creating WhereCampPDX. Help us get the word out on your blog or using Twitter. Tell your friends at the local hackathon. Come meet the organizers for happy hour and brainstorming every Thursday night at Produce Row. All are welcome!

Do you work for a company that could potentially be a sponsor? Tell them about the event. Check out the list of past sponsors on the blog and find out how your organization can get involved.

Remember, we need your help to make this another great event.

Writing credit goes to Justin Houk.

Friday night:

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The kickoff party starts at 6pm sharp at Gallery Homeland. Help us finalize our plans by RSVPing on Upcoming. You can earn bonus points by helping set up and tear down (we need volunteers throughout the weekend as well). Leave a comment on this post (with your contact info) if you want to help.

Saturday:

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The unconference day begins at 9am at Metro. The first hour will be devoted to a kickoff (with information you’ll need throughout the day), session scheduling, coffee drinking and a little socializing, then we launch into 6 hours of open sessions, with a lunch period in the middle. At 2pm we’ll take a break from the routine for our keynote by James Fee, followed by a highly experimental “un-panel”, before we finish the unconference session set, which runs until 6pm.

Get ready ahead of time by putting your name on the attendee list and adding a session idea or two to the wiki.

What should you bring with you? We recommend: documentation tools like a notebook, laptop, camera, or video recorder, a refillable water bottle or mug to help us cut down on waste, and your ideas for topics you’d like to talk about with others. WhereCamp, like other unconferences, is a highly participatory event. We’re dependent on you to bring the ideas you’re interested in, and help document what goes on throughout the weekend, so other people can learn and experience new things.

Saturday night:

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We’ll move on to the Portland Incubator Experiment for a pizza dinner and hackfest, starting at 7pm. See our earlier post for how to RSVP and pre-pay. If pizza isn’t your thing, you’re still welcome to join us again after 8:30pm to participate in the hacking. Bring your laptop and a project to work on if you have one, or come and see what other people are doing. (Hint: Friday and Saturday both have ample opportunities to scout out hacking ideas.)

Sunday:

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Game day! Our Sunday home base is Backspace in Old Town. The first round of PacManhattan will start around 10:30, but drop by throughout the day for orienteering, photohunt, and geocaching activities as well. Bring a compass, GPS device, and camera to participate in the full set of plans. Also remember to check the Portland Marathon route before you leave, since it will be affecting travel through downtown on Sunday.

One last tip: bookmark the specifics page so you can check back for event details and updates at any time.

To help you get what you want we’ve set up a democratic menu.

Take the survey below to tell us what you’d like to eat. We’ll use the results to determine what to order. Let us know if you need a vegan or other unlisted option in the comments. Note that we’ll have a vegetarian-friendly green salad and cheese pizza in addition to the options listed below.

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Thanks for taking the time to help us out.

WhereCampPDX kicks off Friday October 2nd with an opening night party at Gallery Homeland (2505 SE 11th Ave, Portland OR). This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow WhereCampers, discuss session ideas before the Saturday schedule planning rush, and try a round of our Arrivals game (shown above).

The party starts at 6pm, and will wind down around 9, after which we can mosey along to a nearby pub. If you’re planning to attend, please RSVP on Upcoming to help us finalize our plans.

600 NE Grand, Portland, OR

We’re pleased to announce we have a venue and a date! WhereCampPDX will be happening October 2nd through the 4th, with the main unconference session portion happening on Oct. 3rd at the Metro Regional Center. If you’re planning to attend, please let us know by adding your name to the attendees list on the wiki. You can also suggest a session that you’d like to host or participate in.

We’re still working out the details of a Friday night opening party, and the Sunday game sessions, so stay tuned for further details. You can help in the planning by joining the discussion on our mailing list, or attending a planning meeting, 7pm Thursday evening at Produce Row, every week from now until the event.

We also need more sponsors to support the event. Your contribution helps us feed attendees and cover other costs. Sponsors get their name and logo in the sidebar on this website, and the opportunity to introduce themselves to WhereCamp participants, by making a donation.

You can import the WhereCampPDX 2009 events to your calendar from Calagator.

We’re pleased to announce that James Fee will be joining us to speak about data sharing and standards!  Here’s a little bit about James:

James Fee, GISP, is an Evangelist at WeoGeo, Inc. Fee has extensive experience in GIS development (ESRI, Autodesk®, OSGeo), as well as development of GIS implementation plans. He was instrumental in enabling the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center to track the recovery of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina and previous clients span the Department of Defense (Navy, USMC, Army and Air Force), Department of Interior, State and Local Governments, Private Sector and Non-profits.

Fee is responsible for developing the developer community around WeoGeo and help users of WeoGeo Library and Market succeed at sharing and monetizing their data. Fee blogs about geospatial technology at www.spatiallyadjusted.com and has helped develop an online community culminating in Planet Geospatial. He is a frequent presenter at GIS conferences around the world and has recently keynoted the 2009 FME User Conference. He is also a regular columnist for GeoInformatics magazine.

If you haven’t already, take a moment to let us know you’ll be attending or add a topic suggestion to our sessions wiki page!

WhereCampPDX is a 100% volunteer-run unconference in Portland, Oregon focusing on all things geographical. It’ll be a great event to discuss geography in forms as diverse as open source GIS software, neocartography, disaster relief logistics mapping, locative gaming, etc.

As we prepare, you can get started:

• Connect: Subscribe to our news feed and follow us on Twitter.
• Sponsor: Help keep the event free and promote your geo-focused offering to our early adopters.
• Volunteer: Help plan and run the event, join our mailing list and attend meetings.

If you couldn’t make it to WhereCamp PDX this time, don’t fret. We’ll be having another meetup soon, and with so many Portlanders playing with geographic technologies, there are certain to be more events.

The unconference has moved to Old Town Pizza for food and hacking. We will be back at SOUK tomorrow for more sessions, PACMANhattan and Cruel 2B Kind. See you there!!

On Sunday morning we will play Pac-Manhattan in the North Park Blocks. This is a chase game that is played by teams of runners and operators. The runners take on the roles of the five characters from the Pac-Man arcade game. The operators receive location data from the runners and coordinate the ghosts as they attempt to corner the pac-man.

We need a runner (or three, so they can trade off) to play the part of PAC-MAN and four-to-eight other players who want to walk-and-run around the Pearl District (in the rain) to play the parts of INKY, PINKY, BLINKY, and CLYDE. We’ll need five operators to communicate with the runners (using their own cellphones).
Register on Upcoming and let us know if you want to play!

Pac-Manhattan was developed by students in N.Y.U.’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in 2003-2004. It combines two venerable gaming traditions: Hares and Hounds, and NAMCO’s Pac-Man.

Hares and Hounds (or Paper Chase) was a Victorian-era children’s chase game. One or two runners of a group are designated the “hare”. The hare is given a headstart to run, but must mark their trail with scraps of paper. The rest of the runners, the “hounds”, follow. It is expected that winds might blow the paper trail around and thereby make the chase more difficult (and interesting). Over the course of the 20th Century, the game of Hares and Hounds found a dedicated playerbase in the running clubs known as Hash House Harriers.

The WhereCampPDX group will be running a little party game at the reception to get people thinking and talking about Momentum. We’ll even bribe you to play. Here’s how it works: players are asked to find another specific person at the reception, when they do, an arrivals board announces that a caravan/ship/train/airplane has completed a journey from one of their hometowns to the other.

Here at WhereCampPDX we are really excited to be invited to be a part of this event with Working Artists Network and Software Association of Oregon and hope that you can come down to Olympic Mills Friday evening for the show (October 17, 4-7pm).