Nestoria Interview – Chris Osbourne – WhereCampEU
Living in Australia it sometimes feels like everything's happening somewhere else, so I've tried not to bombard this fledgling .au blog with international Nestoria news, however sometimes the advantage to living in Australia is that you can colonise other peoples's good ideas and create an Australianised version. Which is why I'm mentioning WhereCampEU, and featuring an interview with the organiser, Chris Osbourne. Nestoria thinks WhereCampEU is such a good idea that we're sponsoring it. And there's no reason why an Australian version wouldn't be just as interesting, if not more... But first you might need to know about more about what a WhereCamp is.
Chris, you're organising the first WhereCamp in Europe. Can you explain what a WhereCamp is and what made you want to organise one?
I went to my first WhereCamp last year in Silicon Valley, right after the Where2.0 conference and loved the participative nature of the event. Its an unstructured conference, or unconference as the kids say, with a blank timetable that the attendees create themselves by running sessions or doing a lightning talk. As the name implies, its all about geography, place and location technology. As something of a geography geek, I had so much fun that I just had to organise the first WhereCamp in the EU.
Who do you expect will attend the event?
I've worked hard to attract a wide cross section of attendees, a quick glance at the ticket list shows over 13 different countries represented from diverse backgrounds - government, web2.0 startups, National Mapping Agencies, OpenStreetMap people, academics, bloggers and your good selves at Nestoria.
You say you are passionate about "neogeography". What is neogeography and what's so exciting about it?
Neogeography is about community map-making, people generated maps where we remove the separation of the map maker from the map consumer. I'm really excited about the opportunities for an enhanced democracy that comes from people having more knowledge about their environment and being able to participate in decision making. At ITO World, we work on visualising complex transport networks so that communities can view how planning decisions will affect them. In my local community, Clapton, residents have already rejected one new housing development this month partly due to a lack of transport planning.
What's the most exciting development in internet technology in the past few years to you?
Right now, I'm mostly interested in how people are interacting with technology. I have been focused on technology for too long now and am taking a step back and looking at user interaction. I think the touch screen is actually what is going to drive more and more IT/internet usage as it provides a natural interface that we haven't seen before. The greatest trick Apple ever pulled was convincing people that the iPhone wasn't a computer but a mobile phone. I expect to see much more embedded, touch-screen computing devices in all manner of places we haven't seen before.
What's something that you're still waiting for, an app, service etc. that you'd like to see in the future?
WhereOnEarthIsMyBus.com
