It’s becoming a tradition: at the beginning of the summer, we get together with our customers and share our experiences, best practices, and even war stories with Maptionnaire. It seems that getting together face-to-face is even more important nowadays - even with the world being all-digital. It’s nice to see new and familiar faces live rather than through a computer screen, and it’s fun to mix and mingle without an official agenda and far from a meeting room table with a glass of wine in the hand.
Here are some fun memories from our June event. This year the event was organized during the International Society of Participatory Mapping (ISPM) conference so it was a full house with participants of the conference and Maptionnaire customers gathering under one roof.
Scott Robinson, Senior City Planner at the City and County of Denver, showed us how Denver has succeeded in their neighborhood visioning by using, among other means, Maptionnaire’s online tool for gathering feedback from residents (read more from the Denver customer story).
Antonina Myllymäki, Planner in the Master Planning Unit at the City of Vantaa, explained to us how they have been utilizing participatory mapping in their city with successful results. Vantaa is one of the cities of the Finnish Capital region with a population of over 200.000. Vantaa is also in the process of introducing a digital participatory platform for collecting all digital participatory projects into one place. The platform is developed by Maptionnaire.
PPGIS-evangelist Douwe Blanksma ended the presentation portion of the evening with his clever and funny remarks about the importance of communication and dialogue. This is especially true in public participation projects. With online tools, like Maptionnaire, it’s not just about the loud individuals but about the silent minority getting their voices heard.
We hope you had as much fun as we did! Hope to see you again next year! :)