Due to the corona virus pandemic the annual face-to-face meeting of the OSMF board of directors shifted to what we wryly termed a “screen-to-screen” meeting using the Zoom video conferencing account of our facilitator, Allen “Gunner” Gunn. To our collective surprise, the video conference went fairly well. It was not as good as meeting face to face, but was far better than audio only, and so much so that the board plans to experiment with shifting from using Mumble (audio only) for monthly board meetings to a video conferencing platform.

In keeping with the FOSS philosophy of OSMF, we will try BigBlueButton, an open-source videoconferencing platform. Thus, if OSMF members want to tune in to the next board meeting, watch for announcements that we will meet in a video conference. We will ask that non-members of the board keep their cameras and microphones off, and that only board members have their cameras and microphones on.

Minutes of the “screen-to-screen” meeting remain in process. Bottom line up front: the board has taken on board much of the information in the SWOT analysis, last year’s survey, and the 40+ conference calls I have made to community members, local communities and chapters, and members of our advisory board. We accept all criticism that has come our way and are working on how to address the problems you have identified to us.

In March I flew to Riga for what will likely be the last in-person regional SOTM for a while due to the pandemic, State of the Map Baltics (many thanks and kudos to Rihards Olups for pulling it together and being my host in Riga). My presentation on “Winds of Change in OSM” was well received. I plan to deliver an updated version of that presentation during the virtual SOTM in July, so if you are interested in a synopsis of what I have been hearing from across the community, and my take on it all, be sure to tune in.

I have also been armchair mapping. One outcome of the pandemic has been evacuation of tourists, business people, and guest workers from affected countries to their homelands. These evacuations are typically organized by embassies and consulates. As a former diplomat and ambassador, and the instigator of the Tag:office=diplomatic tagging scheme, I have begun upgrading diplomatic POIs in my old stomping grounds, the former Soviet Union, so that people can not only find their homelands’ embassies and consulates, but find contact information for them in the various offline smartphone apps like MAPS.ME. So far Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are done (though I posted a few fixme tags for problems I cannot solve from afar, and which need local mappers to solve). So I am not only keeping busy chairing the board of directors of the OSM Foundation, I am mapping, too.