Blogging the PlaNetwork conference in San Francisco.

Wendy Brawer is talking now about Green Maps. Tagline: Using the info-web in service of the web-of-life. She is a designer.

Worked to develop maps that were practical and scalable that local projects could use to serve their local community and intended audience.

She developed a common visual language. Found out that it is one of the only common symbol systems for global maps. Each green maps becomes a common text across different contexts and different authors who use it. A flexible frameworks with few rules.

(This is a very visual presentation, and it is very interesting. Probably good to look at the Greemap.com website.)

135 locally published green maps, with over 200 active projects worldwide. Active in 37 countries. Help transfer sustainable technologies from place to place. Maps range from hand drawn to computer based, etc. (example: kids making map charting asthma and air pollution in NYC)

Made website easy to print, and not too flashy, to support access from Internet cafes. People using maps to chart permanent connection to their own communities.

Offer Mac and PC fonts: that is their lower common denominator software. Locally designed icons. Working on ways to update icons in a central repository. Working to help people be map makers.

Working with Buckminster Fuller Institute on project based on LoMap, originally developed by kids.

Green maps flourished and they have created a governance process of green maps. Creating regional hubs. Map makers supporting one and other. Decided to register one project per area, with the exception of kids project.

Most green maps are disseminated free locally. They have some for sale online now for $5.

They use listserv to keep in touch, and she makes a report about three times a year based on the info that people send in to her. Working to create new documentation in the form of an atlas. Volume one should be online in January.

Creating green maps websites in different languages. People involved have gotten totally connected and taken on lots of responsibility.