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FOSS4G-NA 2015 Recap: "So Mapbox is like, all over this thing."

So, @Mapbox is, like, all over this #foss4gna thing.

— Penny Beames (@_peripatetic_) March 12, 2015

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Last week, eleven Mapboxers (plus @gundersen, @lxbarth, and @ericfischer) made our way down to Burlingame, CA for this year's FOSS4G-NA conference. We had a booth with an awesome demo reel by @mwanee that consistently had at least one person asking about one or another of our tools, and some of us got a chance to do some live support and debugging with folks who were interested in our tools. The experience was totally awesome.

This year's conference was co-located with EclipseCon -- there were 775 total attendees between the two conferences, with approximately 430 just for FOSS4G-NA. Folks registered for either conference could attend talks for both, but it seemed that mostly the FOSS4G folks attended the mappy talks and vice-versa.

Overall, including BoF sessions, we had eleven talks at the conference this year. Holy smokes! Aside from the ones that overlapped, I was able to attend all of them, and all of them were super well-attended: more than half of our talks were standing-room only.

Our talks

On-Ramps to Open Source and Maptime - @lyzidiamond

My two main session talks were not directly related to Mapbox tools, but rather about being a beginner in open source geo. They were both well-attended and I received many kind words, but they were not Mapbox-related so I won't go into them too much here. You can find the slides from my On-Ramps to Open Source talk here.

Mapbox Tools - @katydecorah, @amyleew, @springmeyer

BEYOND a full house for the @mapbox tools session at #foss4gna! pic.twitter.com/WC5vQ5qOio

— Lyzi Diamond (@lyzidiamond) March 11, 2015

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One of the sponsored talks, this was the first of many where we had to bring in chairs from other rooms and there were still people standing in the back of the room. It was very well-structured:

• @amyleew did an introduction explaining how vector tiles work
• @katydecorah showed how we use vector tiles in conjunction with the Surface API to build awesome projects
• @springmeyer showed off @peterliu's [Capital Bike Share] turf example from the blog and explained how all the different pieces work together (vector tiles, GL, directions, surface, turf)

I think it gave a really amazing overview of not only what tools we have available, but also how you can use them practically. That's a gap we don't always fill super well, and this presentation hit the nail on the head. I had to run to the booth before questions, so I'll let @amyleew, @katydecorah, and @springmeyer fill in any gaps here. Overall, though, I think it built a lot of understanding around how our tools can be used practically.

Workflow has officially changed now with exposure to tippecanoe CC @MapBox https://t.co/ngkdOwIIUe #AwesomeSauce #foss4gna

— Katrina Engelsted (@MappingKat) March 11, 2015

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Beyond routing with OSRM: Network analysis and complex spatial queries - @dennisluxen

I love this talk about OSRM routing by @DennisLuxen! It's a fascinating combo of geo & algos #foss4gna @Mapbox pic.twitter.com/cTuQ5lzSMd

— Robin Kraft (@robinkraft) March 11, 2015

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I unfortunately didn't get a chance to attend this talk, so I will let @dennisluxen and the rest of the crew fill in the blanks here. From outside the room, it seemed to go over very well!

Geodata Processing with Node.js - @gretacb

Geo processing in #nodejs all the way by @CarolBirgitta in regent A right now #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/fzDPSMf725

— Alex Barth (@lxbarth) March 12, 2015

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This might have been my favorite talk of the whole conference. @GretaCB did such an amazing job getting down to the basics of how Mapbox does processing with Node toools (node-mapnik and node-gdal) and, more importantly, why we use Node at Mapbox (and why it's important to our workflows). She gave the most concise explanations of Node and concurrency and latency I've ever heard, and I feel like through her talk I have a better understanding of both how we do things at Mapbox at a deeper level and why we do them that way.

There were also many requests on Twitter for recordings of her talk and a link to her slides -- I'd say this was a total success! And if I'm not mistaken, this was @gretacb's first conference talk. WAY TO GO!

Wrangling Trillions of Pixels with Open-Source Tools - @camillacaros and @celoyd

"There's no magic. Just rasterio and numpy (which are magic)." @vruba #foss4gna

— Keith Jenkins (@kgjenkins) March 12, 2015

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I only got to attend the second half of this talk, but I heard lots of giggling through the wall. And when I walked in, there wasn't an empty seat in the house! From what I can tell, @camillacaros and @celoyd did an awesome job of explaining how imagery is collected, rectified, and managed at Mapbox (with many shoutouts to @sgillies) and showed off many examples of the beautiful imagery they create. Folks at the talk should fill in more here, but I have no doubt it was awesome.

True talk from @camillacaros and @vruba on imagery. #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/1SediAH89h

— Penny Beames (@_peripatetic_) March 12, 2015

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BoF: Mapbox Education - @lyzidiamond

There were about 15 people who showed up for the BoF session on Education. I started off showing off our Mapbox Education page, guides, help, and documentation. We got questions and suggestions specifically about:

• Using Mapbox for teaching high schoolers
• Using Mapbox Studio for teaching cartography
• License/user account management (from a map librarian!)
• Collaborative accounts that can be managed from the facilitator/instructor side
• Education for non-academic purposes (like advocating for your company/agency to switch to Mapbox)
• Creating a community of educators to be able to talk about what works, what doesn't, etc.

@katydecorah took some amazing/comprehensive notes here. The whole thing was very inspiring! People are way super glad we launched Mapbox Education!

BoF: Buiding and Styling Vector Tiles - @amyleew and @springmeyer

More people need to know that "beautiful maps need free, open data" (@springmeyer) #foss4gna

— Katrina Engelsted (@MappingKat) March 11, 2015

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I didn't get a chance to see this session, but @amyleew covered a lot in her post. Folks who attended should fill in the blanks here!

Leaflet, WebGL and the Future of Web Mapping - @mourner

#foss4gna: @mourner on future of web maps on now pic.twitter.com/nJoKGzF566

— Alex Barth (@lxbarth) March 12, 2015

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As expected, this talk was super packed. @mourner's slides were awesome and entertaining, and he wrote a great devlog on how to make your slides just as fun! Definitely read that.

This is very similar to the talks that @mourner has given in the past about Leaflet, but this talk focused a lot on the challenges of GL and the growing pains of Leaflet. This had a humanizing effect that I think the crowd welcomed with open arms -- from the outside it can seem like we pull this stuff off effortlessly, but all of the talks at the conference did an amazing job walking through the pain points and letting folks know that geo is hard. And we do it because we love it. @mourner did a great job of that.

So many cool WebGL mapping problems being worked on and solved by @mourner and others on @Mapbox team #foss4gna

— James Seppi (@hydrologee) March 12, 2015

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Cartographic design in GL maps: beyond zoom levels and raster tiles - @nickidlugash

Packed room at #foss4gna at @nickidlugash's talk about styling maps in @mapbox GL pic.twitter.com/ptf4EdGEhU

— Alex Barth (@lxbarth) March 12, 2015

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Another standing-room only talk! @nickidlugash revealed some of the mysteries behind styling in GL maps, which appealed to both a technical audience and a designer audience. I loved how she explained with graphs (many awesome graphs). She did a great job demystifying the process of designing for GL maps -- both how difficult it can be, but also how to do it effectively. I had to step out halfway through this talk, so please hop in with more details, other attendees!

that's really handy! non-linear interpolation of styles between zoom levels #foss4gna @nickidlugash pic.twitter.com/mL225BG9RK

— joachim ungar (@ungarjo) March 12, 2015

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The State of Vector Tiles - @springmeyer

Aww, sitting room only at @springmeyer 's vector tile talk. #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/EAe6DTxSnD

— Gretchen Peterson (@PetersonGIS) March 12, 2015

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Obviously @springmeyer is a conference favorite -- he is a great teacher and can explain complex concepts in a concise and understandable way. His vector tiles talk was no different, and, much like @gretacb's talk, he was able to answer one of the most popular questions at the conference -- What's the difference between Tilemill and Mapbox Studio? -- in a satisfying way.

Separation of heavy scaling databases from design for light, fast web maps w/ Vector Tiles w/ @springmeyer #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/uyk2cDJNWe

— Amy Lee (@amyleew) March 12, 2015

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@springmeyer's talk was broken into two sections: First, what are vector tiles and how do they work? Second, how are they used and why are they important? The talk was accessible to a range of attendees, which is probably why it was so packed! He also had some money quotes, including talking about Mike Migurski's "liberty of postgreslessness" that got a bunch of laughs. This talk evolves every time it's given, and every time it facilitates understanding of vector tiles for a wider and wider group of people.

"The liberty of postgreslessness" - @migurski's words from @springmeyer in his talk about vector tiles #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/SsJncfVIka

— Alex Barth (@lxbarth) March 12, 2015

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Writing for Everyone - @katydecorah

Katy's talk was hilarious and amazing and wonderful. I live-tweeted basically the whole thing! The talk was a list of concise and practical advice for writing documentation and guides for everyone. The talk was:

highly quotable in small snippets:

Five steps for writing for everyone from @katydecorah #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/EbvObHtIGf

— Lyzi Diamond (@lyzidiamond) March 12, 2015

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Words to avoid: “easy," “simple," “just," “basically," “obviously." These words can be alienating. @katydecorah #foss4gna

— Lyzi Diamond (@lyzidiamond) March 12, 2015

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super funny:

Get a pear review? No, get a peer review! @katydecorah #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/vh7tojL6Ai

— Lyzi Diamond (@lyzidiamond) March 12, 2015

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"refreshingly practical":

Thanks @katydecorah for such a refreshingly practical talk on Writing for Everyone #foss4gna

— Aaron Stephenson (@ajstephenson) March 12, 2015

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action-inspiring:

Lots of great writing advice and resources from @katydecorah #foss4gna Now I want to rewrite all my tutorials....

— Keith Jenkins (@kgjenkins) March 12, 2015

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@katydecorah should submit this talk to as many conferences as she feels comfortable, because it can be effective for a wide range of audiences, humanizes us as a company, and reinforces our focus on usability of our tools for many different users. 5 stars A++ would watch again!

Non-Mapbox talks

So many other talks had mentions of Mapbox tools!

“I am in no way incentivized to talk about @Mapbox, but it was the thing that got me started with mapping.” - @laurenancona #foss4gna

— Lyzi Diamond (@lyzidiamond) March 10, 2015

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In particular, the folks giving beginner-focused talks had amazing things to say about our guides and support making it easier for them to get started mapping. (High fives to @katydecorah @alianthes @duncangraham @geografa!) The more technical talks that mentioned Mapbox focused on how Mapbox Studio was used to create custom styles, how the vector tile specification is changing workflows, and the sheer power of Leaflet.

Mapbox Studio is everywhere

As @amyleew wrote about in her post, lots of people are using Mapbox Studio and there are lots of questions about how to use it and what it can do. Her post does a much better job detailing this, but both in order to keep our users happy with the current tools and get them prepared for an awesome experience when the GL editor comes out, we need to make our documentation more visible!

Notes, Conclusions, etc.

We had a huge presence, which was both expected and effective.

Good to hear that even the pros like @mourner need breaks from big projects and burnout #foss4gna pic.twitter.com/UOwbw29rFU

— James Seppi (@hydrologee) March 12, 2015

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People expected us to be at the conference in full force, and we were! It gave us a chance to meet a lot of people and really humanized the company. It was also cool to have people from so many different parts of the company there, as it allowed us to answer a variety of questions.

This audience liked hearing how our tools are used to do things.

Great presentation from @mourner as usual, but overall left me with more questions than answers. Food for a blog post #foss4gna

— Peter Batty (@pmbatty) March 12, 2015

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As we do more talks in the future, we should try to include more examples of how our tools are being used. The technology behind what we're doing is awesome and super valuable to show off, but we lose a lot of people when we don't take the time to make it real. Everyone who spoke at this conference did a good job with examples, and some talks even walked through how those specific examples were built! We should keep doing this and coupling the technical with the practical to paint a whole picture.

Twitter made this conference very inclusive

@lyzidiamond loved your #foss4gna report of @springmeyer and @katydecorah presentations. It felt like I was there!

— Michele Ferretti (@miccferr) March 15, 2015

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There was so much tweeting going on by the Mapbox crew and other people that it had the effect of bringing people into the conference who couldn't be there physically. I think this was even more effective than live-streaming, because it created more conversations and questions. In the future at conferences, we should try to be as vocal as we can on our personal social media about the things going on at the conference and use the conference hashtag as much as possible.

The booth was a good call.

Setting up the @Mapbox booth at @foss4gna. We put up a decorative @mourner to keep the brand strong. pic.twitter.com/elTM29BOeh

— Charlie Loyd (@vruba) March 9, 2015

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Certain people were way more comfortable coming to talk to us at the booth than they were talking to us in the hallways, at meals, or after talks. It's a totally different kind of environment when there's a booth -- people know you're expecting folks to come talk to you, so they don't feel like they're interrupting. Booths booths booths! Let's keep doing them!

We didn't have an event, and that was okay.

I think because the conference was so far away from the city, it's good we didn't have an event. And nobody seemed to care. There were enough of us around at the conference-sponsored events that it was easy to find us anyway.

Conclusion part 2

@lxbarth makes funny faces