NCTech4Good Meetup Talk

I was recently invited by Paula Jones to give a short talk for NCTech4Good‘s monthly Meetup (held the third Wednesday each month from 6:30-8:30pm). In addition to being an event organizer for NCTech4Good, Paula is also the Director of Technology for the NC Center for Nonprofits. We met about 1.5 years ago at NCTech4Good’s annual (un)conference where I gave a brief talk about Durham Hoods.

In Paula’s , she asked, “What better way to tell your story than to use an interactive map?”
As a self-professed map geek, I couldn’t agree more.
So I started by sharing a few of my favorite maps:
The Census Dotmap where each dot represents one person.
                
Durham Bike Racks Map. (I prefer the old version pictured below.)
                
Charlotte’s Quality of Life Dashboard.
                

Next up, I discussed my process for building the map (the hard part) and importing it into wordpress (so easy).
As you might guess, the map was made “by hand” and very tedious. I estimated that it took 80-100 hours in all.

The best part came at the end with an open-ended discussion on a wide variety of topics (though we mostly stuck to maps). Paula did a great job keeping us all on the rails, and even shared an awesome (google fusion tables-based) map of her own which showed all of the non-profits in the state.

Video of the entire talk is posted here.

NCTech4Good’s next Meetup is February 20th where they will host an Ignite-style event with 5-minute talks by various speakers about the digital tools they can’t live without. It’s free to attend, there’s pizza(!), and it’s held at UNC-TV‘s beautiful & secluded campus in RTP.
RSVP here!
The participants are a sharp group who will definitely have some gems to share.
See you there!

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1 Response to NCTech4Good Meetup Talk

  1. Paula Jones says:

    Great job, Phil. We appreciate you sharing your experience. in person and here too!

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