Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team develops on a 5 year cycle. From 2005-2010, HOT was a crazy idea within the crazy idea of OpenStreetMap. From 2010-2015, HOT showed that the use of OSM in humanitarian response was a viable idea, we built an organization and operations and tools, and weathered some chaos as an organization growing out of a community project. At this point in 2015, I recognized the 5 year pattern in my HOT Summit talk An Incomplete History of HOT. That’s where I first met HOT’s Executive Director, Tyler Radford, who from 2015-2020 stabilized and grew HOT in a well structured way. Confidence in this foundation has led to the Audacious grant to expand OSM community centered mapping from 2020-2025. I am very excited and very much want this to succeed wildly.

This is HOT’s most difficult transition. A well structured organization has a lot of momentum, and the intention of the next 5 years looks very different from the previous 5 years. HOT has focused on project work, building up staff, and delivering on specific commitments. All of which is great. But this naturally generates friction with community centered approaches, and I think HOT’s relationship to OSM has suffered because of lack of investment in the community and consistent data quality, and a disregard for the responsibility of HOT to engage in both the good and bad of OSM. It also means working for to contribute the many positive things in HOT’s work and culture to OSM at large. By “investment” I don’t focus on money, but on the time to build relationships, and use, support & develop processes to make OSM better. However, when operating at the scale of HOT, community effort needs to be resourced and part of the plan. I made this point in my HOT Summit 2019 talk Data, Operational Excellence and HOT.

The stated intentions of Audacious are very in line with a revitalization of the “OpenStreetMap” in Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. But it takes much more than an excellent proposal and well thought out plan to be successful. What HOT is looking to do here is very rare in any area of endeavor – use the work of a structured organization to help build a robust, multi-faceted and independent community. I think HOT is up to the task, but let’s realize, this is really hard.

There’s a few things I’m thinking about as important for success.

First, what does success look like for HOT’s Audacious grant? Achieving “one million volunteers to map an area home to one billion people” could be either a success or failure. It entirely depends on what happens in year 6. What do these communities look like in 2025, so they’re in position to continue to flourish and thrive? In other words, we need to define what a successful community looks like. A very good starting point is the work of my wife Erica Hagen on Sustainability in OpenStreetMap. In essence, sustainability requires an ecosystem of different kinds of actors – volunteers, non-profits, educators and students, companies and governments – that collaborate, pick up each other’s slack, sometimes compete in a healthy way, and provide career development pathways.

Second, HOT needs to lean into the discomfort of transparency and public, critical self-reflection and input. The natural defensive tendency of any organization is to polish over problems and present things in the best light. But when working in a community, it’s imperative that the process of reflection and learning is something we all engage in. Don’t over edit. Otherwise learning will suffer. This is difficult because there’s risk and exposure, but HOT is strong enough to do this without undermining its operation.

And third, the right people need to be in place leading and building these programs. HOT has a very strong staff. But many of the staff have had their first exposure to OpenStreetMap through HOT and see it mainly through that lens. The organization needs to internalize the persepctive of OpenStreetMap and the places where it will work. There are currently job openings for a Head of Community and Regional Hub Directors which call for “familiarity with OSM community” and “OSM experience a plus but not required”. Now the pool of candidates who have everything is going to be small, so I understand being flexible on requirements but I believe these roles need more than what’s advertised. If OSM experience is slight, the candidates need to show an obsessive excitement to jump into the deep end of what OSM is all about, warts and all.

Fourth, HOT needs a strong Board that will hold the organization to account. HOT is right now electing new Board Members. My question to the Board candidates and current members is how they will function to ensure that Audacious work is implemented with community as its focus. That could mean holding feet to the fire, and making your excellent ED sweat a bit when he’s talking to you.

Finally, HOT needs to build a strong working relationship with the OSMF. I’m gratified to see a good line of communication developing between the HOT Board and the OSM Foundation Board. We’re on the cusp of sorting out some long standing trademark issues. But this is just the start as both organizations work on issues of governance and upkeep of our core infrastructure.

That’s all for now. I’m very interested to hear how you think about this challenge and where HOT needs to put its focus.