Our last newsletter in 2019

GeoBeer #30 Review

Hey GeoBeer-ers!

On November 28th – the progress bar had just arrived at 90%, and stalled for a brief moment – we met for our anniversary GeoBeer #30 in Yverdon-les-Bains on the HEIG-VD Campus St. Roch. That, by the way, is 30 GeoBeers in about 6.5 years, for all you statistics buffs. Our event was courtesy of our newest sponsor, Jens Ingensand and his team at HEIG-VD, thanks!

GeoBeer #30

Already before the start, we enjoyed a pleasant train ride (artist's impression) along to south slope of the Jura, already together with fellow GeoBeer attendees travelling from Zurich, Bern and other places. The GeoBeer itself then started with a short welcome note by Jens in which he presented his group and their research as well as several concrete and interesting results. As usual, we then moved to the lightning talks: First up was Maryam Lotfian, from HEIG-VD and the Politecnico di Milano, who spoke about her research about so-called "Automated filter[s]: An approach towards increasing participants’ motivations and improving data quality in citizen science projects".

Her talk was followed by Loïc Furhoff's from HEIG-VD titled "Repenser le syndrome "Too Many Markers", basically the problem that occurs when you have too many (point) markers in your, web or desktop, map interface – and strategies to overcome it.

The evening's final lightning talk was titled "GeoMSF: Building the Future of GIS at Médecins Sans Frontières" and was held by Ken Bragg who works for MSF. Ken presented some of the "geo" work that is being done at MSF and the impacts geoinformation can have in humanitarian efforts.

As usual, we then switched to the apéro riche over which participants had many discussions about the talks but also any other geo topics.

We enjoyed our shared evening in Yverdon-les-Bains with the crew from HEIG-VD, the amazing speakers, and all of you tremendously! Indeed, we felt it was an interesting mix of people, topics, and perspectives. For quite some attendees it was their first GeoBeer, but there were also regulars. People came both from the Suisse Romande and from the Dütschschwyz. Overall, it was a merry group and mix of languages. As such, it was a great anniversary GeoBeer. Thanks again to Jens and his team at HEIG-VD for making it possible through their generous hosting and organising!

Check out more pictures and the talks on our website!

A solid end

The progress bar has moved on, clearly past 90%. As the year has been drawing towards its end, this GeoBeer season has too. But fret not. We shall be back in 2020 with an event close enough to you so that you will attend, first-timer, and so that you will hopefully come, too, saisoned GeoBeer-er! We will notify you of our first event in Bern in due time.

What is there left to say as we enter the holidays?

We hope you have enjoyed this year as much as we have! – if (possibly!, you know) not exactly in all areas of life, then hopefully in those that matter most.

If you absolutely do want something to do over the next few hours, days or – if you are the rare creature who successfully manages their open tabs (kudos to you!) – weeks, we humbly submit some options to you. Here goes:

be amazed at some of the contributions to the 30 Day Map Challenge that Topi Tjukanov had issued for November,
check out Geohipster's brand new 2020 calendar (it's a gem, might induce shopping, you've been warned),
learn about what astounding computations a wholly mechanical computer could do long before your TI-86, Python et al.,
check out our navel-gazing analyses of GeoBeer-s (or even better, freely use our tools on whatever events you organise),
read how people answered: "We're about to enter a new decade. What are your thoughts about looking back on the last 10 years in GIS/geospatial/spatial/etc?",
read about networks of trust and how they enable and drive innovation,
finally subscribe to those xkcd comics :-)

Or maybe you opt out of, or at least hit "pause" on, the attention economy™, stay away from glowing squares and get creative:

"There is no Soylent version of thought and reflection — creativity is unpredictable, and it simply takes time."

Whatever you do, we wish you peaceful, restful, and warm final weeks in 2019. Stay close to somebody. Happy holidays with loved ones and kind gifts, material or not or both!

Hopefully see you soon!

– Stephan, Anne, and Ralph