Emmet and I met to work in real space over two weeks ago now, and so I realise it’s time for me to finish recording the last bits of that event.

As the weekend drew to a close, we summarised how we were going to approach the next stage of the project. Previous posts about the weekend, detail how we got to this summary. For instance, Conversation versus refined writing / Guided by voices / What kind of data? / Looking back

Emmet highlighted that although we wanted to create an empty framework for people to develop and steer, we still needed an aim, an idea of what we were going to do. We just had to check that we were ready to change direction with it, or even give it up if necessary. He pointed out that Flickr did start with an aim - it did have a substantial framework in place. It gave up this framework.

We will develop the framework and aim, and head in with that, but with an open mind

Then we went back to the past, when we were blogging about the project before this weekend. And asked again, do you go out and use the map, or is it that you spend time online exploring and learning about the place? Or do these things come together somehow, so you can do either? And so are we looking to a future of armchair walkers and out-in-the-field walkers?

Here we realised a common interest - enabling people to explore, as Emmet says, ‘destination walking’. (Emmet will probably talk more about this some time.) When people are heading out to a place, or day dreaming/surfing about heading out, we want them to notice the place they’re heading towards and passing through. Even if it’s in a car, - What’s going on back there? How might things affect them that are going on that day, or indeed any day? I referenced that I wish it to be a tool that’s created in opposition to those car adverts where people are driving through landscapes devoid of animals and other humans, needing to feel protected in their cocoon of a ‘moving bathroom’. (Urry: 2000) And respectively, I want to enrich some of those Sunday walks, as well as some of those Sunday drives. I want to make people think about the outside. So we have to think about how we can enrich ‘destination walking’ and we have to determine how we reach people.

We aim to develop a tool that affects people’s journey - virtual or real - we want to catch their attention

We agreed that the wiki could become the database that drives the map and that the interface will allow soft data to get added. We also agreed that hard data might start to reveal itself. We are assured that handling data like this, keeping it in reserve, will enable us to develop a more suggestive tool. It will also check that the project doesn’t get too data heavy. We know we don’t want the project to be top heavy. In fact, at this point of the discussion, I shared with Emmet old meeting notes from earlier research I had carried out, (that I will put up here later) demonstrating this was the model I was being guided towards in the past. Experts were encouraging me to build a project that was driven government wise, data wise and design wise from the top down.

We are developing a tool by working from the bottom up - by way of workshops, interviews and an open online presence

We concluded with what we have to do

- Set up the framework
- Get hard data set aside
- Run the community focus session
- Prepare to collect soft data
- Then, start to build the interface

We discussed what I have to do next

- If possible, get the focus session in place before the next face-to-face meeting (end of October)
- Study what should follow the focus session, a workshop, or the one to one interviews in the place setting?

One to one interviews will be out in the field
People can deviate from the lakes edge, and so choose where to walk.

We discussed what Emmet has to do next

- Work a way of getting the walk we did off the GPS machine and onto the PC and MAC
- Create a map framework, that doesn’t use Google Maps, with places to enter data. Two layers will develop - a map driven by map software and a comment area driven by wiki software

We discussed what might happen in the future

- The map develops three layers: a map, comment area and GIS data layer
- Then the map develops multiple layers: tagging is introduced - comments, GIS data, images, and photos are tagged

Urry, J. (2000) ‘Inhabiting the car’ Between Nature conference paper: The University of Lancaster, 27 - 30 July.

The map with two layers turns into the map with three layers, then the map with multiple layers
Then you could make visible or plan your own walk-through or search for things you’ve heard about or might find interesting there, like fishing / fish or biking / tracks / eating or pollution / damage…or if a more urban area (hoping that the tool develops to other geographical areas) eco-coffee shop…Say you’re typing in a word search, or you’re writing/recording a story about a walk, and you want related subject matter to appear - it could ‘pool’ around in the form of tags - maybe appearing accross the map. In the end, using more of Emmet’s phraseology, you could help tag up a ’storm’ if you wanted or you could just investigate what’s there.