Last June, I went to Paris for WordCamp Europe. There, I met up with Jug Cerovič, an amazing transit map maker, whose maps are truly works of art. We talked about his book and his work, and during our conversation, I said that it would be absolutely fantastic to be able to gather all the people who work in this admittedly niche world of transit mapping, and to share ideas and thoughts on all aspects of it. Jug told me, “Let’s do it!” At first I thought it was a pipe dream, how could we possibly pull it off? But after thinking for a bit, I realized that it wasn’t that far-fetched! Since I knew that I had a 3-month sabbatical coming up this summer (thanks to my employer, Automattic; every employee gets 3 months off after 5 years of service), I had already decided that I wasn’t going to organize another WordCamp, so I knew that I would have the time available to fill the hole in my heart; I really like organizing things! And, I have the skills and experience in event organizing that would make putting a much smaller conference together relatively easy. From Jug’s side, he has the contacts in the field, as well as his own clearly-articulated vision of how transit mapping should progress in this age of apps and smartphones. Lacking both of those things, I needed him to put this gathering together, just as much as he needed me to handle the organizing and logistics. And thus, the Transit Mapping Symposium was born!

After several months of contacting different potential participants, Jug was able to put together a great list of speakers:

• Sam Vermette, from Montreal’s own Transit app (which I love!)
• Joey Reid, representing the very influential Human Transit, founded by Jarrett Walker
• René-Claude Bouchard and Francis Brisebois from the STM
• Peter Lloyd, author of a book on the Vignelli NYC subway map
• Representatives from Naver, South Korea’s biggest search engine and web destination
• Kickmap’s very own Eddie Jabbour
• Anton Dubrau, a key blogger on Montreal transit
• Representatives from Apple Transit
• Jens Unger, a representative from Here.com

Eddie Jabbour from Kickmap

Quite the lineup! We unfortunately had a couple of speaker cancellations due to circumstances outside of our control. However, as luck would have it, one of our attendees had flown all the way from Singapore to show us the work on mapping and signage that he’s doing in their transit system, and he agreed to prepare a presentation for us. It was a great way to finish the Symposium; Samuel Lim’s presentation was expertly done, funny, and informative. Thanks Samuel, and thank you to all of the other speakers who attended!

Drinks at the pub after the Symposium ended (photo by Samuel Lim)

So, now the Symposium is over….  for this year! After the success of the event, Jug and I have agreed that we have to do it again. This year it was in Montreal, so next year, we’re going to do it in Paris! See you then!