[caption id="attachment_15881" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Man with a rocket, from Facebook via CrisisNET[/caption]
Is it possible to find crisis data in the chaos of social media? Which of the 50 million Facebook pages will help you understand a conflict? Can you prove chemical weapons use from watching YouTube?
We did.
Following up on the partnership between CrisisNET and open data journalist Eliot Higgins, I'll be doing an Ignite talk at OSCON this Sunday. If you haven't experienced an Ignite talk before, they're always entertaining. Every presenter gets five minutes and 20 slides, and each slide automatically changes after 15 seconds. It's like presenting without a net -- fire it up, don't look back, and hope everything turns out all right.
So come see how we tracked barrel bombs using social media, or watch me train wreck in front of 500 people. Either way, it'll be a blast. If you're heading to OSCON (or just live in Portland), and do stop by, make sure to say hi. I'm @jonathonmorgan on Twitter.