The NACIS Annual Meeting will be held this week in Minneapolis (Oct 14-17, 2015). This conference, presented by the North American Cartographic Information Society, is traditionally an academic focused conference with a great lineup of technical and methodological talks on mapping and cartography. Last year was the first year I attended and I found the presentations to be very engaging and innovative.  One such presentation was Matthew Hampton’s: Bringing Historic Maps to Life at Practical Cartography Day of NACIS 2014 which included his animation of Thaddeus Fowler’s map of Pittsburgh, below.     

You can also read some of our blog posts that were inspired by last year’s conference: For the Love of Maps, 4 Color Tips Hue Should Know, Teaching a New Map Old Tricks: Using Archival Color.  

Azavea’s Data Analytics team will be attending this year and there are many presentations we are looking forward to. The Practical Cartography Day features an entire day of technically fueled talks on cutting edge cartography. Other noteworthy talks include: Rethinking Web Cartography, Community Mapping and Advanced Map Production.  I’ll be speaking on the How to Hire or Be Hired: A Careers Panel as well. And former Azavean Dana Bauer will be hosting a Gunpowder Mapping workshop. You can check out the entire agenda on the NACIS Sched site. 

While you’re at the conference, don’t forget to pick up the 2015 Atlas of Design or considering ordering it online. This book, published by NACIS, is a great catalog of the year’s most beautiful and creative cartography.

If you are attending this conference, feel free to get in touch and meet the Data Analytics team!  If you are not attending it this year, check out the schedule and consider attending in the future!