The Small Business Map Quest

Mapping Projects Puts Faces, Locations to Small Biz

A disparate group of artists, writers, programmers and other young, creative entrepreneurs have long made Brooklyn the exciting borough it is. But now, a trio of young women are seeking to organize Brooklyn’s upstarts through an interactive map that will not only foster a sense of community but help its members create better work. It’s called the Brooklyn Mapping Project, and it seeks to identify and connect these productive individuals for the greater good.
The members of the Bodega Collective are three young professionals working in Brooklyn who realized that, with so many people doing amazing work on their own, what wonders could grow out of a community that can work together. With that in mind, the trio decided to not only make a list of fast-moving Brooklynites, but create a definitive and interactive map of where they live and where they work in order to forge real-life business bonds between them. And the evening get-togethers for map-members are pretty fun too.

The map was officially kicked off at the first of what will be many, many social events, at 303 Grand, a gallery space in Williamsburg. Though the map was launched in North Brooklyn, a neighborhood known for its youthful and creative professional residents, its outline extends throughout the entire borough, from Greenpoint to Coney Island.
“I notice that, while attending a lot of events, there were a lot of creative types, and that we all live in Brooklyn,” said Indira Vaidy, one third of the Bodega collective that created the Mapping Project. “There are so many start-ups and individual people working that aren’t connected, and we thought that we needed to find a way to help people collaborate.”
The group, along with their partners, If We Ran It and Cut and Paste, have begun building an interactive map of Brooklyn that can be accessed through the internet and mobile phones. Though the map is still being built, Vaidy described it as an “interactive resource and directory for various business people and freelancers.” Users will be able to look up their own neighborhoods and see what other people are doing in the same area, block, or even building. And the hope is that once people know what others are doing just outside their front door, it will only be a matter of moments before they can have the support and resources of other entrepreneurs.
The project’s motto is, “Borrow some sugar,” which evokes the traditional interaction between neighbors. “If somebody says, ‘oh, I need a designer,’ or ‘oh, I need a web developer, then this map can be a platform for them to find who or what they need, and give people a way to pool resources,” said Kat Popiel, another member of the Bodega Collective. The group is hopeful that people using the map will be able to barter between each other for goods and services.
The English-born Popiel stressed the importance of building a community. “As a foreigner, I am a person who has lived in neighborhood where the neighbors don’t know each other. And with this project, people will be able to meet the other people on the maps.”
The map is currently in a shell-stage, and still being designed, but organizers thought that it was the right time to bring the project to the borough’s attention in order to be able to incorporate community feedback into the project’s initial design.
Of course, in order to receive feedback, people need to be aware of what the project is and how it will work. In order to simulate the final map, the Bodega Collective put together something of an analog beta-tester for their launch party. As guests stepped in to the gallery, they were invited to write their name and job/passion on a sticker and pose for a photograph. The stickers were attached to the photos, and the photos were placed on enormous projected maps of Brooklyn, with the neighborhoods clearly delineated. Impermanent as it was, it gave the attendees a small sense of where the project was ultimately headed, as well as provided a way to mingle and network with the other small-biz wizzes that came out.
“The map isn’t enough,” said Vaidy, of the future events. “We have to build real life personal connections with our neighbors. We’ve gotten a great response to the project so far, but the right now the most important thing is getting people together.”
For more information on the Brooklyn Mapping Project, visit meetbodega.com.