I’ll be the first to admit, if the subject ever comes up, that I like maps. So last week, when the New York Times ran a story titled “On the Move, in a Thriving Tech Sector”, I was interested as much in the accompanying map as I was the article. I also wondered, what would this map look like for the DC Tech community?
After many hours of data wrangling, here’s the answer: http://www.kerzap.com/projects/dc-startup-map/.
I started with the list from Proudly Made in DC. (Thanks to Zvi and Michael for the assistance.) I had to limit each listing to one category, so there were some editorial decisions. I then visited each web site to find their (offline) address. The data was imported into Google Fusion Tables, which also handles the mapping. Some things I found out while doing this:
- Only about half of the companies on Proudly Made in DC had addresses listed on their web sites.
- Corralling everyone into a small set of categories that I could color-code led to some interesting decisions. This is the part of the map that needs the most clean-up.
- I was surprised how far out I had to zoom to show everyone by default–our community extends from the Fredricksburg to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border.
If you want your company to be shown on this map, please do two things. (If you’ve already done the second, make sure you do the first.)
- Add your address to your web site if it isn’t there already. (A street address is preferred; a P.O. Box is acceptable.)
- Get your company listed on Proudly Made In DC. Scroll down to the bottom of their page for info on submitting your info.
The introduction to the Times’ map implies that it was created using SEC filings to get the list of funded companies. I imagine using that data for DC and the surroundings would produce a very different–but equally interesting–map. Maybe someday I’ll try to pull that together.
