As December comes to an end, and with it, 2017, those of us on Esri’s Story Maps team have been left thinking two things:
- Jeez, that went by fast! And,
- What a great time to belong to this community of storytellers.
This year we saw more story maps created than ever before—sometimes more than 2,000 in a single week. It wasn’t just the sheer quantity of stories that impressed us, but the quality of them, too.
Between our annual Story Maps contest, each of our 12 Story Maps of the Month, and stories we saw submitted to the gallery or shared on social media, rarely a day went by where the team didn’t have its proverbial socks blown off. Some of these stories were the work of our own talented colleagues, others came from our ever-growing user community. All of them were terrific.
So, to mark the end of a great year in story maps, we’ve collected some of our favorite pieces into two collections.
The first is our favorite stories created by our user community this past year. Selecting just 18 entries was a challenge in itself—you all made so many great ones—but that’s a challenge we’re thrilled to have. Take a moment to scroll through these works of art, and join in our feeling of pride over what you’ve created in 2017.
The second collection showcases our favorite stories created by our team. Like you, we managed to make more stories than ever this past year, and we learned a lot in the process. Of course, those lessons learned will be invaluable as we continue working to improve our apps in 2018.
We hope these collections are as exciting for you as they are for us—not only as reflections on past accomplishments, but as signs of more great things to come.
Happy New Year from all of us on the Story Maps team, and thanks for making 2017 such a memorable year in storytelling.
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