Getting Ready for the 2006 NSGIC Conference

It's late Saturday night, in the Peabody Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas. Many NSGIC members are now getting ready for rest, gathering their strength for the start of the Annual NSGIC Conference tomorrow morning.

Well more than 200 are expected: state GIS coordinators, federal staff from USGS, Census and Homeland Security, academics, and private sector folks will spend the week discussing ways to improve the use and sharing of geospatial data.

We're not the only ones gathered at the Peabody this week. The Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) will also start a national meeting tomorrow. There's irony here; both organizations are involved in similar pursuits.

I hope to live-blog the NSGIC Conference. That will depend on wireless access in the State Conference Center, but I will try. I'll also use the week to try to turn this into more of a group-blog.

Do stay tuned.

Program for 2006 NSGIC Conference Now Available

The final on-site program for the 2006 NSGIC Conference (Fifty States for the Nation) is now available in PDF format.

NSGIC member states, federal partners, private sector partners, and others, will gather in Little Rock, Arkansas, from October 1 through 5 to discuss coordinating the use and sharing of spatial data on a national scale.

A View From Outside of the Geospatial Line of Business

A senior analyst and program manager for IDC Government Insights of McLean, Virginia, has a short piece on the Federal government's proposed Geospatial Line of Business (LOB) in the September 25 edition of Government Computer News.

In his column (Internaut: Geospatial LOB may need more help) Shawn McCarthy notes that some federal agencies are watching the LOB development process from a distance. He suggests that that may be because of a lack of widely-accepted geospatial standards.

"Technology Review" Asks An Interesting Question

An article in Technology Review Annotating the Earth asks "Is [Google's] KML becoming a de facto standard for geo-based content?"

This is an interesting thought for those of us in the business of coordinating the use and sharing of geospatial data. It may be the case that Google Maps and Google Earth are becoming a standard on-line face of geospatial data, but there will still be a need for back-room GIS work to support this form of on-line publishing and to provide the local and state-level basemap data that we take for granted in Maps and Earth, and in other on-line maps sites.

I think that the sub-title of this article is telling:

Move over, Rand McNally: Google Earth is becoming the standard tool for organizing geographical information.

What's highlighted here is really a change in the form of publication. There will always be a need for good data in the background.

Summer 2006 NSGIC Newsletter Now Available

The Summer 2006 Edition of the NSGIC Newsletter is now available in PDF format from the NSGIC web site.

This edition of the newsletter includes:

• A look back at 9/11 and what it has meant for GIS Coordination
• Progress in building the RAMONA spatial data inventory system
• A preview of the 2006 NSGIC Annual Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas
• Information on NSGIC's work with the US Census Bureau and with NASA
  
• A call for newsletter content
• More information about meetings, workshops and conferences.

Has Imagery for the Nation Become a National Notion Before Becoming a National Reality?

Adena Schutzberg correctly asks "Which National Initiative?" when she reads the following in the Johnstown, PA, Tribune-Democrat in a story titled County maps to appear online:

As part of a national initiative, the entire county has been digitally photographed, giving the county the ability to overlay infrastructure, tax maps and 911 directions into a central repository.

My guess? In discussion about this project, the idea of Imagery for the Nation was mentioned; likely in setting the context for the project. I imagine that the reporter latched onto the idea of a national initiative to provide up-to-date aerial photography for communities across the nation.

Why not? It is, after all, a good idea.

Here's a Question

Are any of the state GIS Coordinators, or any of our partners, using upcoming.org to post information about meetings and events?

upcoming is a social-networking site focused on events and meetings. I have created a NSGIC Persona on the site and linked to a few GIS-related events. I have used a feed from the site to add a small "Upcoming Events" badge to the sidebar of the NSGIC blog.

This is part of an ongoing experiment in the use of social networking tools on-line in support of NSGIC's mission and of GIS coordination.

So. If you are making use of upcoming, or sites like it, or if you know of a coordinator who is, please let me know.

The National Association of Counties Endorses Imagery for the Nation

The National Association of Counties (NACo) has passed a resolution in support of the Imagery for the Nation Initiative. The action was taken at the NACo Annual Conference in August.

The resolution is listed on the NACo web-site in a Round-up of New NACo Policy Positions.

Resolution in Support of Imagery for the Nation Initiative
Issue: Provide a way for counties to more affordably acquire digital imagery.

Policy: NACo supports the Imagery for the Nation initiative and urges support for the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) as it seeks endorsement for this initiative.

Fiscal/Urban/Rural Impact: This initiative poses no additional cost to counties and NACo. If adopted by the federal government, this initiative will provide at no cost to all American counties with basic high-resolution imagery every three to five years. Counties that already invest in aerial imagery stand to save money and will have the ability to buy-up and more affordably acquire even higher resolution imagery.

Have You Missed Us?

If you have been wondering why NSGIC never sends you those friendly little "PITA" e-mails anymore, don't feel left out. It may be the case that your network filtering system is configured in such a way that it is blocking e-mail that NSGIC really wanted you to see.

We've noticed lately that some NSGIC e-mails have been thwarted by improvements to some folks' e-mail security systems. E-mails with links to SurveyMonkey, for example, have been blocked by many state systems. Some systems have also identified e-mails with attachments -- PDFs, WORD Documents, ZIPPED files -- as potential threats. We understand some systems have even decided that NSGIC ListServ e-mails should be blocked. (Shocking, we know.)

While we can't blame our IT professionals for their efforts to protect the networks on which we depend, it has been a problem trying to get word out about big issues in a timely way.

So. If you have noted a lack of NSGIC chatter lately, please send a note to Fred Stringfellow and let him know. Maybe, working together, we can find all the kinks in the internet e-mail info-tube straighten things out.