More on On-Line Publishing

For those considering some of the on-line communications approaches that we discussed at the NSGIC Conference, I wanted to point to a useful-looking reference site from the USC Annenberg Center for Communication: Easy publishing tools for online journalists.

This is a good, introductory overview of some on-line tools for blogging, images, and syndication. It is written for journalists, but the main concepts also apply for data coordinators and community facilitators.

Census Bureau Geographic Programs Report

I attended part of the Census Bureau's annual State Data Centers/Census Information Centers/Business and Industry Data Centers (SDC/CIC/BIDC) meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday. This is the annual gathering of the many state and local agencies that make up the Bureau's Data Center Network.

I was only able to make one day of this event, but was able to attend for a morning's discussion of Census Geographic Programs. I thought that this information would be of use to NSGIC members.

Bob LaMacchia was up first. He made a lengthy recommendation that the Data Center community work closely with state GIS Coordinators, specifically with NSGIC members. This theme also came up when Linda Franz of the Geography Division spoke later in the same session.

I had a chance to speak during this session and echoed Bob's call for work with the GIS Coordinators. I pointed the SDC folks to the NSGIC website and our list of coordinators. State GIS Coordinators should expect to hear from their states' Census Data Center leads at some point.

The End of TIGER/Line
Bob said that the old version of TIGER/Line is no longer needed. The Census Bureau will phase it out and replace it with TIGER Shapefiles, GML and web services. This change matches software changes now under way within the Bureau.

The first 2007 edition of TIGER (fall of '07) will be released as a shapefile data set. The Bureau is working now to define the data set content. The public release of TIGER will have slightly different content from the internal/program-specific versions (LUCA, BAS, Etc.).

Bob said that the Bureau intends to use GML. In fact, he said that an early version of Census GML is already available, though not advertised. The final version will be different from this prototype.

The Census Bureau hopes to also have web services, eventually feature services, to provide online access to Census data and geography. Bob said that the Bureau is working with a vendor now but has had some problems making things work just right. They want to make sure that the system will hold up to heavy hits that are likely around Census time.

The TIGER/Shapefile data sets are likely to be presented at a county level. The data sets are considered too large to serve by state or larger geographic area.

The TIGER Road shapefiles will include address ranges.

Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA)
Linda Franz gave a presentation on the LUCA process, explaining that it dates from the Address List Improvement Act of 1994. That Act, and all of the Bureau's LUCA efforts, strongly stress the importance of the confidentiality of the LUCA addresses.

She said that the Census Bureau hopes to improve LUCA, based on the experiences from doing LUCA in 2000. At least one SDC person mentioned that the bad experiences of local governments with LUCA in 2000 will make it harder to get local governments to take part for 2010.

The Census Bureau will provide desk-top LUCA software -- and training -- to all participants who want it. She added that she understands that ESRI will provide a free ArcGIS extension with Census functionality.

The Census Bureau is inviting State governments to take part in LUCA for 2010. In 2000, LUCA was only for local governments.

There will be computer-based training available for LUCA partners and for LUCA partners to take out to their audiences. I should note that the Bureau has approached me, as a State SDC lead, about helping them organize training for local governments in my state.

There will be several options for LUCA participation (if I understood this part correctly).

• Full Address List Review, which requires the partner to sign a confidentiality agreement
• Provide your local address list (only city-style addresses) for Census Bureau matching and feedback (requires the partner to sign a confidentiality agreement)
• Provide your local address list (only city-style addresses) for Census Bureau matching but no feedback (no Title 13 confidentiality agreement) will be provided

The Census Bureau will send advance notice of the LUCA in January of 2007. Formal invitations to participate will be sent in July of 2007. The LUCA process will take place between August of 2007 and April of 2008. Each participant will have a 120-day review/comment period. Each Governor will receive an invitation to appoint a state-level LUCA coordinator.

Indiana and Wisconsin were the LUCA test states. Dan Veroff, of Wisconsin, gave a report on the experience, saying right at the start that "LUCA is not a walk in the park."

He said that a real challenge is the need to report only residential addresses for LUCA. Participants will need to be able to distinguish between residential and non-residential addresses.

Some conclusions:

• State input is useful
• Not all states have address data at a statewide level
• It is important to bring-in the state GIS Coordinators
• The Bureau will suggest a LUCA coordinator to Governors
• The Census Bureau is expected to copy SDCs on Governors' letters

The Wisconsin approach:

• Used county parcel data
• Did a tabular match between Census MAF and the address data in the parcel data set
• Then did a geo-matching exercise:
• Geocoded MAF list
• Geocoded local data
• Buffered all points and looked for coincidence to see what matches

Some lessons learned:

• County cooperation was inconsistent
• County data sets vary wildly and widely in quality
• They found that MAF addresses, when geocoded against TIGER, tended to cluster at the end of road segments

Some recommendations:

• Get the MAF data set's field-layout now from the Census LUCA web site
  
• Plan in collaboration with state partners
• Aim for a full, statewide address list
• Use multiple data sources
• Have adequate staff and technical capacity for the work

Dan noted that Statewide LUCA review should be a last resort and should serve as a fill-in for areas where local governments are not able to perform a LUCA review. States are not required to do LUCA but can and should be a resource for local governments. He added that States can help with group quarters address information.

The Census Bureau will make available a LUCA Technical Help desk, starting in 2007.

Statistical Areas Program
Michael Ratcliff went briefly over a handout with notes on possible changes to Statistical Areas requirements. The Bureau will publish proposed Statistical Areas Criteria for comment in the next year.

The minimum population will likely be increased for Block Groups, but lowered for Tracts. At the same time, it is proposed that Housing Units be considered along with population. This will be useful in areas with high housing unit counts, but lower year-round population (such as resort areas).

State and local Statistical Areas Program participants will be identified in late 2007. The Bureau expects to work with regional organizations (MPOs) and counties. The States should be involved and should help to organize Statistical Areas groups.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I found both the Census Bureau staff and the State Data Center folks very interested in getting the geography right for the 2010 Census. They seemed most willing to work with their GIS Coordinators, though a few had not had any contact with theirs.

Others had, and asked to be remembered to their coordinators.

FCW.com - USGS awards $2M contract to upgrade Web site

From FCW.Com, a brief article (USGS awards $2M contract to upgrade Web site) about a contract to "design and build an enhanced Web presence with better visual appeal, navigation, functionality and breadth of content."

Directions Magazine: NSGIC Trends

Adena Schutzberg has an editorial in the latest Directions Magazine that presents a good summary of the 2006 NSGIC Conference.

In NSGIC Trends, Adena says of the conference "like all the others I've attended, [it] was a whirlwind tour of agencies, states, technologies, visions, suggestions, questions and proposals."

She gives her take on the major issues that arose from the NSGIC week in Little rock, including:

• The growing role of GIS Coordinators in state government
• A move from data-hosting to providing tools and applications and towards better use of the web for communication
  
• Changes at USGS and confusion about the Geospatial Line of Business
  
• Progress towards Imagery for the Nation
• The growth of collaboration and partnerships
  
• Growing recognition of the importance of understanding legal issues

Adena also noted those topics she was surprised not to hear about, including "3D, open source, CAD integration and mashups."

Articles on the Geospatial Support Task Force

There are two postings on geoplace.com on the idea of a Geospatial Support Task Force (GSTF) that we heard about at the 2006 NSGIC Conference in Little Rock.

In an article titled FEMA Advances Geospatial Support for Catastrophic Events, Ron Langhelm explains the proposal to have "high-end geospatial resources" on call for deployment in emergencies.

There is also a posting of the Geospatial Support Task Force Proposal for Catastrophic Emergency Response, which gives background, case study examples, and the basic proposal.

FCW.com Column: Moving from the Vertical to the Horizontal

Federal Computer Week intern and University of Maryland student Rachel Azaroff has an interesting column on FCW: Forget MySpace. It'’s time for FedSpace.

Azaroff argues that the federal workforce of the near future will be increasingly made up of members of a new generation --- the Millennials -- who, unlike some in my own Baby Boom generation, think horizontally rather than vertically.

Facebook and MySpace are the world of twenty-somethings. They like to network and work in teams. They see work as an opportunity to develop as people, exercise their passions and make a difference. Work is about more than making money. Career advancement means moving into different jobs and learning new skills. Young people seek lateral movement instead of simply moving up the corporate ladder.

She notes that this can clash with the existing federal government culture and that, rather than ask young workers to change, the government (and I think this applies to state and local government as well) should welcome this new strength as a way to finally achieve the cross-agency teamwork, and destruction of silos, that we have long discussed.

Interesting reading.

Photos from the 2006 NSGIC Conference

A handful of photos from the 2006 NSGIC Conference are posted to flickr in two photo sets.

One is focused entirely on the NSGIC Conference itself. The other is the result of a few short walks around downtown Little Rock, during breaks.

The former includes a few shots of the Peabody Ducks.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Day Five, Thursday, October 5

The fifth (and final) full day of a NSGIC conference is when you start to see who the most dedicated members are. After four long days of presentations and meetings, we are all tired, but we carry on because there are issues to discuss.

The morning started with a discussion of the FEMA Flood Map Modernization program and continued with an issues briefing by representatives of the National Association of Counties (NACo) and the Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (MAPPS).

After a break, I had the honor of making a scattershot, chaotic presentation on the many avenues of communication opened by blogging software, wikis, tags and other social networking tools. I demonstrated blogging by posting the Day Four report live form the podium. I have created a tag-list of sites I used as resources in putting that presentation together.

We finished the morning with the second part of the NSGIC business meeting. There were Achievement Awards given to Stu Kirkpatrick, of Montana, Milo Robinson, of the FGDC, Jill Saligoe-Simmel, of Indiana, Nathan Bentley, of Idaho, and Shelby Johnson, of Arkansas.

This meeting is also the point at which the outgoing NSGIC President hands-off to the incoming President. Missouri's Tony Spicci handed the ceremonial NSGIC President's Mug to Ohio's Stu Davis.

After lunch, we had a panel discussion on using GIS and spatial data to more effectively manage sales tax programs.

We finished the day, and the conference, with a state-member caucus at which we discussed several major issues that the group will work on for the coming year:

• Next steps in pursuing the National Spatial Data Infrastructure
• The need to have more state representation on the various committees of NSGIC
• The GIS Certification program
• The governance model for the NSDI
• The DHS Data Model
• Ways to effectively share data among different levels of government

It was a long, tough conference, but it has been another very successful conference. Thanks go out to our hosts in Little Rock, to the Conference Committee, and to all the folks from state, local and federal government, and our private sector partners, particularly our sponsors.

Next? Travel home.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Day Four, October 4

This is our report from day 4. To be honest you will find more complete analysis of the sessions on Adena Schutzberg's All Points Blog. She's probably the best note-taker, and certainly the best reporter, in the hall.

The keynote speaker for the fourth day of the 2006 NSGIC Conference was Shane Broadway, a State Senator here in Arkansas. Senator Broadway is a supporter of the use of geospatial data; he knows how useful good geospatial data can be. He urged us, though, to focus on the information our audience needs.

Senator Broadway reminded us that "legislators are visual learners." He suggested that we reach out to our legislators by developing geospatial information for them focused on issues that are important to them.

But he urged us to keep it simple: "Show us a map. Don’t show us how you made the map." I think that's good advice for any audience.

We had a short presentation from the Census Bureau about activities now starting to help get our states ready for the 2010 Census.

During our morning sessions, we discussed approaches to enterprise data sharing and heard examples from Ohio, Arkansas and Kentucky. We also saw a panel discussion on the notion of developing a "Transportation for the Nation" initiative to try for a national, integrated, transportation data collection.

After lunch, we heard detailed presentations from some of our major sponsors, including ESRI, Michael Baker, Jr., NASA, Woolpert, Places2Protect, and Digital Data Technologies.

We also focused on working with our Homeland Security and Public Safety Officials. We know that effective Homeland Safety efforts will depend on accurate and comprehensive geospatial data. To make that possible, GIS coordinators need to learn how to effectively work with these agencies. We discussed this in general and focused on the development of new "fusion centers" that serve as information integration and intelligence centers.

Finally, as is traditional, we had a short session on the importance of metadata.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Day Three, Tuesday, October 3

We started the third day of the NSGIC Conference with a keynote address by the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the state of Wisconsin, Matt Miszewski. Mr. Miszewski is the president of NASCIO --– the National Association of Chief Information Officers.

He spoke about the need to change the way we do things in information technology in government. He called for us to blow-up, rather than to think outside of, the box. Our goal, Mr. Miszewski argued, should be to focus on the needs of the citizens, rather than on the organizational structure, and strictures, of government. Adena Schutzberg also has a report on her All Points blog.

That was followed by a panel discussion focused on how to recruit a GIO -- Geographic Information Officer -- for a state. This focused on what the characteristics of an effective GIO are and included a discussion about where a GIO might best fit in a state government. Adena has a more in-depth report.

The balance of the morning was devoted to part one of the annual NSGIC business meeting. This included reports from the president and several of the standing committees. More reports and issue discussion will take place in the second part of the business meeting, on Thursday.

After lunch, there were sessions on unique state activities including GIS help desks, transportation data and high-resolution elevation data.

To end the day, we focused on the effort to get all fifty states up to a basic level of GIS Coordination: The Fifty States Initiative. All states were invited to take part in a survey looking at the extent to which they met several criteria considered to be key to statewide coordination. As Adena notes, the results of that survey suggest that we have some way to go, but we are making progress.

We also got updates from the federal government on changes to the USGS National Geospatial Programs Office and on the effort to create a federal Line of Business. I'll defer to Adena's take on these issues; she followed this more closely than I.

We finished with a dinner at the Clinton Presidential Library.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Day Two, Monday, October 2

Monday, October 2, was the first full-on day of the 2006 NSGIC Conference.

Never mind that our Sunday activities took all daylight hours, and more; the conference officially started with the Monday morning Keynote address. The speaker was Danny Sullivan, a local Little Rock minister and high school teacher and coach. He spoke, and spoke effectively, on leadership and teamwork.

Following that was the traditional roll call of the states, in which the lead delegates of each of the states presents the state's delegation and gives an overview, very briefly, of the major issues they face.

Don Cook, the founder of GDT (now part of TeleAtlas North America), has been a fixture at NSGIC Conferences for many years. He is a valuable corporate partner, and an active member. He has a habit of sitting right up front and taking a picture of every speaker. Toward the end of the parade of states, it became clear that one of us had to strike back. So I brought my camera up to the microphone with me.

After lunch, we heard a presentation on work at the federal level to create a Geospatial Support Task Force. This is an idea that has grown up in the wake of efforts to bring geospatial data to bear in emergency response efforts such as 9/11, the Challenger disaster, and the hurricanes of 2005.

The idea is to model the GIS task force on the other emergency response task forces that already exist. That is, to have the people needed to get the job done identified and trained, the equipment they need ready, and an approach in hand to handle any logistical problems. So that when a task force is needed, it can quickly get on scene and get to work.

One Task Force is now being built. Eventually there will be at least three, organized regionally.

Monday afternoon was also devoted to speeches by candidates for the NSGIC board of directors. And the whole group gathered on a stairway in the convention center to take a group portrait. There were also small group photos of the present board of directors, past presidents, and others who have been involved in NSGIC since its inception.

After a break, there was an in-depth discussion of work to create a national, and regular, program to collect aerial photography: known as Imagery for the Nation. This was followed by a panel discussion on how to provide quality assurance for large orthophoto and other data projects.

Following dinner, NSGIC leadership gathered with the leaders of some of the group's major sponsors to start a Corporate Leadership Council to help guide joint efforts to improve the use and sharing of geospatial data.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Day One, Sunday, October 1

My '"live-blogging" of the NSGIC conference won't be as immediate and impressive as I had hoped. Little Rock's Capitol Conference Center does not have public wifi. We checked on the availability of for-pay wifi, but no one wants to spend the more than $100 per day that that would cost.

As a result, I will take notes during the day and try to post updates to the NSGIC blog when I can get back to the hotel and its wifi system.

Day one, yesterday, was active. Meetings started at 8:30 a.m.. My first meeting -- on Ramona -- – was in the hotel, so I was able to post a report from that meeting. After that, the NSGIC board met for several hours before lunch.

In the afternoon, the state members of NSGIC met in caucus to discuss issues from the state perspective then joined with staff from USGS for a joint meeting. Partnerships between the states and USGS are key to meeting the objective of creating a National Spatial Data Infrastructure.

After dinner, there was a meeting of states that have received, and states hoping to apply for, a “Fifty States” grant from the federal government to support the development of effective statewide geospatial coordination programs. This meeting was packed; whether states get grants to support their efforts or not, all are interested in discussing the challenges of statewide coordination and sharing ideas and solutions.

That meeting, and Day One of the NSGIC Conference, ended at 9:00 p.m.

2006 NSGIC Conference: Ramona Steering Workgroup

Ramona is an on-line GIS data inventory tool established by NSGIC to provide way for States to take a standardized inventory of the GIS data holdings of state agencies, local governments and other partners.

A Ramona Steering Workgroup is being established as part of the Technical Issues Committee to oversee the operation of Ramona. The idea is to keep the system simple and useful and moving forward. The first meeting of the NSGIC Conference is intended to be a kick-off of the Ramona oversight group.

It will be important to make sure that the needs of federal agencies -- to discover data, and work more closely with state and local governments -- are met. There was a discussion of whether the committee should include a federal representative or if their contact should be through the federal liaison that works for NSGIC.

There was discussion of how to make sure that the system interacts well with state geospatial data clearinghouse systems. There are ways, and will be more in the future, to allow state Ramona administrators to customize parts of the system to meet their own needs.

There was a discussion of the need to increase training among state members to increase usage of the Ramona system. Bill Burgess was asked to create a standard training presentation for Ramona that state coordinators can use locally.

There was a suggestion for a one-page handout on Ramona designed to present Ramona from the perspective of local government, rather than from the state or federal level.

There was discussion of starting to push Ramona through URISA and other organizations that speak to local and county governments.

Zsolt Nagy noted that the Ramona system has helped in North Carolina in identifying local government GIS users to reach out to. Jill Saligoe-Simmel, of Indiana, has found that the Ramona system has been of great value to many private sector people.

Learon Dalby, of Arkansas, will be the chair of the new Ramona Steering Workgroup. Membership will be filled out during the conference.