Interior Department to Get New Acting CIO

Federal Computer Week reports today that Michael Howell, now the CIO for the Fish and Wildlife Service, will become acting CIO for the whole Department starting on January 4.

This may be very parochial of me, but here's the part that caught my eye:

Howell, who has extensive experience with geographic information systems, began his federal career with the U.S. Forest Service in Idaho and Washington.

And, yes, the emphasis is mine.

Promotional Phase of Census Bureau's LUCA Process to Start in January

State GIS Coordinators should expect to see letters from the US Census Bureau in the new year promoting the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) process, which will kick into gear in the spring.

According to a report Census staff made to a recent meeting of the National State Data Center Steering Committee, informational letters will be sent in January to elected officials, GIS coordinators, LUCA contacts, and BAS (Boundary and Annexation Survey) contacts to let them know that LUCA is on its way.

In a first phase, there will be LUCA workshops in the early spring in each state to introduce the concept of LUCA and lay-out the various options for participation. These will include some technical content, but will be designed to introduce the program to local leaders and encourage participation.

As reported earlier on the NSGIC Blog, there will be three possible levels of participation, ranging from the technically advanced and restricted by confidentiality agreement to the less advanced and less restricted.

A second phase, in July, will seek commitment from local governments; this will include invitation letters and registration materials. For those wanting to do a full review, these will also include confidentiality agreements and security checklists required under Title 13 of the US Code.

The Census Bureau is working with State Census Data Centers (SDCs) on the promotional workshops and has asked the SDCs to help review the technical training information. It seems likely that SDCs and GIS Coordinators will want to work together to make sure that the training works well for the local governments they both serve.

According to Census Staff, the training as now configured will take 4.5 to 5 hours. They would like to shorten it, if possible. The training materials will be standardized, nationally, but will be flexible enough to adjust to local needs. It will not be a "hands-on" computer training; there will be a PowerPoint overview of the Bureau's software and processes for LUCA review.

Comparing the On-Line Map Giants

A frequent topic of conversation among State GIS Coordinators lately has been the relative merits of the big names in on-line mapping.

As in: "What aerial imagery does Google have for my state?"

It's not an idle question. For much of the public, the web-mapping that has come into vogue in the last year is a first entre into GIS and spatial data.

Now, there's Flash Earth, a very simple flash-based interface that allows one to zoom to an area and click between the versions of that area found on Google, Microsoft VE, Yahoo Maps, Ask.com, and others.

As a result, I can now say with some confidence that Google has the most up-to-date imagery for the resort area in coastal Delaware (where I live) of all of these sources. Your results may vary.

Flash Earth describes itself as "an experimental application" and notes that the imagery is used "without official consent" from Google et al. Via LIFEHACKER

Let Us Not Forget the Art Inherent in Geospatial Data

The image above is taken from Robert Kosara's EagerEyes site. He is experimenting with what I think of as functional visualizations of data sets.

In this case, he's connected all US ZIP Code centroids in ascending order to create a "ZIPScribble" map. He's also calculated a version of shortest path among all those points to create what he calls a "Traveling Presidential Candidate Map."

I'm not sure we'd call this GIS, but it is an interesting new way to see a data set we've all worked with in more prosaic applications. (VIA URBAN CARTOGRAPHY)

Transportation for the Nation

Hi Everyone,

Hopefully more of you will start to tune in daily to the NSGIC Blog site like I do. I put a shortcut in my startup folder for some of my favorite websites, including the NSGIC Blog, All Points Blog, and other relevant sites that I feel that I need to review on a regular basis to keep up to speed on our constantly evolving industry.

Transportation for the Nation now has 2 co-chairs approved by the NSGIC board, Frank Winters from New York and me from Pennsylvania. Both of us have extensive experience in the Transportation industry.

Over the next few weeks, we will be completing the TFTN committee charter and starting to engage those of you who have volunteered to work with us on this important endeavor. Please bear with us as we work to define an initial vision and strategy in the charter for TFTN and become an approved committee, blessed by the NSGIC board to proceed and start on this initiative.

I expect to ponder on this over the holidays and emerge with some concrete ideas on where we can best spend our combined energy to take a fresh look at the Transportation layers as part of each state's Spatial Data Infrastructure. As we all know, this is a broad and deep topic, and as co-chairs, Frank and I want to give it our best efforts and get started on the right path to make this initiative successful! We want to be very careful not to redo work already completed by some of the very active transportation groups, such as GIS-T, AASHTO, TRB, FGDC, etc. Communications and liaisoning with these groups will also be a key priority as we get started down the path.

I plan to use the NSGIC Blog to communicate some of our TFTN activities as we proceed. Please tune in and support the NSGIC Blog! We need more of you to read and post if the NSGIC Blog is to succeed and become a productive communications tool.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Regards,

Jim

Federal Legislation of Interest

This information is provided by www.GovTrack.us. NSGIC members are encouraged to create their own accounts at GovTrack so they can set their own filters and monitoring of key words. The following alerts are obtained by monitoring: Geographic information systems, Geography, Emergency management, Hurricanes, Floodplains, Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, Maps. You can follow the links provided to obtain copies of the Bills and other status information.

NEW on 12/26/06
Each of these Bills should result in geospatial products and activities of concern to state coordinators.

Dec 22, 2006 - Bill Action
Law Enacted: H.R. 5136: National Integrated Drought Information System Act of 2006
This bill has become law.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)

Dec 20, 2006 - Bill Action
At the President's Desk: S. 214: United States-Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Act
This bill has been passed by the Senate and House and now awaits the signature of the President before becoming law.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Geographic information systems and Maps)

Dec 20, 2006 - Bill Action
At the President's Desk: H.R. 5782: Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2006
This bill has been passed by the Senate and House and now awaits the signature of the President before becoming law.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)

Dec 20, 2006 - Bill Action
At the President's Desk: S. 362: Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act
This bill has been passed by the Senate and House and now awaits the signature of the President before becoming law.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, Geographic information systems and Maps)

___________________________

NEW on 12/14/06
Dec 11, 2006 - Bill Action
At the President's Desk: H.R. 5136: National Integrated Drought Information System Act of 2006
This bill has been passed by the Senate and House and now awaits the signature of the President before becomming law.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)
______________________________

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed House: S. 3678: Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed House without objection.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed House: S.Con.Res. 123: A concurrent resolution providing for correction to the enrollment of the bill... (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed House by voice vote.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Department of Commerce and Emergency management)

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed House: S. 2735: Dam Safety Act of 2006 (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed House by voice vote.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Department of Homeland Security)

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed House: S. 3821: COMPETE Act of 2006 (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed House by voice vote.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Department of Homeland Security)

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed Senate: H.R. 798: Methamphetamine Remediation Research Act of 2005 (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)

Dec 9, 2006 - Bill Action
Passed Senate: H.R. 6060: Department of State Authorities Act of 2006 (Passed Both Chambers)
Passed Senate by Unanimous Consent.
(This event was generated from these monitors: Emergency management)

Massachussetts' Christian Jacqz Speaks-Up for State GIS Work

An op-ed on the need for more web-innovation in state government in Massachusetts brought a detailed response from NSGIC's own Christian Jacqz about geospatial innovations in the Bay State.

W. David Stephenson wrote a column in the Boston Globe, A Web strategy for better state Government, which took state government to task for, among other things, not making data available in a form that can be "mashed-up" by citizens with Google Maps.

As Mr. Stephenson noted recently in his blog, Christian was among several who responded to his column. He outlined several innovations, including the MassGIS web mapping services.

Mr. Stephenson concludes that "there are definitely some pockets of excellence [in Massachusetts' e-gov efforts] that should be supported and applauded!"

(Via All Points Blog)