Winter/Spring 2007 NSGIC Newsletter

The latest edition of the NSGIC News (PDF) is now available on the NSGIC web site.

This edition includes a message from NSGIC President Stu Davis, information on the latest version of the RAMONA GIS Inventory Tool, an update on the NSGIC Mid-Year Conference, overviews of the new "Transportation for the Nation" and Address Data Work Groups, and more information on NSGIC organizational and planning efforts.

Enjoy!

NSGIC's Jon Gottsegen Makes FCW.COM

A story on FCW (Colorado combines GIS, weather data) reports on a project in Colorado to combine local GIS data with a feed of weather information from WeatherBug.

Jon Gottsegen, Colorado’s state GIS coordinator, said WeatherBug's Web service feeds into the state’s Emergency Operations Center.

According to WeatherBug's Christian Solomine, Jon's work makes Colorado the first state the company's services.

Therefore, when we all gather in Annapolis for the NSGIC Mid-Year Conference, I propose that Jon serve as official NSGIC meteorologist.

We Call This "Leverage"

The GeoLibro blog has an interesting thought about the US National Grid and Google.

In a posting titled "Mountan View, CA Now Our Prime Meridian?", the author notes a casual on-line reference to "Google Earth Coords" and muses:

...if the U.S. government is serious about us learning and using the National Grid (USNG), they need to have Google use it for U.S. locations.

Indeed.

A "Statement of Strategic Intent" from NGA

Federal Computer Week reports that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has released a 2007 Statement of Intent that sets out its priorities to create a National System for Geospatial Intelligence.

Among the goals and strategies was this, in the section titled "Advance the GEOINT Mission—'Help Win the Fight'" (emphasis added):

Accelerate the standardization of sensor data, metadata, compression formats, and file identifiers.

Sounds familiar....

The full Statement is available as a PDF document (8 pages).

MapInfo Sold

All Points Blog is reporting that Pitney Bowes will acquire MapInfo for $408 million.

Pitney Bowes is generally known for mail and document handling products and service. Adena Schutzberg makes a connection between that niche -- essentially business-to-business -- and MapInfo's in location intelligence as a business-planning tool and service-delivery enabler.

Atanas Entchev, on his NJ GIS Blog, wonders what the sale might mean for the many New Jersey police departments that rely on MapInfo for dispatch and 911.

That's a thought that may be occurring now in other states.