California's Selection of GIS as a Key Enterprise IT Strategy Featured in ArcNews

California GIO Michael Byrne joins NSGIC President Will Craig on the front page (PDF) of ESRI's ArcNews this fall. Mr. Byrne, who also serves on the Board of Directors of NSGIC, has written an article on the selection of GIS as a one of California's six key enterprise IT strategies.

What this effort really identifies is a set of unifying business examples that can be leveraged across agencies for increased economies of scale in technology service delivery. The fact that one of the technologies is GIS points to just how important GIS is as a solution for California needs. We need solutions that can tackle the large policy issues we face in this diverse state, and few technologies get us there—but GIS does.

Mr. Byrne notes that just under a quarter of California agencies projecting capitol investments in their IT plans include investment in GIS technologies. Including geospatial investments in the state's over-all IT plan allows the state to "analyze common business needs across departments and look for opportunities to align these investments."

He highlights two examples of GIS as IT infrastructure -- CalAtlas (www.atlas.ca.gov) and a Common Operating Picture (COP) effort in response to the state's need to fight major wildfires. And he explains that this is only the start of work to make geospatial data a key part of almost all of the states data assets.