NSGIC Past-President in a "Hallway Conversation"

Past-president Learon Dalby is the guest on a Directions Magazine Podcast with Adena Schutzberg. The interview -- a "Hallway Conversation" -- was recorded in late October. Ms. Schutzberg has noted in the past that some of the most important conversations that happen at professional conferences are the ones that take place on the side, or out in the hallway. She's started trying to model that aspect of conferences in her podcasts.

This hallway conversation is a review of issues discussed at the 2009 NSGIC Annual Conference. Among the subjects covered are the growing use of social media, crowd-sourcing of data, broadband mapping, parcels on Google Maps, governance of the NSDI, and the NSGIC Advocacy Agenda.

A Few Words From the NSGIC President: What is Your Bandwidth?

The following is the eighth in a series of monthly guest-posts from 2008-2009 NSGIC President Learon Dalby, of Arkansas.

This is not about the bits and bytes your CPU can process, nor about the rate at which they are processed. This column is about your time, about our time as an organization.

NSGIC has been involved in a number of activities this year. Many of those have been brought to completion and highlighted on the blog, others are just continuing nags that never seem to end. No doubt we are all busy; often too busy doing our jobs to actually do our jobs.

I was recently surprised to learn the estimated amount of time our office is on the phone, email or using social media. I guess it really shouldn't have been such a big surprise since those are all tools for communication which is a requirement for coordination. Nonetheless, we are all juggling numerous things.

Now that I have you thinking…

Have you considered running for a NSGIC office; for President-Elect or for the NSGIC Board? No, I am serious! NSGIC needs you! A Call for Nominations went out on the membership listserv this week and I urge you to consider answering the call.

Have you thought about what should be on our next NSGIC Advocacy Agenda? Get ready, the call for submissions for the 2009-2010 Advocacy Agenda will be out soon. If there's an issue that is important to you, please submit it for consideration. And be be prepared to serve as a lead if your issue becomes part of the final NSGIC Advocacy Agenda. This is a very important part of what we do. This agenda keeps us focused; without it we would lose sight of the end game and waste our bandwidth chasing whatever is the issue of the day.

I leave you with a quote from one of my favorite books, Good to Great.

Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.

NSGIC needs you, your time, your energy, your interest. Your bandwidth.

A Few Words From the NSGIC President: What We've Been Talking About

The following is the fifth in a series of monthly guest-posts from 2008-2009 NSGIC President Learon Dalby, of Arkansas.

Sorry if we missed you at the NSGIC Midyear Conference in Annapolis, Maryland last month. We spent a good deal of time on the NSGIC Advocacy Agenda (PDF). I want to take a moment to provide you a quick summary of the NSGIC Issues Briefing so I can relay a few points that I feel passionate about.

The focus of this discussion was on communications. Technology is not our challenge. It is how people communicate (or don't communicate) that is our single biggest challenge. There was a sense in these discussions that NSGIC is somehow against the idea of "Elevation for the Nation." This is an example of missed communication.

NSGIC is not against LiDAR or against elevation data. NSGIC recognizes the need to provide all of the framework data sets. That said, efforts to create nationwide imagery and parcel products have been fully vetted in the community. We have viable plans in place for these data sets -- if only we continue to work together, and follow through on those plans.

The elevation data theme has not yet gone through a similar process. It will, we have no doubt. And when it does it will be successful.

Additional money for orthos does not equate to a successful Imagery for the Nation (IFTN). We know what needs to happen for IFTN to be deemed a success:

• Full funding is appropriated for the initiative;
• That funding is sustained into the future;
• Imagery plans include high resolution and 1-meter products;
• Effective management or governance is in place;
• IFTN provides benefits to all levels of government; and
• Imagery products are in the public domain.
  

As a community, we must avoid the many traps that can doom a "for the Nation" effort before it can become a part of our tradition. These include:

• Rushing to address an issue with a single purpose;
• Failing to obtain community buy-in;
• Spending taxpayer money and investing time without purpose;
• Failing to meet the needs of the full community;
• Not doing the job right the first time, and having to do it all again at additional costs; and
• Completely losing credibility in the process.

And so we must continue working to make Imagery for the Nation and Parcels for the Nation successes while we also work to prepare other important data initiatives such as Elevation for the Nation. We have a big job to do; careful planning and a deliberate, well-guided process will help us get it done.

NSGIC Midyear Conference Begins in Annapolis

The NSGIC Midyear Conference had its official start this morning. There were workshops and meetings (all day) on Sunday, but the formal program began today.

NSGIC President Learon Dalby, who doesn't generally mince words, offered a clear challenge in his agenda description of the opening of the conference:

Please fasten your seat belts, this may be a bumpy ride. But if we get to the NSDI the bumps and bruises will be worth the trip.

Learon opened the conference with a high-level overview of the many issues and initiatives pulling NSGIC members in a variety of directions. He added a caution that the group will need to maintain focus on its core advocacy agenda items to help guide the geospatial community through the transition.

He pointed to an article in the latest edition of the Washington Post on the plans for the stimulus funds and how they will likely be spent based on planning “down the ladder" within federal agencies. It reports, as an example, that USGS has plans to use $140 million to collect LiDAR data.

Learon called that “good news,” but suggested that it might mean that NSGIC should cancel the conference to allow members to head back to their states to develop business plans and standards for LiDAR or elevation data.

Meanwhile, he reported, there is lots of work going on within NSGIC.

Committees and work groups are meeting; NSGIC members are doing the hard work that moves the organization forward.

In spite of the many activities and issues, Learon said, he knows he can return to the NSGIC Advocacy Agenda for calm, for guidance and for direction.

• In Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) the nation has a well thought-out plan to collect ortho imagery. It is, he said, “ready to go.”
• The many people working on National Parcel Mapping have created publications, standards, and best practices.
• FGDC CAP grant funds have helped build communities, strategic plans and a sense of purpose. “Sometimes it can be a much smaller amount that makes a big difference.”
• Transportation for the Nation is not as far along, but is moving forward and will be important information.
• And there needs to be continued focus on broadband and other technologies for the 21st century.
  

Learon also looked ahead and wondered what a possible federal Chief Technology Officer will bring to the new administration.

In concluding his introduction, Learon issued a challenge:

"What if we began to actually begin doing some of these things instead of talking about them? Would it save lives, would it help first responders, would it help us economically?

We have to continue to move forward and keep our focus."

A Few Words from the NSGIC President: Let Us Set Priorities

The following is the fourth in a series of monthly guest-posts from 2008-2009 NSGIC President Learon Dalby, of Arkansas.

The NSGIC Midyear Conference will take place in just a little more than a week. I am really looking forward to this event. The agenda includes time for discussion of each of NSGIC’s advocacy agenda items. These are important initiatives that need to move forward.

Adena Schutzberg, of Directions magazine, posed this question in a recent podcast in a discussion of the national stimulus package and all the competing priorities that have been suggested:

How would you respond if President Obama came to you and said, "[insert your name here], what should we do first?"

I would answer that we should make Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) a reality.

Through all of the work that has been done on IFTN, we (the collective we) have put together a well thought-out process that will allow local, state and federal agencies to work together on the development of framework data where each level of government will get some benefit.

We think it is critical that IFTN go forward to show that this model works. By doing this, we should be able to develop support from local government and state government to advocate on behalf of the next initiatives. Success breeds success.

There are numerous local geospatial success stories across the nation. It is past time we had a success story as a geospatial community at the national level.

NSGIC Continues to Support NSDI Improvements

The NSGIC Board has formally endorsed the latest proposal for managing economic stimulus efforts at least in part through good geospatial data and tools.

“A Proposal for Reinvigorating the American Economy Through Investment in the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)” was put out by Autodesk, Google, Intergraph, Microsoft and Oracle.

The NSGIC Board's endorsement of this proposal is in addition to the endorsement by the Board last week of a similar proposal by ESRI and Booz Allen Hamilton -- "A Proposal for National Economic Recovery An Investment in Geospatial Information Infrastructure Building a National GIS."

Both proposals have a great deal in common, though they differ on their approaches to data management and to management of NSDI activities within the Federal government.

"NSGIC also has some concerns in these areas, but we believe that we need to send a positive and consistent message regarding these activities to help them succeed," said NSGIC President Learon Dalby, of Arkansas. "We remain focused on NSGIC’s advocacy agenda and I am providing input to these initiatives as appropriate and with approval of the Board of Directors."

Issue Brief: NSDI Cooperative Agreements Program Grants (CAP)

NSGIC has published an issue brief (PDF) on the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Cooperative Agreements Program (CAP). The brief, one of a series of issue briefs focused on the organization's 2008 - 2009 Advocacy Agenda (PDF), presents an overview of the annual program that assists the geospatial community through grant funding and other resources to implement components of the NSDI.

This program (sponsored by the FGDC and housed at USGS) has funded 75 projects in the previous 3 years that have focused on building and improving the existing geospatial data infrastructure necessary to implement the NSDI.

How has the Cooperative Agreements Program benefited the States? Among the competitive grants that make up the CAP program are the 'Fifty States Initiative' grants that have been awarded to 30 States (thus far) to develop and implement statewide strategic and business plans.

Speaking from a personal perspective, in 2007, the Iowa Geographic Information Council received one of the Fifty States Initiative grants to develop a business plan for the creation of an Iowa Geospatial Infrastructure. The State of Iowa has had several statewide GIS coordinators in the last dozen or so years (and without any Coordinator at all since 2004). The Council itself is an entirely volunteer organization.

The CAP Grant awarded to Iowa has allowed the Council to hire a consultant to come and collect business costs and benefits associated with geospatial practices in Iowa. Without the CAP Grant award, Iowa would not have been able to approach a task as daunting as this. And we have seen positives that have stemmed from this project. The Council is now in a position where we have "hard" dollar costs associated as well as documented benefits related to geospatial practices in Iowa. We have found these figures to be extremely helpful as we enter into uncertain economic situations and look to compete for funding sources with other more established government business practices.

The achieve that vision, the NSGIC issue brief suggests that Congress:

• Instruct the Department of Interior through specific language in the budget to ensure that these funds are not used for other purposes and that they are awarded to non-federal entities to further the development of the NSDI.
• Double the available funding.

The issue brief provides more detail and additional information. it is part of a series that also looks at Transportation for the Nation, Nationwide Parcel Mapping, Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) , and improved Technology for the 21st Century.

NSGIC Leadership in Support of "Building a National GIS" Proposal

NSGIC President Learon Dalby, writing on behalf of the NSGIC Board and leadership, has sent letters to Congressional leaders in support of the "Building a National GIS" proposal suggested by several of the larger geospatial companies in recent days.

In his letter (PDF), Mr. Dalby notes NSGIC's support for the development and maintenance of the data and systems that would make up a National Spatial Data Infrastructure. he adds:

We support full funding for this proposal to be managed by the Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, for activities to design, field, and support the National Geospatial Information System. The Secretary of Interior should distribute those funds accordingly to the appropriate Federal agencies.

The letter was sent on January 19, 2009, to:

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
• Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
• Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD)
• Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI)