ESRI Live Blogging of Plenary

Live blogging – all times PST and I’ll try to get pictures up as quick as possible.

8:39 – Meet the people around you.  I met a nice guy from the ESRI surfaces office out of Denver named Jonathan.  He’s involed in the aerospace group out of that office

8:40 – Jack’s running down the wealth of work that everyone out in the field actually do.  No shock – nearly every field is touched by GIS.

8:42 – SAG Award winners stand up.  I always like to look for those badges and give them the two finger “howdy” salute bikers give each other on the highway.  Not sure anyone else gets that.  But it amuses me.

8:43 – Centpoint energy gets a SAG award.  Short video showing what they do.  No surprise energy is winner, as they’re a huge GIS user.  They’re heavily in the enterprise stuff.  Right now, they’re demoing how storm and hurricane predictions help they figure out where to put their repair resources.  It’s pretty cool.  Thousands of crews together ready to deploy.  Cindy is accepting the award for the company.  Jack is saying that in several hurricans, Cindy mobilized all their people to restore power in days.

8:47 – Making a difference award.  Being given to an Indian scientist Dr. Kasturirangan, who is the godfather of the India remote sensing space organization.  He has apparently run for office in the Indian government, and is now going to run the national planning in that country.

8:50 – President’s Award.  Jack’s favorite (no surprise there).  This year goes to the state of Maryland, one of ESRI’s first customers.  They’ve been doing some interesting things with server.  I know West Virginia has adopted some of the technology and techniques they’ve developed.  Jack says this is largely to result of the vision of the Governor O’Malley.  The Governor is saying that GIS isn’t just a tool or a techniques, it allows connections to be made between groups and ideas.  Side note – the green tie is kinda cool.  Not many politicians rock the bright green tie, so kudos.  He’s bringing up some of their government people actually doing the work.  He’s asking why every citizen’s first question is always – “Can you show me my house?”  Good question.  Then half of them will freak out because you CAN show them your house.  Just my own experience, not the good Governor’s.  He’s detailing how they’re using “smart maps”.  Oddly enough, probably the most popular is using them to reduce wait times at the DMV.  Is there any government agency more hated than the DMV?  Green print sounds cool.  It shows the environment of anyone who wants to put in their address and how it can be protected.  Now he’s talking about the recovery act.  Maryland has developed a really cool site to track how and where that money from the federal government is being spent.  West Virginia has adopted the same system.  It’s built on ArcServer and the Flex API (which is pretty fun in my experience).

8:50 – President’s Award.  Jack’s favorite (no surprise there).  This year goes to the state of Maryland, one of ESRI’s first customers.  They’ve been doing some interesting things with server.  I know West Virginia has adopted some of the technology and techniques they’ve developed.  Jack says this is largely to result of the vision of the Governor O’Malley.  The Governor is saying that GIS isn’t just a tool or a techniques, it allows connections to be made between groups and ideas.  Side note – the green tie is kinda cool.  Not many politicians rock the bright green tie, so kudos.  He’s bringing up some of their government people actually doing the work.  He’s asking why every citizen’s first question is always – “Can you show me my house?”  Good question.  Then half of them will freak out because you CAN show them your house.  Just my own experience, not the good Governor’s.  He’s detailing how they’re using “smart maps”.  Oddly enough, probably the most popular is using them to reduce wait times at the DMV.  Is there any government agency more hated than the DMV?  Green print sounds cool.  It shows the environment of anyone who wants to put in their address and how it can be protected.  Now he’s talking about the recovery act.  Maryland has developed a really cool site to track how and where that money from the federal government is being spent.  West Virginia has adopted the same system.  It’s built on ArcServer and the Flex API (which is pretty fun in my experience).

9:04 – Governor still talking.  Intertubes got a small hiccup.  Hope I can upload the live blog.  Oh no Mr. Bill!  Whole presentation just went down.  Lovely blue screens abound.  Ok, they got it back.  That got a round of applause.  Is there any more stressful thing for an IT person than a live blow up?

9:08 – Back to the governor’s “can you show me my house?” question.  The posits that it might be that people know the government knows about them.  Or it might be about the desire to know you belong to a greater connection of the outside world.  I think there’s some truth to that, but mostly I think it’s because that’s the geography they know best.  We just like to see what we know, because most people don’t understand what they’re seeing with GIS right off the bat.  Just my two

9:10 – Jack is back on.  He’s saying that Jack and the Governor have down three demos of technology together, and every time the demo has blown up.  So don’t buy any lottery tickets with the governor of Maryland and Jack standing in line behind you!  Video of people talking is still broken.  I bet there are some guys up front freaking out right now.

9:12 – Video’s back.  Internet’s not.  Now onto ESRI’s “Designing our Future” idea.  Jack says they fall into 3 main areas, software, systems, and geography.  Everyone is a designer.  GIS does design naturally, according to Jack.  Thus Jack calls this GeoDesign.  He talking about the impact of human existence on the planet.  Our landscape is suffering due to the unchecked, unguided and uncoordinated human activities.  Ut oh!  His slides went out.  He’s gotta turn around to the screen.  Gets a good laugh.

9:16 – Notion of Geodesign.  It’s an interactive design process, where design can get immediate feedback.  GIS hasn’t done this well in the past.  ESRI is extending their products with tools and methods to allow for this stuff.  Now a short video about land use and impacts of development of habitate areas.  The notion is that you can see impacts in real time.  He’s showing it as a desktop model, then as using Microsoft’s touch table (which looks WAY cool – must get one!), then on the web.  The idea is the expert and the layman should be able to interact with the technology in real time.  Moving onto a few questions about geodesign.  How can we describe geography?  How does geography operate?  How can we alter geography?  What are the alternative scenarios?  What are the consequences of change?  How should geography be changed?  Jack now says that GeoDesign is an evolutionary step in GIS.  It is just beginning and will be utilized in a variety of places/venues.  From utilities, to law enforcement, to military, to retail.  He sees this as a way of getting at “information based design making” or “getting science into decisions”.  These are what Jack sees as the true smart maps.

9:23 – Maps and GIS are changing.  They’re getting richer and more persuasive.  “Tweetering” (HA!)  He’s talking about Web 2.0 and social networks are changing how we do things.  He thinks it will lead to GIS being more persuasive.  Obviously we dig the new media thing, but I’m glad to see even Jack getting into the groove.  Maybe we’ll see Jack’s weekly musings podcast soon! J  He’s moved onto how GIS is translating into a variety of platforms and patterns of storage and transmission.  Basically from cloud computing to iPhone type stuff.  He is now taking a division between “web GIS” and desktop/server divisions.  I think it’s interesting he’s dividing the web off from the rest.  I’m not exactly clear which he thinks will be “greater”… the web or the desktop still.

9:28 – now on to ESRI’s work and how it fits into that vision.  Main focus is ArcGIS software.  They want it to be a complete and integrated system for server to desktop to web.  Seeing online being a greater segment of their vision.  The Geodatabase becomes the center point of this vision.  It should be a comprehensive information model that is storable in a scalable system.  He’s now talking about the patterns of how people use their software.  Talking about the highlights on 9.3.1.  Now onto Evan’s demo of some of the cool stuff in 9.3.1.

9:32 – Evan is demoing how dynamic services are a lot faster in 9.3.1.  That’s good because we found them almost unusable in 9.3.  Having moved to 9.3.1, I can see it is LOADS better.  Cache map services allow for increased usability and scalability.  They’re showing that ArcIMS refreshes at around 3 secs, whereas the ArcServer does a refresh in less than a second.  It’s pretty cool to watch.  If you ask me, I say… Down with ArcIMS!  There’s a cool new preview in ArcMap that lets you see how the service will look online, ‘cause it uses the same render engine.  This should help cartographic viewing easier, because you can compare the two easily.  Nothing worse than seeing something in ArcMap and seeing it rendered differently in ArcIMS or ArcServer.  Then you can publish it directly from ArcMap to the server, which is pretty cool.  Now they’re showing some end user’s utilization of ArcServer 9.3.1.  There’s a javascript one and a Flex one.  They’re pretty quick and cover a range of areas.

9:41 – Rich Internet Applications.  It’s sorta the intersection of web 2.0 and MASHUPS.  Basically Flex and Silverlight.  Those APIs come standard with Server, but as of today, non-corporate users will have them for free, which is super cool.  He mentioned government agencies, education users, and NGOs.  I’d guess you should check with your sales rep to see if you qualify.  Having played with RIA’s, I can say they will easily be the future of this Web GIS Jack talks about.

9:44 – Christophe is talking about all the free data available for users.  There’s ESRI’s stuff, but now as of 9.3.1, Microsoft’s BING! (I can’t type that without caps and an exclamation point, ‘cause that’s how it sounds in my head) data is available for free.  The ESRI data looks better, I think, but the Microsoft data might be more comprehensive, not sure.  Soon they’re creating data for the whole world down to 1:200,000 (? Not sure about that).  Topographic maps for the whole world, with the US down to 1:20K.  Lastly, we have demographic maps from ESRI.  You can drape this over any other layers, like terrain.  You can also query the demographic information easily.  All of this stuff is free for desktop users.  They’re constantly adding content – more to follow soon.

9:48 – ArcExplorer.  New version coming out soon, which Jack says will be evolutionary.  Bernie is demoing ArcGIS Explorer (we like Bernie at the VS HQ).  They’ve added an ribbon interface like Office 2007, which customers will either love or hate (I fall into love camp).  Integrated basemaps, which connect to that stuff Christophe was talking about.  There’s also both a 2 and 3D view.  It looks like Google Maps sorta, but slightly newer and fresher.  Now have added support for layer packages.  You can also do plugins, which is super cool.  You can do a geoprocess on server and have Explorer connect to it.  They results are pretty impressive.  It will be great for pushing out a lightweight client to non-expert users.  You can also publish this stuff to a powerpoint presentation for live demoing.  It looks like powerpoint slides (blech!) but oh no!  Surprise!  You can actually interact with this “slide” live with a nice slippy slide interface.  Now that’s super cool.  You can zoom around in both 2D and 3D and its stupid fast.  Berne linked this to a live webcam of Old Faithful, which brought it up right away.  The animated parts are impressive.  Yeah!  No more boring as watching paint dry on grass growing GIS presentations!  Everyone should jump on this bandwagon the second it comes out, if you ask me.

9:56 – Jack is talking more about these layer packages.  It is a way to package up layers and data and give it out to people.  You can put it on CD or even share it online on ArcGIS online.  There’s now a new, free, integrated cloud storage site online.  You can share maps and data with whomever you choose.  I’m curious how much storage space you get.  Our portal has a couple TB of data, so I wonder if they’ll hold all of that information?  Onto a layer package demo with Rob.  You can create one via ArcMap, then you login to ArcGIS online.  You can then upload it and tag it with keywords and a title.  That helps with the searching for end users.  Now you can create and share the map/data with a private group.  Maria is going to show how you can get at the package that’s been published.  She’s looking for the package Rob uploaded (we like Maria at VS HQ too!)  She opens up the package in ArcGIS Explorer, although she could have chosen desktop.  You can look at the map in 2D or 3D.  Rob is making a webmap using ArcGIS online.  It’s a new and easy way to do Mashups without having to have lots of programming knowledge.  You can save your new mashup online and allow others to use it to further extend to more powerful mashups.  Jack is now back suggesting this is like Flickr… he calls it GeoFlickr.

10:03 – Jack is now onto Templates.  This is a way of sorta publishing “best practices” for work being done.  You can share these online.  We’re seeing a video talking about how this works.  When you find a template, you can watch a video to see how it works, check out a live demo of the template, and look at some instructions.  You download the template with starting data and applications.  For instances, they’re demoing a tax parcel viewer.  It’s a web viewer for publishing tax parcel mapping.  The template is pretty cool, but I can see a LOT of counties with “stock” tax parcel viewers.  Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but it does sorta “tag” your application.  Supposedly you only need to connect the template to your data and edit some config options and you’re good to go.  Color me skeptical, but it looked good in the viewer.  They’re looking for feedback, so if you’re at the UC, give your two cents!

10:08 – Jack is now announcing MapIt, a new product jointly developed with Microsoft.  It has a Silverlight viewer and is designed to connect IT people into maps more fully.  I’m not clear what the product does, to be honest, so look for more information throughout the week as we ask about it.

10:11  – Break time!

10:33 – Break Over, back to the show!  FedEx is going to show a display of how they’re using GIS to help their business.  Adam from Fed Ex is talking.  He’s in the division that deals with time critical, super important stuff that absolutely has to be there on time.  We’re seeing a live view of where drivers and trucks are currently traveling.  There’s a neat routing view that looks like most in car navigation systems, but the neat thing is the home office can see those views in real time too.  Customers can subscribe to certain events, say within 15 mins of delivery, and get notified via phone or text message or something.  They’re also linking to other sensors that might be for specific purposes, like a temperature control unit to monitor the package(s).  They can also re-route in real time.

10:41 – What’s next?  What’s ESRI been working on?  I’m really hoping hard wired maps to the brain, but I’m betting that’s not what the next video will show.  Scott, director of software development, is talking about what they’re doing.  Editing, spatial analysis, stream lining the software, productivity increases, all good stuff.  And I’d like to note that Scott has an EPIC level beard.  I’m actually green with envy!

10:44 – Next version is definitely going to be 9.4, NOT 10 as they hinted at various time.  The focus is making us all more productive.  Also, more quality and performance issues.  The desktop is going to become easier to use.  Time visualization, map display, integration search, dynamic TOC (woot!), better reports, better access to SQL Server spatial and Oracle Spatial.  Easier administration, as you’ll be able to have 9.3.1 installed concurrently with 9.4.  Now for the top 10 favorite things, which is an annual thing they do.  John is giving us his rundown.  Here we go:

10:46 – Top Ten Things in 9.4:  (crap… missed number 10!) 9) Upgraded user interface.  Dockable windows and hidable.  You can make the TOC go away.  Addition of a catalog directly in ArcMap (woot!)  That’s also dockable and hidable. 8) Attribute tables – dockable and hideable tables.  You can open multiple tables, so you can get selected and all at the same time, which will be nice.  Side by side show available too, ‘cause you can make it look however you want. 7) New Search to find data.  You can easily look for data directly from ArcMap.  The results look Google-esque, which is cool. 6) New reporting capability.  You can make a report much like you see in MS Office products.  You can select fields and organizations and apply templates.  You can also safe the report to run with a different select step. 5) Model builder updates.  You can now see inputs/outputs without having to run tool.  You can undo and redo stuff in model builder.  You can now customize toolbars so you can add your own geoprocessing models, which is pretty darn useful.  Here’s a nice feature – with 9.4 you can run a geoprocess as a background process and continue to work.  That’ll be great for all those times you do 3-4 day processing tasks, that’s for sure. 4) New layers – only show symbology and legend for visible features.  Basically dynamic  TOC.  I love this, ‘cause I HATE futzing with the current TOC.  It’s a complement to traditional TOC, which you can still use. 3) Symbol browsing.  You can quickly look and search for symbols, which is much better than just browsing the thousands of symbols. 2) Time (it’s on our side, yeah it is… sorry)  They’re including more temporal tools, which is great because this is somewhere where GIS hasn’t been great in the past.  There’s a system clock so you can set the date/time over the last period of time.  It changes your layers quickly, which is great because the current way with the TOC sucks. 1)Drum roll….. fast base maps! (I’d have picked the time controls personally).  Right now, layers re-draw sequentially.  Now you can set a group of layers to be the “basemap layer”.  As you pan, the redraw on those layers is continuous.  You can do a roam that allows you to move around freely, which is cool.  Turns out I didn’t miss the 10th one… there were only 9!

10:59 – Doug is going to show us stuff about editing in 9.4.  My observations aren’t going to be much here, because I don’t do a lot of editing.  I can say poor Doug isn’t getting as many claps as John got with his Top Ten (strike that Nine) list.  One cool thing is when you click on the map, you get a list of the selectable layers at that point, which makes editing easier.  The new tracing tool will make splitting polygons a heck of a lot easier, as it can follow along a line pretty easy, say the boundary of a stream as per the demo.  You can also say splits should be done only at right angles, which is nice for those of us not so hot at drawing, so says the master of the 87 degree angle!

11:05 – Jack is talking about web editing, which I find intriguing.  As Jack is saying, collaborative and distributed data collection and editing will be easier.  You can use a mix of desktop and handheld useful.  He thinks this is critical for user generated content (using terms like Citizen/Government Interaction, Crowd Sourcing, Collaborative Design, and user generated content – UGC).  This is potentially huge, I think.  Apparently Jack agrees J

11:07 – Next up, automation.  Creation of map books and the like are huge.  At the end of the day a paper map is sometimes just what you need.  It’s a hard nut to crack, that’s for sure.  Jack says 9.3 introduces some good stuff on multiscale map generation.  Onto Adam, who is going to show some automation for 9.4.  Now python is imbedded into the system.  The script can repair paths to data, which is a huge problem.  Hugely annoying too.  Now he’s showing updating symbology automatically via the script.  Guess I gotta learn python soon.  Meh.  Apparently a bunch of this stuff was born from Centerpoint energy (the SAG winner from earlier) needs when they developed map books for their remote teams.  They created a single map document that has multiple pages one can cycle through.  It’s one of those things I think a lot of people are a tad surprised it didn’t already do.  Hence the no clapping.  Dynamic text, which updates the labels with each turn of the page (that got a healthy clap).  You can publish this into a multipage PDF document.

11:14 – Now onto analysis, what Jack says is the heart of GIS.  More Python, which is cool and all, but I’m still not convinced of python’s power.  Plus the tabbing is annoying.  But that’s just me.  ESRI clearly disagrees with me, so python is going to be huge for analysis stuff.  Time is going to be integrating through all their stuff, not just the desktop.  I’m assuming ArcObjects will have a bunch of new features for that.  Network analysis is expanding in 9.4 with the addition of Location/Allocation Modeling, Allocation Gravity Modeling, Dynamic Barriers, and time dependent routes.  The last one will be a huge help, I think.  Jack is now saying 9.4 will be a complete 3D GIS.  Let’s hope so.  Again, I’m skeptical.  Designed for virtual cities.  Supports 3D vector model, which is great.  It’ll support 3D editing.  They’re also getting rid of a lot of the limitations they used to have.  I can’t see Sue, but I wonder if she’s jumping out of her seat 😉  Dynamic texturing changes depending on view distance (now I’m certain Sue must be jumping out of her seat).  You can do symbols by any attribute.  He (missed the presenter’s name) is showing editing in 3D from above and below ground.  You can now import and georeference a sketchup model with a single click, as well as continue to edit it (ok, I should really look at Sue now).  Updates analytic tools are included too.  There’s an updated line of sight tool, which helps for new development.  New tool called skyline.  It’s to help protect skylines of cities.  You can see if a proposed building will screw up an existing skyline.  There’s a new layer type, video layer.  There is a georeferenced video showing over top static GIS layers.  That’s pretty cool.  You can also include georeferenced camera displays.  This is way cool stuff!

11:24 – Jack just made the same Stones/Time joke I did.  Apparently we both have the same dorky sense of humor.  This should surprise me, yet oddly doesn’t.  But on to more 9.4 stuff!  Geodatabase is going to open up to allow any client to read/write to the database via an open API.  That’ll help the platform become a solid standard.  More replication tools, which is great because their current ones aren’t that great.  They’re dramatically improving imagery handling.  ESRI has always been great at vector, so-so at imagery, which is good that they’re tackling this important side of the equation.  With 9.4, there’s a new type of raster catalog called a mosaic, which lives in the geodatabase.  This keeps imagery in native format and access data dynamically without changing the original data.  They’ve attempted to cut out a lot of the middle steps to creating/editing/using imagery data.  Makes it all run faster and reduce time between acquisition and use.  Next, in 9.4 is real time roam and zoom across data.  Looks like it loads up different data depending on location.  Pretty fast.  There’s also the inclusion of an image analysis window/tool set.  You can swipe back and forth between original data and this new “analyzed” data.  They’ve also created an partnership with Envy, which allows you to quickly and easily extract a layer from the imagery.  They’re showing a box panning over a city (Toronto) and automatically generate building footprints, which is pretty cool.  Wonder if you can run it automatically in a geoprocessing tool?  That’ll make making building footprints pretty darn quick.

11:33 – Moblie GIS (shameless plug!  Don’t forget to come see our live show on Wednesday where we’ll be talking with the ArcPad team!).  They’re extending the functionality to new devices, like the iPhone.  I would have expected a bigger clap from that… oh well.  Bonnie is showing the mobile options.  She’s showing the Flex API default page to show how mobile devices can be used.  Now we see a Trimble “virtual” hand held device.  She’s adding new records and editing them in real time.  Now she’s moved onto showing in on a tablet PC that can be mounted in a vehicle.  Again, I kinda thought it could already do that, but I’m not a heavy mobile user, so what do I know?  It seems to work pretty well, but I’m curious how it will work as that touch screen starts to fade.  Of course, that’s not really ESRI’s problem, but a hardware one.  The buttons are nice and big, I’ll have to say, which is important when you’re driving and trying to do work (and not run anyone over).  It also integrates with ArcLogistics navigator.

11:40 – Now Chris is going to show the 3rd device, which I’m assuming will be the iPhone.  That makes sense with their increased emphasis on crowd sourcing.  You can use your own maps or someone else’s maps instead of, say, Google’s default map.  The map is pretty detailed and works pretty good for using just your finger.  Basemap switching is quick.  Selecting buildings is simple.  End user’s can actually add data into the map, even going so far as to take pictures with the iPhone and attach it to the map.  It can be emailed, SMS, or synched with the server.  Ok, this may be the central technology for my dissertation, so I’d kinda like to get this… say… today J  By far, the coolest thing I’ve personally seen today!

11:46 – Jack sounds like he’s wrapping up now.  He’s emphasizing how user driven requests drive a lot of their development.  People are walking around with notebooks to write down people’s suggestions and criticisms.  If you’re at the UC, don’t forget to give feedback!  I’ve done it a number of times and seen some of it end up in finished products, so they are really interested in user’s input.  Don’t be afraid to call them or email them and tell’em what you think.  I’ve never gotten a negative response when I’ve done it.

11:49 – Onto a film showing what ESRI is doing outside of their software development.  They’re talking about ramping up their services sector and their data services.  They’re constantly looking for better data they can publish.  I’ve used the professional services in the past and I can say they’re top notch.  Not cheap, but top notch.

12:00 – Lunch break!

2:05 – Back from lunch.  Normally the afternoon is about people doing interesting things with GIS.  Jack is moving on to the US Census Bureau.  Tim Trainer from census is talking.  Obviously GIS is important to census (at least it should be obvious, I think).  Census blocks are aggregated into larger units for census taking.  They’ve moved the system to a wireless one, instead of shipping paper products around.  Speeds up the process dramatically, from what he’s saying.  The TIGER project was good enough accuracy for those paper products, but since the move to GPS, it isn’t as viable as it once was.  So clearly they’re moving beyond the TIGER project.  They’ve got over 145,000 handhelds for census taking.  I wonder if they’ve going to move beyond handhelds since a lot of those are really going away.  The picture shows a consumer grade PDA unit, not a commercial grade GPS unit.  Apparently the latest census was supposed to take 7 weeks to pull off, but as of this past Friday, the census has finished a full week in advance.  He credits this to GIS.  Census day is April 1st, 2010 (why do so many agencies like to do things on April Fools Day?).  The Census motto – count you once, only once, and in the right place.  Apparently the census is changing how they distribute their data.  American Fact Finder is moving to Web 2.0.  Cached maps and thematic maps are going to become the norm.  It’s about time, if you ask me.  Census is the foundation of our democracy, in that it produces how many seats for the House.  So remember, fill out your census form!

2:20 – Dr. Scholten is getting the Lifetime Achievement award.  He got his degrees in Geography and Math (wow!).  He’s a professor at Vrije University in Amsterdam and CEO.  There’s a cool picture of Jack and Dr. Scholten in 1984 with Arc-Info 3.1.  He’s reminiscing about when he first met Jack 25 years ago when ESRI’s success wasn’t so sure.  He’s talking a bit about the history of his country.  They began making maps in the 1600’s, with inclusion of maps in art and the creation of maps for exploration.  He’s talking about teams and how he’s impressed with ESRI’s team.  His company, Geodan, has a good team.  He’s also talking about his University team and now the EDUGIS Team.  Finally, his “home” team, meaning his family.  He’s basically stating that the strength of his work rests on these teams of people working together to create successes.  He’ll be in the Microsoft booth this week if you’d like to stop by and chat with him.  Nice award presentation.

2:34 – Another award, this time to a non-profit out of the UK called MapAction.  Their role is in the field of humanitarian relief.  They send mapping/GIS professionals to hot spots and dangerous areas for humanitarian relief work.  They have a display in the map gallery area, which will be cool to check out.  Hopefully we can get a short bit of interview from their team.  Their work seems fascinating.

2:42 – Education section with Charlie.  He’ll introduce kids groups doing stuff with GIS.  This is always the best part of the plenary for me.  He’s saying that young people who get involved in GIS work tend to move on to great things with their community and within the greater GIS work.  He’s calling for geomentors to help schools and educators.  Let me add my modest voice to this call, if I may.  Helping teachers and their students can be one of the most rewarding experiences of GIS professionals.  A teacher from Maryland is talking about high school students working late on GIS projects.  Two kids, Joey and Matt, are telling us about what they learned.  Once more I’m UTTERLY AMAZED these kids stand up in front of thousands of geospatial experts and talk about the amazing work they did.  I know I couldn’t do it.  These kids covered a LOT of interesting basic skills.  They did a project analyzing the best place for a new school to be built.  They used geostatistics and demographic data.  These two kids are going to have a remote sensing and geospatial technology certifications.  Just amazing.  I tweeted this, but I also want to note that these kids made metadata as part of what they did.  Look, if two high school students just learning could find the time and knowledge to make metadata, then GIS professionals HAVE NO EXCUSE for not making metadata.  The geomentor is giving some great advice for mentoring.  He’s saying go find teachers willing to learn and students willing to learn and give them the time and energy to enable them.  Hands down the biggest applause of the plenary came when Jack asked, “Do you guys want anything?”, one of the guys (Joey?) said, “I want to go to college.  Anyone got a scholarship?”  That’s gold right there!  You can’t make that stuff up.

2:59 – Next up, Hernado de Soto, world famous economist.  He has stated that cadastral data is critical for countries to transition from poor to rich.  He’s talking about how words relate you to the outside world.  Relationships are important and connections allow us to relate to the outside world.  Now we have picture of an apple and he’s making the point that looking at the picture tells you nothing about ownership/property or his relationship to that apple.  You have to have documentation to detail relationships and you can work through these records to understand these relationships.  He tells the story of the show Miami Vice… I’ll skip the details but the short point of the story is that addresses allow that show to work, because they travel from address to address, ie place to place.  He says there is no credit without property paper.  The ultimate point he’s working toward is clear – documentation of property defines the modern financial world.  Without that, you can’t have secure or reliable understanding of relationships between people and property.  Why does this matter?  Because billions of people don’t have good property rights or documentation of those rights and are thus unable to partake in the modern property system.  Most countries that don’t’ have good right would very much like to have them.  Even tribal nations have developed an ad hoc system which isn’t as effective as one would like, but critical.  His ultimate message is that property law must be developed in the third world.  He’s challenging the United States to create property law in places like Iraq, because the lack of that law in these places is contributing to the abject instability.  His presentation and message is well taken, but I will insert my editorial comment that we often see what we see because of where we sit.  It seems natural to me that an economist would be concerned most importantly with property.  I think this might be one of several legs of a table, one without which democracy can exist.  However, we shouldn’t ignore the other legs for this one, as they’re important as well.

3:38 – Willie Smits, second Keynote.  He created a University in Indonesia and is a wildlife conservation expert.  He’s been in Indonesia for 30 years and he is talking about the deforestation and ecological damage being done in that area.  He’s got some impressive pictures of the deforestation… impressive and sad.  He’s talking about palm oil and how it is connected to Indonesia and how the world-wide demand of palm oil is killing the Indonesian rainforests.  He showing how they used geospatial analysis to detail this tale.  The analysis shows that a lot of concessions for oil palm plantations are foolish, as the land isn’t really suited for growing oil palm.  In fact, a full 60% of the plantations are being created in places where they can’t make a profit.  This takes into account soil, weather, and transportation costs.  A time analysis shows deforestation happening every 3 months.  Furthermore, the government is issuing permits to legally develop areas that really shouldn’t be developed legally, just some tricks to make it looks like it is developable.  In short, they could use the technology to analyze the real information, not the assumed and prove illegal usage was happening.  We can contend with these issues such as deforestation before they become life critical because the technology allows us to do so.

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