Google Enterprise Roadshow

Great event at the Science Museum for the much anticipated launch of Google Earth Builder. Some great presentations including Ed Parsons. It was certainly the case that Google are really making strides into the very traditional GIS market. There offering is pretty much to help create “1 big GIS” which is built using their tools, storing data in a hosted environment on their kit, wherever that is ! Much as talked about Google do the “heavy” lifting so we don’t have to and also making use of (sorry – leveraging) the IT infrastructure they have in place already. There is certainly plenty of opportunity to use this technology to create fast nice looking map content on the web that is easy to use. This is certainly the last nail in the coffin for those pretty awful old web maps which are cluttering up the web. There seems to be a push to use this type of application which provides a web tool-kit and takes the headache out of all the config. However….I think people are interested in the back-end, still, and want to know abit about how the data is stored and donts just want to take googles word for it, or anyone else’s. Maybe we are not ready for this yet, but surely it is the future and this is only going to grow. Climb on board.

Moving goal posts

It is always staggering how quickly geo technology is moving. As fast as it moves so do peoples perception and expectations. Even a year ago just visualising basic data layers was enough to get a wow, now a year on expectations are far greater. Visually showing data gets more of a so what reaction ! There has to be clear benefits to using geo now – the analysis is key ! This use to be the big things but it seems to of been lost with the race to provide easy access to data. Now we can all do this easily analysis is back on the table, big time. Supporting decision making and public participation seem to be the big plus points that what people look for and you can see why. So lets get analysing.

Data Quality – a challenge

The issue of data quality is really a thorny one. It is very hard to communicate that a clients data could be error strewn without being rude ! We all care about data but how much do we really know about it. We only really check for the obvious issues and don’t consider the unknowns. These are critical. I think a “data-audit” is a friendly approach. It would be good if there was some kind of data quality certification which had some teeth which meant that this was enforced properly.

It doesn’t have to be complicated

Interestingly at a recent presentation at a GIS conference I was challenged about the seemingly lack of geo technology used on the project I was showing. Interesting point as the only real geo application bit was showing points on a map. There was maybe an overkill on technology supporting this with an Amazon EC2 instance with ArcGIS server supporting this. However I don’t think it can be over estimated the power of points on a map which serve as a geographical link to other data. Location is often the launch pad to something more exciting. As someone else commented it doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective.

Neogeograhy

Great event today. The AGI North Conference. Very enthusiastic and knowledgable crowd. There is still much debate regarding the term neogepgraphy. It does seem to cause confusion. Plenty of questions about my talk about the EC2 Project. Loads of questions which is a good sign. So much potential with the cloud it is hard to know where to begin.

Mobile and EC2

It strikes me the more and more that I use Amazon EC2 the better it is. It is hard to see why it isn’t adopted more. One of the main benefits is that “applications” can get started and underway quickly. There is no need to maintain costly dev / test / prod environments which may be redundant for long periods, unless you work in the dedicated web development space. It does open up SME’s to work competitively in what was previously the “big-boys” blue chip space. Companies which have invested heavily in this infrastructure must be thinking twice. For SME’s or even large govt departments the ability to be truly flexible and scalable has to be a major plus which would even negate any risk associated with moving to the cloud.