GIScussions

Understanding the Value of Geographic Information in a Turbulent World

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:54:00 +0000

I was invited to give a keynote this morning at the Cambridge Conference: Exchange which is a conference of delegates from National Mapping agencies from developing, transitional and developed world.

My talk was about the two big changes that NMA's were facing:

The need to deliver better return on investment to their customers
Switching from being producer centric to customer responsive and understanding that the value of geospatial data was determined by customers and their choices not by how much it cost to produce

I thought that it would be more relevant to the people from the developed countries who were facing the problems of funding, business models, relationships with the private sector and wrestling with free data and the pace of innovation in the geoweb.

But as I got to the bit about why I thought NMA's should stick to what they were good at, namely cadastral type data, and not try and compete with the commercial and open data models at street and POI level I realised that there was a possible tip here for the people from the less advanced economies who are struggling to fund their GI capabilities and who had been hoping that the now stressed business models of the larger NMA's would provide a solution. I showed them what was being done by the OpenStreetMap community in Egypt and suggested to them that crowd sourcing might be a model that they could use to supplement their cadastre.

I was surprised at what a good reception the ideas got from both representatives from the third world and some of the Europeans. Don't expect a sudden conversion but perhaps one or two people will at least go back to their offices and have a more serious look at alternatives.

Incidentally on the business model front, the people who worked in cadastre's that charged people in the property transaction chain were experiencing severe downturns in revenue with the currrent state of the property market throughout Europe. Some are having to consider increasing charges by 25% to cover costs. Not sure this is much better than the current model in the UK. Oh and they still don't give their data away to other interested parties for free!

The slides are here. No notes but some pretty images with a few bullet points which may give you an idea of what I was talking about.

Understanding The Value Of Geoographic Information in a Turbullent World

View more presentations from Steven Feldman.

State of the Map slide notes

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:05:00 +0000

If you couldn't find the notes that accompanied my slides it is because for some reason Slideshare cut them off. Don't ask...

So I have dropped them here

Becoming a GeoVator

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 07:52:00 +0000

GeoVation is a new innovation network sponsored by Ordnance Survey that will help individuals and startups to turn ideas for using geography into reality.

Come along to one of the GeoVation launch briefings, at each location we will be running a breakfast briefing with coffee and croissants and an early evening briefing with pizza and beer.

The registration pages for the briefings are now open, please select the location and time that you would prefer and register (no charge) using one of these links

http://geovationcoffeemanchester.eventbrite.com

Manchester: 08:00 - 09:30

http://geovationdrinksmanchester.eventbrite.com

Manchester: 18:00 - 20:00

http://geovationcofeelondon.eventbrite.com

London: 08:00 - 09:30

http://geovationdrinkslondon.eventbrite.com

London: 18:00 - 20:00

They will be fun interactive events that will give you a flavour of the program and you will meet some other GeoVators who you might want to team up with. Come along and learn more about the GeoVation program and help us to make someone’s idea come to life with geography

Maps for the blind

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:59:00 +0000

OpenStreetMappers are passionate about maps and are coming up with some great ideas for using maps in new ways. During State of the Map we saw several great new ideas including augmented reality from Layar and transport maps from Ito but the one that most impressed me was a tactile map for the blind.

Why didn't someone think of this ages ago? Could it be that open data really does encourage innovation?

State of the Map

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:35:00 +0000

I am in Amsterdam for State of the Map, the OpenStreetMap conference. This has been an amazing event, well organised, full of energy and riding the crest of a wave.

No one who attends this event from within the mainstream of the geobusiness could go away thinking that crowdsourcing cannot produce a detailed, accurate and richly attributed and themed map. The OSM community are getting their act together on coverage, quality and tag structures, the resemblance to the processes and standards of major map producers is very evident but is leveraged by the scale that a volunteer community of approaching 130,000 can bring (even if only 10-11% are currently active)

Whilst OSM may have started as a reaction to the licensing of our national mapping agency, I think it is not OS who have the most to fear, after all we will need accurate large scale cadastral data which is not what OSM is focused upon or able to capture and maintain.

What, however will happen to the producers of street level data products with their high costs of collection and maintenance? Willl they be able to differentiate themselves sufficiently?

The solutions space where data traditionally has been 75-90% of the value of a project is going to be turned upside down. It is not just the cost of data licenses that is being stripped from the cost of a project it is also all of the wasted and frustrating effort associated in negotiating use terms and licenses with data vendors who seem to be incapable of making anything simple and I am not just referring to OS because the other data providers and their resellers make life almost as difficult.

OSM already provides a viable street product if your requirements are for a high level of population coverage in the UK rather than geographic completeness. Within 12-18 months it will as good as complete in a number of European countries and the US. Now would be a good time for some of the established players in data production to wake up and smell the coffee.

I presented on the subject "Is Volunteered Geograhic Information sustainable?" I am sure you can guess my conclusion. The presentation is here:

Is Volunteered Gi Sustainable

View more presentations from Steven Feldman.

Redaction, what's it all about?

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Redaction is one of those words that I always thought that I "sort of" understood but since it didn't come up in daily conversation that frequently perhaps I didn't.

Now you might have thought it meant the use of a thick black marker pen on MP's expenses or even studies on the economics of national mapping agencies (yes including the land mass of the US) but maybe not.

Wiki says

redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined (redacted) and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work.

No mention of black pens or scissors there, the wiki goes on to talk about redactional fatigue

Redactional fatigue is an important related concept: when making changes to a large text, a redactor may occasionally overlook a piece of text that conflicts with the redactional goals. The nature of the conflict between the bulk of a redacted text and the contradictory windows can suggest what the goals of the redactor might have been

Got to have some sympathy for those redactors, haven't you?

Of course if you are like me you might prefer this definition of redaction at http://www.redaction.org.uk

Come on you Red Actors!

Free or Privatise Our Data

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:20:00 +0000

Michael Cross writes a very sensible piece on the Tories new "free" data plans.

It sounds like a variation of an old Who song "Meet the new government same as the old government" except that one would have to be wary of the Tories penchant to privatise anything that they can.

To judge by Cameron's speech, which makes no mention of the government's single largest data business, the Conservatives share this aversion to reform. The suspicion must be that the Tory solution is to try and sell off the mapping agency lock stock and barrel. Yet locational information is an essential component of nearly every public data set. To commercialise its supply would be to move in the very opposite direction of setting our data free.

Not for the first time I find myself strongly agreeing with Michael Cross. My one question is if the treasury are unable or unwilling to go down the centrally funded route what would you prefer - privatisation or trying to get the best out of the current model. I know which one I would choose.

A poll Michael?

I am not an internationally renowned expert

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:37:00 +0000

Contrary to some of the comments on Free Our Data I am not the "internationally recognised expert in Geographical Information and National Mapping who agreed with the analysis and conclusions" of the OS study into international geographic information trading models.

I do consult at the moment for OS on their GeoVation program but had nothing at all to do with this report. I have no idea who the expert was, apparently they do not wish to be publicly associated with the report (hardly surprising).

The redacted report tells us very little and leaves me wondering why so much that is already in the public domain has been excluded in this version. Hopefully the next version which will be less redacted after OS has got permission from the other mapping agencies will make a better read.

1 week left to catch a worm

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Early Birds catch the worm and save money at GeoCommunity 09, the offer closes on 30th June. Why pay more?

Stunning program, the best ever and great value. Book now here

Who wants to be a GeoVator

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:15:00 +0000

The search is on for GeoVators (well almost on, you will have to wait a few more days to find out what we are up to).

If you think you might be a GeoVator or you just want to know what a GeoVator is mail me through the blog and I will send you an invite.

Come and Georant on the Soapbox

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:10:00 +0000

Got a pet geolove or geohate? Product to push or new business launch? Got an idea you want to share and test? Fancy babbling geo to a crowd in a bar?

If you want to stand on the GeoCommunity soapbox and have the mike for 5 minutes and 15 slides on autocue then mail soapbox@agi.org.uk with your name, organisation and a title of not more than 140 characters. We will be inviting the delegates to vote for the speakers that they want to hear.

Should be a fun conclusion to a great first day of GeoCommunity.

Watch out for the Digital Tomatoes, it could get messy!

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Is Location getting boring?

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:58:00 +0000

On Tuesday I moderated a panel on location at Being Digital. It's a slightly different event as there were only 10 minutes of powerpoint in the whole day! So there was a lot of discussion between panelists and delegates.

My panelists were a seasoned bunch of location gurus - Ed Parsons, Gary Gale of Yahoo, Jeff Kelisky of Microsoft, Andrew Scott from Rummble and James Parton of O2.

I did get a feeling of déjà vu talking about value and location. The consensus seemed to be that location would be an enabler rather than a solution or application.

The only disagreement amongst the panel was when one said that the iPhone was not mainstream. You can imagine the response from our iPhoned panel let alone the 150 or so in the audience.

The interesting question that we left too late was "what would happen if GYM pulled out of offering free mapping API's?" Is that a possibility, would anyone else step in, would digital business pay for an API? Maybe this is a topic for another day.

I don't think location is getting boring but I do think we need to move on from the novelty, ubiquity and privacy stuff and start talking about what is being done (not what could be)

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Biggest and best ever program at GeoCommunity '09

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Just in case you have missed all of the publicity around the launch of the program for GeoCommunity. I thought I would give you a preview of my introduction to the conference brochure which will be off the presses very soon.

For the third time it is my pleasure to invite you to be part of the GeoCommunity at our annual conference in Stratford upon Avon.

The pace of change within the geo world continues to accelerate and the range of content and activity at this year's GeoCommunity reflects the broad range of interests of those who work with and benefit from geography in both traditional and new domains.

I am amazed at the quality and breadth of the program that the GeoCommunity team have created for you. We have blended the big topics and issues of the moment with learning opportunities and a celebration of the power of geography to transform people's lives and make a difference.

This year delegates at GeoCommunity will have some difficult choices to make between over 80 options across 7 streams of presentations, interactive sessions and hands on workshops. The implementation of INSPIRE and national and regional SDI's will be a prime interest for some of our delegates whilst for others the new Geoweb stream will provide an opportunity to demonstrate how neogeography is changing the ways we use, present and share information. In the Local Communities stream we go from crime reduction to the evolution of place names, there are streams on Visualisation, the Environment, Making the Case and GeoServices (GIS in the cloud) and a stream entitled All About Data with some very thought provoking presentations. Privacy is becoming a subject of increasing concern for some of us whilst others are more focussed on the benefits of pervasive location, the GeoCommunity will have the chance to join in a discussion on location and privacy with a group of experts.

You will also be stimulated, inspired and entertained by our 3 plenary guest speakers, Andrew Turner, an originator of neogeography and CTO of Fortius and founder of GeoCommons, Peter Batty, former CTO of SmallWorld and Intergraph and, to finish the conference, a truly stunning presentation from the teachers and pupils of the Grammar School at Leeds on the way GI is integrated into the whole curriculum.

On the second day there will be keynotes on the theme Realising the Value of Place from the leaders of our Platinum Sponsor organisations – ESRI UK, Ordnance Survey and Pitney Bowes Business Insight.

We wanted to give a platform to even more people to speak at the conference. This year we are launching the GeoCommunity Soapbox, 10 lightning pitches by GeoCommunity delegates on topics selected by the conference attendees. It promises to be a fun session, come and learn about “digital tomatoes”

A conference is not just about plenaries, sessions and workshops – we also need opportunities to catch up with old friends and make new ones. What better way to start than by coming up to Stratford on the Tuesday for the pre-conference activities and the ice-breaker evening with a quirky poet and a challenging quiz? On the second night we have our Black and White GeoCommunity party with our house band, The Twangs, plus a load of games and activities and of course a well-stocked bar and delicious eats.

GeoCommunity '09 is going to be the best GeoCommunity ever.

Join me in Realising the Value of Place. I hope that I will get the chance to meet you in Stratford.
Steven

You can view the program here

The Early Bird registration is here - why would you want to waste money by booking late?

Locating Being Digital

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:04:00 +0000

I am going to be moderating the Location panel at Being Digital tomorrow.

It should be a great event and apparently it will be powerpoint free which will be something of a shock to some of the audience and even more so to some of the presenters! I love the mashupevents stuff, they have a delightful energy and spontaneity which many other events just seem to lack. It could be the combination of the two founders Simon Grice and Tony Fish, two more different personalities it would be difficult to find in the London digital world.

Apparently the panel will be discussing where the value is in location, is it where you are now, where you have been or where you are going? I say apparently because I haven't got a clue where the discussion will go.

If you are attending the event you will be able to pose questions to the panel by tweeting with the hashtag #BDE or you can tweet me beforehand or mail me through the contact link on this blog. If you are there do come and find me.

If you haven't registered and want to come along the mashupevents team will take your money on the door.

Location based social networking

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:07:00 +0000

I have been doing quite a bit of travel recently. Nights away from home are always more enjoyable with some company. In the last 2 weeks I have twice tweeted "anyone going to be in xxx this evening?" Back have come replies and plans have been made for drinks, meals and fun conversations.

No applications, no location features (just a place name) no new networks to join and sadly no revenue model or advertising share. Sort of simple and old fashioned I guess but it works.

So I ended up having fun evenings talking geo with Bob Barr and Bill Oates. Next time I am in their neck of the woods I might just skip the twitter stage and phone them.

Do we overcomplicate things because we can?

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Who's making money?

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:53:00 +0000

Recently the flurry of location focussed or influenced startups seems to have slowed down. I can't think of many in the UK in 2009 and the story across the pond sounds similar (that should prompt a flurry of corrections)

I wonder if that is because of a slow down in innovative ideas, caution on the part of investors or concern on the part of geoentrepreneurs about there ability to be sustainable? How many location centric startups are generating material revenues let alone covering costs? Surely advertising is not enough with falling rates etc? How long can startups and their finders hang in there waiting for revenues to materialise?

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I look **** on You Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:27:00 +0000

Ed Parsons posted a link to this short video from the launch of Ordnance Survey's new business strategy. Before you tell me - I know I don't film well, still have a laugh.

Someone remind me to do an end of term report as we come up to the anniversary of the launch of the strategy.

It's a long way from Rome to Manchester

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:19:00 +0000

I wanted to express my heartfelt sympathy to those modest football fans who travelled to Rome. It is unfair and unjustified for millions of people who support any club other than yours to gloat.

Quoting Evra's perceptive comment "men & boys" after you thrashed Arsenal seems highly inappropriate. I can't think why anyone would want to see Sir Alex eating humble pie, surely he baked it?

So make that long journey home from Rome or the shorter one from the pub or the sofa with your heads held high. Your boys did you proud.

Yours dripping with schadenfreude

Someone who supports a team that didn't win a title and didn't get to a final and should know better than to enjoy others disappointment. But there you go that's football.

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GeoCommunity will have its best ever program

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:20:00 +0000

I have just finished grading 118 paper submissions for GeoCommunity. Don't worry there are 10 or 12 other judges grading them too so you won't be lumbered with my favourites unless the rest agree and vice versa.

There is an amazing diversity of papers and judges which will produce a stunning program. This one promises to be the best ever. Just wait until we announce the program in w/c 8th June and you will be able to decide.

Usually the early bird places sell out pretty quickly (we only have a couple of hundred available) once the program is published so you might want to put your faith in my judgement and whizz over to registration to grab an early bird before they go - you might catch a worm.

The times thay are a changin' - Pt 2

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:30:00 +0000

At the beginning of the week Gavin Brock blogged about how his OpenSpace application that used kml to combine OpenSpace mapping with Google Earth had been shut down by Ordnance Survey.

Within a couple of hours, Peter ter Haar of OS had posted on Gavin's blog explaining the OS position regarding Google's claims of perpetual licenses to any data displayed over their service but also reinstating Gavin's API key

I know there are many other tools in the market that could benefit from your application; many other tools can read a KML stream these days. Many of these tools do not claim a comparable right to the displayed content. I would like to make sure you can explore the possibilities these other tools give you and have therefore asked my team to re-instate your API key as soon as possible for a period of 3 months at least ...
In the mean time, I hope Google will give the GI community the clarification it deserves on the terms and conditions of Google Earth and the Google Maps API.

A way to go but a good early indicator for those who are looking out for change at the OS.

Mapping MP's expenses

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:59:00 +0000

With all the furore over the abuse of the expenses system by some MPs there have only been a a few mashups appearing shedding light on the fiddlers.

This map from OUseful shows travel expenses. Interesting to pick out the couple of exceptionally high bills from the MPs for Luton and Epsom for example and the MP from Coventry NW seems to stand out from those around him.

Surely there are some others out there?

UPDATE

Charles Arthur wrote a great review of some other sites on the Guardian Technology Blog

Game Over

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:46:00 +0000

To all my Manchester United loving friends (even the ones who have no connection with Manchester and have never been to Old Trafford for a match)

Congratulations. You are worthy champions. Gulp!

Did you know that my grandfather wanted to emigrate to Barcelona?

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Football Geography

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Sat, 16 May 2009 17:35:00 +0000

At the HSC dinner in Cardiff this week I sat on a table with a fellow Arsenal fan born in Highbury and now living in Cardiff, 2 guys from Wigan one of whom supported his local team and the other who supported Man U, another Man U fan from Somerset and a lady from Carmarthen whose sons supported Man U whilst her husband supported Liverpool (she didn't support anyone) and last but not least a part time QPR fan also from Carmarthen. Go figure?

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The times they are a changing, or are they?

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:03:00 +0000

The Ordnance Survey's New Business Strategy was published the day after the budget and is currently open for comment via a blog type interface, so far there have been 70 responses. Before the strategy had been published I had written that the important part would not be the content of any announcements but the way that Ordnance Survey chose to execute upon the strategy. In other words judge them by what they do.

On Tuesday Iain Wright, the minister responsible for OS, officially launched the strategy alongside Sir Rob Margett, the new OS chairman and Vanessa Lawrence. I wanted to hear what they had to say before commenting on the change of strategy.

For many, the key part of the announcement will have been the government’s decision to retain the “user pays” model as opposed to what was described as a “utility” centrally funded model that allows data to be distributed at zero or marginal cost. I was surprised to hear that the estimated cost to the government in the first 5 years of the utility model was between £500m and £1bn, the range seems enormous particularly when OS current operating costs are around £100m per year and forecast to fall. I presume that the gap is made up by the loss in value of the business as an entity but there was no explanation given. Given the gap between the numbers quoted and previous estimates of the benefits of the utility model there have to be some pretty fundamental differences between the methods of assessment. It is understandable that several people are asking for some of the background research to be published, the sooner this can be explained the better

I have never been convinced that the utility model was sustainable and I have argued that point in several forums over the last couple of years. In the current economic crisis it was even less likely that the treasury would be keen on taking on an extra burden to the public purse. I also remain very doubtful about the flurry of economic activity that would be released by eliminating charges to commercial companies – what are the profitable services that can only exist if they can utilise OS data at zero cost? Surely they would be flourishing on the back of the several free web map API’s that already exist rather than being constrained by the charges that OS were seeking. After all OS is not the only data supplier in the marketplace.

Anyway a decision has been taken on the business model and with an election coming up in the next year and the likelihood of a change of government there is not going to be a change in the model for at least 3 years. So it is time to stop grinding the rusty axes, park the issue and focus on how OS can respond to the key areas of concern that were associated with the way they interpreted their business model and charter.

Nobody who has tried to navigate through the maze of OS licensing and IP constraints would suggest that everything was fine in the old model.

Public sector users who are the OS’ largest customer have been unable to do things that they patently should be doing in delivering services to us and finding efficiency savings that we desperately need.
Businesses waste time and energy trying to agree viable terms to use OS data (in my opinion simplicity of terms is much more of an obstacle to commercial exploitation than cost).
Community groups and charities have been prevented from easily using OS data.
To cap it all, creativity both within the OS and within its customers, partners and the wider GeoCommunity (excuse the plug) has been stifled.

Things had to change and hopefully this new business strategy sets out a much better way forward. The published strategy document is pretty high level and sets out some aspirations that most of us would support. Sir Rob Margett said “this is 10% about strategy and 90% about execution” and Vanessa Lawrence added “the devil is in the detail” in other words it’s not what they say it’s what they do. What I heard on Tuesday and the conversations I have had with OS people suggests that there is a real energy in the organisation to make change. I hope so.

Rant over.

Declaration of Interest

I should add that I am an external adviser to OS on the innovation strand of their strategy. I will be working with Stew MacTavish of Mo.Jo on an Ideas Challenge which will launch in the next few weeks and also providing some input into the way that OS facilitates and encourages innovation by its customers, partners and the broader community.

The times they are a changing at OS and it should be fun to help them along the way.

Surely Tunbridge Wells could do better?

noreply@blogger.com (Steven) — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:13:00 +0000

An article in eGov Monitor announced the launch of a new local information service for Turnbridge Wells (sic). The TW web site says

LocalView is an online map-based service enabling people to search for and locate properties and other mapped land, people and property information in the Tunbridge Wells borough..

Sounded good, but in practice this is just one more of the same old same old's that local authorities have been deploying over the last 6 years and not a very good one at that.

I wonder how much of Tunbridge Wells' ratepayers money went to software vendors and consultant to build Local View? An informed guess, well over £20,000. Doesn't seem like great value for money in these hard pressed times.

If you think I am being unfair go and have a look at it here and then compare this with Hackney's latest effort Hackney Where which just seems much more informative, intuitive and attractive (not perfect but pretty neat).

Cost to Hackney? Probably a few days hacking time. Now at the moment the Hackney site might fall foul of derived data licensing conditions but hopefully as the details of Ordnance Survey's new business strategy and policies become clearer it will become easier for local authorities to use either Open Space or Google to present their data to the public. The big losers from such a change would be the software vendors and consultants who provide solutions like TurnbridgeWells' local view - you are going to have to step up your game guys.