Topology Errors

Denial is Not Just a River in Egypt

2006-08-28T10:30:00.000-04:00

Dimitri’s comment is interesting enough to send down the RSS feed in its entirety.

Hi Chris,
Thanks for featuring me in your blog. I'm very flattered you would take the time to track down and include my picture. You don't have any actual content in your log regarding my writings that I could see (it would be good form to link to, say, a synopsis and a rebuttal), so I have no way of knowing what you agree with or disagree with. I take it that you do have some views on GIS. But if you fail to articulate those in a cogent way you do nothing but provide yet more search engine links to my writings. I've written a lot over the years so I don't know what you are getting heartburn over, but at least I have always had the respect for my readers to take the time to set forth an argument to the best of my ability at whatever level of detail was required to make my case. You may not agree with those writings, but you appear to be taking the lazy man's way out of failing to address the substance of my writings. If there is polemic in play, it is on your side and as a result of your failure to discuss the issues with whatever technical or business expertise is required to do them justice. So, if you are going to bother to cite my writings and indicate disapproval, do yourself a favor and take the time to write a rebuttal that computer professionals (or simply the intelligent general reader) can read and decide for themselves whether you have a valid point. But, if you cannot do that, I suppose I should be grateful that you would provide greater visibility for my views with whatever web of links your blog puts into play.
Regards, Dimitri

#1 This blog comments on the mores and customs of the GIS community, not the technology or application of GIS. As such, it is for people who understand that personal relationships are vitally important in business.

#2 I noticed you didn’t address the suggestion to quantify Manifold’s success in the marketplace.

#3 Your writings stand on their own and don’t require a formal rebuttal. The passage of time is sufficient to give the computer professional or even the lowly (in your mind) intelligent general reader an opportunity to evaluate their reliability. I’ll cite from your presentation to the Emergency Information Infrastructure Partnership (EIIP) in August 1998.

I figure by this time next year Manifold will be outselling (in unit volumes) all other GIS vendors combined.

It Takes a Village (Reprise)

2006-08-26T20:48:00.000-04:00

Before any comments arrive, I understand the irony of mentioning the Dimitri incident since I set myself up to “wrestle the pig”. Nevertheless, I started this blog to point out the sensationalism of a vocal minority so it comes with the territory. The good news is that the village has grown in the past year and it is more thorough than any single individual so I rarely feel the urge to post. Hopefully, my previous post brought a few smiles and caused others to pause and reflect.

Since I expect a reply from Dimitri, I suggest that he quantify his comment, “the company has so much money flooding in that …” As someone involved with procuring enterprise software, I’d like to know the level of the flood waters and how fast they’re rising before I reallocate resources.

It Takes a Village to Raise A …

2006-08-26T20:35:00.000-04:00

I’ve been stirred awake from my five month siesta to document the latest Dimitri Rotow sighting outside of the Manifold-Davidian Compound in Mount Carmel Center, Texas. Err, I mean Carson City, Nevada. The comments on James Fee’s blog just keep piling on.

It’s nostalgic since a Dimitri rant was one of the primary drivers for starting Topology Errors. I referred to Dimitri as the Unamapper in a post last year since his writing reminded me of the Unabomber Manifesto. At that time, I didn’t know that Dimitri (age 51) and Ted Kaczynski (age 64) were both Harvard graduates.

The comment trail with Dimitri’s conduct and the upshot reaction fascinates me. It’s like observing a mystical creature carve out an existence within a hostile environment. Frankenstein versus the villagers is the image that comes to mind. I simply had to learn more about Dimitri. A Google search yielded an eight year old photo and short bio.

It would be entertaining to pile onto the comment list and point out logic errors (both Dimitri’s and others) and use phrases like Jump the Couch or Goodwin’s Law. But I won’t since the villagers are handling that job.

After I finished reading the comments, I was a bit disappointed in myself for wasting time with my prurient interest. In contrast, I admired those who decided not to join in and “wrestle the pig”.

But upon further reflection, this incident shows the value of the GIS blogosphere as a village. This discussion has value once you strip out the hyperbole. Different beliefs become articulated. The village embraces some and challenges others. Most established or honorable press won’t touch this sort of topic because of the mud involved.

But the village can address this type of topic. Participants who use the discussion to examine their beliefs and test their assumptions win since they learn and grow. Those who don’t learn and grow appear stiff and inhuman. And the village decides who is the sage, who is the fool, and who is the menace.

Note: I only moderate comments to filter spam and haven’t yet modified or deleted a single one related to the discussion.

Jumping the Shark--Who's Next?

2006-03-13T22:47:00.000-05:00

"Jumping the Shark" is a term for identifying that exact point in time when fans of a show or subscribers to a publication realize (in retrospect) that the show or publication has passed its peak. In a previous post, I identified a printed editorial in GIS Monitor from Feb '05 as a watershed event. Looking back, that editorial is when GIS Monitor "jumped the shark" for me. I unsubscribed around that time and haven't heard much conversation about them in the blogosphere. So I wonder, "Has anyone else jumped the shark? Who's next? Who is on skis skimming across the water with flair? Who is donning their flotation device?"

Note: Even before the comments come in I'll admit to jumping the shark with "Interesting Versus Useful". The good news for me is that I am an "amateur" at this GIS blogging stuff and love my day job. This isn't my first blog and it isn't my last. (But it is the last where I'll use Blogger.)

Authority - Part 2 (Established Geospatial Press vs. Blogosphere)

2006-03-12T00:05:00.000-05:00

Most of the established geospatial press (that which existed before 2005) rose to prominence because they were the independent voice in an arena of competing vendor claims. Examples include Directions Magazine, Geospatial Solutions, GeoWorld, GIS Café, GIS Monitor, and GIS User. In general, their editors lack in-depth knowledge of current technology at the nuts-and-bolts level. Communicating is their full-time "professional" job. In order to write analysis and commentary, they review company pronouncements, read their competitors' analysis, monitor blogs, attend conferences, conduct interviews, and play with geospatial software on their personal computers or small labs.

In contrast, the everyday job of the GIS professional is using current software tools for data acquisition, data automation, maintaining data, creating metadata, making useful maps, distributing maps, conducting geographic analysis, reporting results, training, and keeping the system running when upgrading hardware and software across the organization. They know more about how these tools work in the real world than even the software companies that create them. When GIS professionals enter the blogosphere as an "amateur" communicator and each contribute a few hundred words a week, they carry more authority than the "professional" GIS press and analysts. At some point, the collective group of "amateur" communicators will outweigh the "professional" GIS press and analysts because the "amateurs" are the bona-fide authorities.

So, what is the long-term future of the established geospatial press? They've got an established subscriber base and revenue stream from advertisers. It will be a while before everyone uses RSS aggregators so their immediate prospects are not dim. Software like Google Earth and NASA Worldwind are making more people aware of mapping and GIS so their subscriber base may grow in the near term. As a result, I'm not certain of the long-term future of the established geospatial press. But, I think a lot of people don't care because they already get more timely and knowledgeable information from the blogosphere. It's as simple as adding Planet Geospatial into your RSS aggregator. Thanks again James!

Authority - Part 1

2006-03-11T16:03:00.000-05:00

I finished Naked Conversations and experienced a few epiphanies in the final chapters. The first surrounds the idea that the two most fundamental rules for blogging about a subject are passion and authority. Regarding authority, Shel Israel and Robert Scoble give the example of Bob Lutz's blog on p. 51. Bob is the GM Vice Chairman and author of the Fast Lane blog. So for about 150 pages, I'm thinking that there isn't much opportunity for blogging in the geospatial realm because not many people are in a similar position to Bob Lutz. Yesterday I figured out that authority on a subject doesn't come from a title or position. Rather it comes from insight and understanding. It's the old, "knowledge is power" thing. It's the reason a blog can pop up and gain an instant following such as Drkside of GIS as a recent example. Up to this point, we hadn't heard from a Java programmer who wasn't a geo-geek. OK, so authority in the blogosphere comes from really knowing the subject at both the conceptual level and the nuts-and-bolts level. More about this in future posts. Gotta run, it's the weekend.

Unprofessional and Undisciplined - December Comment

2006-03-07T05:31:00.000-05:00

On Dec 20, Charles Greer added the following comment:

This is a pretty old thread, but then again I feel like I just discovered the GIS blogosphere, and I think you two have hit on some really interesting things here...

I'm in a job where I adminster ESRI products daily, and I find a great deal of tension between established enterprise software, such as databases and web apps, and GIS apps. ESRI seems to have created the flagship desktop product. But they have a great deal of difficulty tackling the idea of the enterprise. In developing enterprise apps, it seems time and again it's the simple solutions, such as Google's circumvention of dynamic vector rendering, that really have the bang for the buck in spatial technology. I think that ESRI's ArcGIS server is woefully too complex a program to really address the really very simple spatial needs of a large business.

I'm able to turn heads daily by leveraging DB2's spatial Extender, and I'm SOOOOO thankful that my employer went the route of getting a real spatial RDBMS. And I cringe whenever I'm forced to jump through all the interface hoops that ArcGIS gives me.

That said, howzabout my website's professionalism? It is tough for intelligent malcontents to buckle down and act professional. I try, but the most rewarding moments are when two people can realize they are able to sit down and go past all that for a while and simply get some interesting stuff done. That said, endless rants are usually boring, and I hope I've not simply thrown one at ya.

Thanks again for the comments. The only reason I moderate comments is to remove spam. Check out the comments at the bottom of Berlin's original post and you'll see what I want to avoid. And just to keep score, Berlins initial attack was 205 words, my rebuttal was 229 words, James White's comment was 262 words, and Charles Greer comment was 255 words. One thing about the blogosphere is there never seems to be the last word. Regarding IBM DB2 Spatial Extender, I remember hearing that it is an OEM version of ESRI's ArcSDE.

(Update: About five days after my post all comments were removed from Berlin's original post. Thanks to Google cache I can provide a screen capture of where the real comments ended at #5 and the spam comments started at #6. In fact, spam comments went through #51.)

Unprofessional and Undisciplined - November Comment

2006-03-07T05:21:00.000-05:00

On Nov 18, James White commented to my Aug 16 post. Since comments on Topology Errors are a bit difficult to scan and read, I've posted the comments here.

Chris, thank you for the opportunity to comment on your site. I find your attack of Berlin Brown to be both unprofessional, and perhaps a bit scary. I am a fisheries scientist. Based on your comments and attack of Mr. Brown, I have decided to call my dad and tell him that he must give up fishing, a hobby that he loves, and that he must never speak about fishing again, ever, because once, in his excitement and ignorance he said he caught a bull trout when it was actually a brown trout. The fact is, our nation is built on a tradition of amateur science. The freedom to explore new topics, and the courage to express untrained opinions, is a trademark of that tradition. Further, for an individual holding an adverse opinion to be labeled as a cranky malcontent, smacks of an awful sort of elitism. Finally, to address your closing statements of the blogosphere having an overabundance of uprofessionals who wear their unprofessionalism as a “badge of courage,” my answer is that “They are people Chris! We call them people. They are people who are interested in things. They are people who have opinions and the courage to display those opinions for the world.” I agree, perhaps, that there has been an explosion in the blogosphere of what can be called nothing other than noise. However, heaven help us if a day comes that the only opinion we can get on a topic, as you seem to suggest with hope, comes from the elite “professionals” in the center. Thank you.

Thanks, James. I appreciate your input. My only comment is that Berlin Brown was the first to sling mud. Everyone who slings mud at a COTS vendor for high prices also hits those who willingly invested the big bucks for enterprise solutions, successfully implemented them, and delivered a great return on investment for their organization.

Hello World, I'm Back

2006-03-07T05:19:00.000-05:00

Back in August, I was more than happy to stop posting to the GIS blogosphere and simply lurk. I had made my point and I've got a day job that keeps me occupied full time and then some. Plus, my biggest challenges at work aren't with GIS software technology but with making the right things happen in a large organization. Change management, hiring and training, collaboration, leadership, coaching, keeping business processes up-to-date, scrapping off the barnacles that seem to grow everywhere, developing and documenting a unified vision, etc. are all bigger challenges than deciding between Microsoft MapPoint, Live Local, Google Earth, Google Local, ESRI's ArcGIS Explorer, ArcWeb Services, or Yahoo! Maps. (Yes, that was a blatant use of buzzwords just to get picked up in search terms.) And, I honestly didn't miss my 27 days of blogosphere-supplied dopamine. But time has passed and I have a point of view to add to the cacophony so I'm at the keyboard. I logged into my accounts and found two well-written comments awaiting moderation. They are interesting enough to warrant their own position on the blog so they'll be the first real posts in Topology Errors for 2006.

Unprofessional and Undisciplined

2005-08-16T00:18:00.000-04:00

After reading “ESRI and Google and major uphill battle”, I was certain that Berlin Brown didn’t know much about GIS or ESRI so I dismissed him as a cranky malcontent. James Fee has taken the time to illustrate the errors so I won’t rehash those points. I am interested in the human psyche and was curious to understand why someone who obviously didn’t know the GIS industry would take the time to post about something in which they were ignorant.

A few web searches blew away my assumptions when I learned that Berlin has extensive technical knowledge of ESRI’s products. It appears that he is currently working as an intern for an ESRI customer (City of Atlanta). My curiosity was satisfied when his resume mentioned that he wasn’t interested in following stupid business processes or rules. He realized that his resume was unprofessional but it didn’t matter because he was a programming genius who was also a team player. Yep, that’s the kind of young talent that I’m looking to hire—an undisciplined free spirit with no regard for the processes or rules of the corporate team. In sum, he is unprofessional and wears it as a badge of courage. Today’s blogosphere has an overabundance of these folks. With time, I expect that the voice of the professionals in the “center” will drown out these voices in the fringes.

Absolute Power …

2005-08-03T09:29:00.000-04:00

I’ve got many friends who are sick and tired of blogs and bloggers. Their most common complaint is that blog entries are gumming up Google search results and they want the ability to deselect blog posts from search results. Yet, their attitude springs from a deeper source. The result garnered from the combination of two common sayings explains the font of their attitude.

1. The (power of the) pen is mightier than the (power of the) sword.
2. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Therefore, the unedited pen corrupts absolutely.

Rank speculation with no insider knowledge (the kind not worth identifying specifically) does more than make you look silly. It reduces your own credibility and also raises credibility concerns with all unedited pens. This is another reason why corporate blogs will co-opt the majority of amateur blogs. Corporate blogs will add journalistic process and ethics to the formula of timely, relevant information delivered in small, easy-to-handle chunks. Amateur bloggers who want to retain credibility will have to learn how to self-edit.

Stroking the Ego

2005-08-02T09:09:00.000-04:00

Seth Godin has a superb post that explains why people spend time blogging with little hope of financial gain. His analysis explains recent events in the GIS blogosphere and helps to predict the future. If you didn’t click the previous link, I recommend reading about the magic word.

Recent Events

The Sensationalism of the Past Few Months
Undeveloped ideas were picked up and passed on as news by some of the GIS press. A reprinted letter from Dimitri (the Unamapper) to the new (at the time) editor of GIS Monitor was a watershed event. Posting an 1,800+ word excerpt from a rant that basically called 98% of the GIS community stupid for paying more than $250 for software was a classic case of ego stroking. It opened the floodgate for the posting and reposting of other inane ideas. I use the term Unamapper because that letter reminded me of the Unabomber Manifesto. I’ll admit that I honestly find these types of treatises fascinating but wouldn’t pass them on as news.

The Recent Lull in Sensationalism
Nothing coming out of the GIS press or blogosphere in the past week has made me shake my head. I’d like to take credit for this recent lull. However, I’ve been to the ESRI User Conference in past years and know that experience was far more influential. ESRI puts on a “really big show” (to quote Ed Sullivan) that strokes the egos of all attendees. And I don’t mean that ESRI patronizes the attendees, but instead reminds them of the importance of their work and makes them truly feel special. Most people leave the conference jazzed about GIS. Anyway, the GIS press and blogosphere’s egos were sufficiently satisfied this past week so they did not have to resort to attention-getting antics.

The Future

A Rise in the Number of GIS Blogs
Right now there are less than 25 GIS blogs with a recent history of regular posts. The low cost of entry is going to result in an explosion of GIS blogs. Starting a GIS blog is easy and inexpensive. By this time next year, I wouldn’t be surprised if information was posted regularly to over a thousand GIS blogs.

Notoriety for a Few
The rise in useful RSS feeds and ubiquitous RSS Readers (slated for Longhorn/Windows Vista) will provide a marketplace for a few GIS bloggers to gain a large readership. These few will look for ways to monetize their notoriety (analyst papers, books, survey results, advertising, consulting, etc.) The existing GIS press should be looking over their shoulder since their competition will dramatically increase. As an aside, Topology Errors won’t be one of those few. First, I enjoy my day job far too much to spend a whole lot of time covering the foibles of the GIS Press and GIS Blogosphere. Second, far more people are interested in implementing GIS to solve problems than watching the machinations of the GIS Press and GIS Blogosphere.

Obscurity for the Rest
Providing a steady stream of relevant and concise information is difficult and time consuming. Although there will be many blogs, the majority will last as long as a shooting star on a summer’s night. The hoped for monetization of notoriety won’t happen and many bloggers will return to activities that help pay the mortgage and other bills.

Co-opted by the Corporation
What percent of the web pages that you read in the past week (outside of blogs) were written and posted by someone who wasn’t paid? In contrast, the early days of the web (prior to Bill Gate’s embracing in 1995) were ruled by amateurs. Even now, a list of 200 popular feeds includes a fair percentage where the posters are paid by the hour rather than simply motivated by ego/notoriety. The ESRI UC Blog was an indication of how fast this trend will happen.

I see a correlation between these predictions for GIS blogs and the future of the Open Source movement. I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on this.

Squeaky Wheels

2005-08-01T11:14:00.000-04:00

This morning I chatted with colleagues who just returned from the ESRI User Conference. Their notes from the closing session indicated that Jack Dangermond seemed to address most of the big concerns prior to the question and answer period. Because of the Preconference Survey and feedback in the message system during the conference, ESRI seemed pretty well in tune with the desires of GIS professionals. My colleagues mentioned that several times during the question and answer period Jack restated an audience member’s comment to the entire audience to find that only 5% of the people agreed with the proposed position. With quantitative feedback mechanisms available using the Internet, companies don’t have to respond to squeaky wheels since they’ve already got a good handle on their users’ concerns and values. That’s good news for the silent majority who’ve quietly cursed the squeaky wheels around us. As an aside, I believe that squeaky wheels make up a higher percentage of today’s blogosphere than “meatspace”. With time, the squeaky wheels will be balanced by the majority who will no longer remain silent.

Fix My Blog Search Engine - Please

2005-07-31T09:42:00.000-04:00

Writing this blog has forced me to get up to speed with blog search engines so I can monitor the GIS blogosphere. A useful post on the subject comes from Read/Write Web that compared the market share of Technorati, PubSub, and Feedster. This is a category that is ripe for Google to dominate since I subscribe to all three because none of them provide a complete picture. I’d love to use just one service.

My input to the blog search engine developers is that the user experience should be like sifting gravel. I get my fine grained tuned search results first (very specific queries using Boolean operators) and I view those posts in their entirety. Next, I get medium grained material and scan the synopsis. Finally, I get course grained material where I can scan headlines. And most importantly, I don’t need to see the same post in all three levels of searches. Plus I’d like the ability to easily rate each post and white list and black list blogs. And I’d like to know other people’s post ratings and white and black lists so that I can set a threshold based on the blogosphere ratings of individual posts and blog authors. If all you blog search engine developers want some more ideas, drop me an e-mail.

Which Web Mapping Service Does Your Mom Use?

2005-07-30T08:41:00.000-04:00

Some GIS’ers question a report that states, “ComScore also noted a bump in traffic to map sites, led by MapQuest, with 45.7 million visitors in June, Yahoo! Maps, with 21.3 million, and MSN MapPoint, with 5 million.” They ask, Why isn’t Google Maps on the list? My reply is that MapQuest has the first mover advantage and it’s going to take a while for the general public to discover that Google Maps provides features not found in MapQuest or Yahoo! Maps. And then we’ll see if they find the new features compelling enough to switch. Frankly, I’m just happy that my Mom knows how to use MapQuest and I'm not looking forward to providing her tech support if she switches to Google Maps.

This reminds me of my friend Steve telling me about Google! beta (note the "!") back in 1998 when I and the rest of my techie friends were using Alta Vista. (My Mom was using Yahoo! at the time.) I thought thanks for the tip but I’ll stick with Alta Vista. Not until a few weeks later, after I had scanned 40+ entries in an Alta Vista web search without finding something that I knew existed, did I evaluate Google. (I had to e-mail Steve for the link because I forgot the URL.) The first item in the Google search results was exactly what I was looking for and I was immediately hooked. Several years later, my Mom also switched from Yahoo! to Google (note the absence of the "!").

In the late 90’s, searching the web was a hit or miss affair that was fixed by Google. In 2005, the public is not frustrated by their web mapping service. And, I’m not certain that they are looking for more functionality either. As a result, this could be a long slow process for Google Maps/Google Earth/MSN Virtual Earth (GM/GE/MVE) to overtake the leaders. The people reading and writing blogs are not indicative of the mass Internet Audience. Rather, we need to keep in mind, “Which web mapping service does my Mom (and everyone else’s Mom) use and is she likely to switch to GM/GE/MVE?”

Dynamic Mapping vs. Dynamic Mapping with Dynamic Data

2005-07-28T18:52:00.000-04:00

I’ve been watching the news out of the ESRI User Conference. The GIS blogs combined with the new ESRI UC Blog are a pretty good source of data. Sometimes there is an advantage to processing data from afar rather than up close. (At least that’s how Warren Buffet explains why he doesn’t have his investing office in NYC.)

Google Earth introduced “3-D Dynamic Mapping” combined with local search. It’s very cool although after you’ve virtually visited Gibraltar or the old city of Jerusalem, there isn’t much reason to visit those same places again. Once all of us have virtually visited the Pyramids in Egypt or the Grand Canyon or the Greek Isles, there may not be much reason to fire up Google Earth. Indeed, Junior High Geography class should be changed forever, but I expect the rest of the United States using the Internet to get driving directions will use MapQuest or a similar service for the foreseeable future. The key is that the geographic data in Google Earth/Google Maps/MSN Virtual Earth (GE/GM/MVE) isn’t current. As an example, I can’t use Google Earth, zoom to San Diego and see 10,000+ ESRI users lining up for the Thursday night party in Embarcadero Park. In fact, the image for the baseball stadium (PETCO Park) shows the stadium under construction although it opened on April 8, 2004.

Reading the UC Q&A, David Maguire's Blog, and the reporting on the recent Press Conference with ESRI, National Geographic, and Geospatial One Stop leads me to believe that ESRI is looking at providing “Dynamic Mapping with Dynamic Data”. It won’t compete with GE/GM/MVE since the available content will be very different. Instead of strictly consumer content, it will provide an application with a 2D or 3D globe interface that uses the National Geographic map archive as a set of rich base maps and can access all the data on Geospatial One-Stop. At least that sounds like the vision. We’ll see what they deliver.

You Got to Give It to Me

2005-07-25T10:07:00.000-04:00

Below is an e-mail quoted in its entirety. (Name withheld since it was an e-mail.):

You seem somewhat bitter in your posts. I'm one of those silent GIS folks that doesn't write a blog, nor do I have and wish to even try. I tend to agree with most of your posts (The only one I haven't agreed with is titled "Interesting Versus Useful" and it has been your worst) but you seem to personally attack people (or at least your sarcasm isn't getting to me) and I don't think that enables me to really use your posts as backup to my own thoughts.

My reply e-mail in its entirety:

Thanks for your feedback--I really appreciate it. I haven't been called bitter in years although I use satire all the time outside of the blogosphere. Blogging is a different communication medium that I've only used in the past to communicate with people who already knew me. I'm still finding the proper "voice" and your feedback will help.

I'll admit that I'm jaded by the sensationalism found in the some of the GIS press and user blogs. That is what caused me to start this blog. Sometimes I'll fight fire with fire (using sensationalism) and sometimes I'll take the high road.

And I’d love to hear your feedback.

UPDATE, 30 July 2005

Other people agreed with the comment about my "Interesting vs. Useful" post. My circulaton and hits (according to Feedburner) crashed into their lowest level in the 24 hours after that post since the creation of this blog. I recommend Feedburner to all bloggers as a way to receive immediate feedback on how each individual post is being received.

ESRI UC Blog

2005-07-25T00:10:00.000-04:00

I went to ESRI's web site to double check some information in the Preconference Q&A and stumbled on a link to the ESRI UC Blog. They reported that registration exceeded 12,000 as of Friday. This could be interesting. David Maguire (ESRI's Director of Products) recently started his own blog which has seen its share of unfriendly comments. That motivated me to add a comment moderation feature on this blog. Anyway, we'll see how ESRI handles the situation.

Mind Reader

2005-07-24T11:04:00.000-04:00

This morning I played with MSN Virtual Earth long enough to start formulating an impression. As I was getting ready to write a counter point to the positive buzz I was seeing in my RSS feeds, I received a new post from Stefan. He took the thoughts from my head and saved me the trouble. Thanks, now I can go run chores this Sunday morning.

The Good on Google

2005-07-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

I wanted to help counterbalance the sensationalist blogosphere buzz about Google Earth and its effect on the GIS software companies. I don’t recall any buzz about an interview between GeoWorld editor Matt Ball and John Hanke who is in charge of the Google Earth product line. It’s an example of the type of straight forward journalism that isn’t getting picked up because

The GIS publications vie for our eyeballs and could never mention a competitor.
It isn’t yellow journalism that stirs up a flurry of comments.

Three days into this blog and I realize that I can’t just link to the Bad and the Ugly. Hence the post title—it’s not a typo. Here is an excerpt from the interview showing John Hanke’s perspective on Google Earth competing with GIS software.

I view it as a compliment to GIS. There might be some small areas of overlap where people are using GIS to do simple consumer kinds of jobs, but for organizations where people are using GIS to do real analytics that is not something that is part of what we are offering. I think to a large extent we are wetting people’s appetites for using geospatial tools more.

An RSS Cure for “Missing the UC Blues”

2005-07-23T08:58:00.000-04:00

I’ve been to the ESRI User Conference before and I’ll have to experience it virtually this year. Some of us have to rotate spots with our colleagues. However, it seems as though the blogosphere will keep me abreast of the announcements. Since my colleagues were traveling on Friday, I learned of the new Image Server before them and I’ll bet before most of the rest of the conference attendees. A quick search of the Preconference Q & A provided more information than David Maguire’s post. Because of the use restrictions, “Danger Will Robinson, publicly accessible and linked web page is restricted to ESRI users only and shall not be redistributed”, I won’t provide a link. But it is question #1 under Raster and Imagery. So remember--only you ESRI users can go looking for it.

A Tale of Two Posts

2005-07-22T10:24:00.000-04:00

While the GIS blogosphere fills my RSS Reader with news (sic), a GIS neophyte (Stefan Geen) explains the success of Google Earth. After comparing the two, please remind me why I subscribe to the current crop of GIS blogs.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a breathtaking hike in the mountains. Instead of sharing pictures with my friends, I simply e-mailed them a KMZ file of the destination showing the lake nestled in the mountains. They could recreate the hike by "flying" back to the trailhead. Yes Stefan, you nailed it. Google Earth is social software.

Safe KML

2005-07-22T10:21:00.000-04:00

A few hours after my previous post, Adena’s Directions Magazine followed up with a no nonsense issue that included a great article on KML and the guys at Safe Software. Thanks Adena, that’s useful information.

Interesting Versus Useful

2005-07-22T00:25:00.000-04:00

All Points Blog commented, “Read this interesting perspective on how Google/ESRI/open source are bumping into each other”. Interesting is a word loaded with multiple context. Jerry Springer is interesting. Howard Stern is interesting. But, so is Google Earth. I’m not going to take the time to dissect Hobu’s post. It's sufficient to say that it represents the type of sensationalism that caused me to jump into the GIS blogosphere and I wouldn’t recommend that type of post if I were in Adena’s position.

If you’re looking for something useful rather than interesting, I recommend O’Reilly Radar. See a recent post on OGC Integration with Google Maps. An older post succinctly covers the economics of Google Maps.

Sustainability is where Google Maps falls down, by the way. Google Maps also has no business model. It's not self-sustaining to give away infinite maps when the maps cost you. The obvious business model is to syndicate their local advertisements as they've begun doing with Google Local. That way I can build a killer app using maps, using Google's map component, and I syndicate Google's local ads for them.

Disclaimer This

2005-07-21T09:30:00.000-04:00

Referring to Spatially Adjusted – July 20

Chris seems to think that personal opinions are just that and I totally agree, but if you put your company name on your post/blog/email you are bringing your place of work into the discussion.

The legal side of me wants to argue the point but the human side of me (backed by more than a year of blogging experience) understands that this is the over whelming majority viewpoint. That’s why my blog is aggressively anonymous. (Believe it or not, some organizations have blogging policies.) In addition, the Spatially Adjusted post shoots down those silly disclaimers that mention the company name in one breath and attempt to disavow association in the next breath. My recommendation is to add one more sentence to your disclaimer. Although I am not a spokesperson for <insert organization name>, I realize that most people will consider my personal opinions as company policy. Oh, and you may as well add it to your e-mail signature. Here is the complete disclaimer in an easy to copy format.

Disclaimer: I work for <insert well-known company or high visibilty government agency> but all the opinions here are my own. Although I am not a spokesperson for <insert organization name>, I realize that most people will consider my personal opinions as company policy.

Thank you James—great point!