FANTOM PLANET

Hey if millions of people aren’t having an edit war on this, then I might as well be the one who starts it. . .

Wikipedia defines GIS as:

A geographic information system (GIS), also known as a geographical information system or geospatial information system, is a system for capturing, storing, analyzing and managing data and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to the Earth. GIS is referred to as geomatics in Canada.

In the strictest sense, it is an information system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, sharing, and displaying geographically-referenced information. In a more generic sense, GIS is a tool that allows users to create interactive queries (user created searches), analyze the spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations. Geographic information science is the science underlying the geographic concepts, applications and systems, taught in degree and GIS Certificate programs at many universities.

Geographic information system technology can be used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, Environmental Impact Assessment, Urban planning, cartography, criminology, history, sales, marketing, and logistics. For example, GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times in the event of a natural disaster, GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from pollution, or GIS can be used by a company to site a new business to take advantage of a previously underserved market.

It’s not so different than from what is in all of our textbooks. It says nothing about neogeography. Huh?

That doesn’t mean that neogeography isn’t GIS. The definition of GIS itself above is as a system, but can mean a science, or a service. Data in, gospel out. Same would hold true for neogeography applications and knowledge using the systems, the science and the services. I hear often enough from certain people in town that the web mapping applications that neogeographers build aren’t GIS and their data isn’t reliable. It’s all about the right tools for the right job folks, and it’s the right data for the right job too. As Tim O’Reilly once said, “It’s about the data stupid.”

We know our media is changing, but know that some things will remain the same: the geoid as an equipotential “lumpy potato”, Tobler’s First Law of Geography, and people will always say they like maps when you tell them you’re a geographer. I suggest we as GIS and geographer folk understand that change is happening otherwise. If you’re not down with change, get your acetate out and exacto knife and go start a hobby and preserve that lost art.

It has always been about the story of human life. Mine, yours, and the Fake Ed Parsons. (BTW: When the Fake Ed was at OS, he wrote the story of human life.) And we better damn well work together to help us tell it together. It does us no good to dump software packages into the deepest darkest collection of cubicles and say, “This is GIS, this will make your life so much better.” Then leave with no training and no discussion about sustaining a GIS. Employees with spatial info will blow it off, and it’s already been blown off inside the home. That’s why building the canvases of geography around the world are important. Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Yahoo maps, just to name the big guys. The likes of OpenStreetMap and Wikimapia, and Flickr and others where we’re mapping our communities and mapping our lives. Yes, this is great stuff. We need to let it grow and understand it, and not to kick your grandma off of Google Earth while she’s mapping her life’s story because “she’s not a geographer.”

(Written from the ESRI infirmary using Jack’s laptop.)

I’m still alive, contrary to those rumors running around how I’ve survived an early death.

So, it’s March and Where 2.0.3 and the ESRI UC are going on in, oh . . . 2 . . . 3 months from now. Which means it’s time to start planning ahead for Geoblogger Meetups!

Here’s the deal:

• I assume that something’s gonna happen at the ESRI Dev Summit next week.
• Jesse noted that there’s going to be one at AAG next month.
• Is anyone else going to ASPRS or not?
• I  may or may not make it to Where, but hopefully I do.
• The Google Earth Team asked me today, “Shouldn’t we be sponsoring your Geoblogger meetup at ESRI soon?”
• FOSS4G is on at the end of September.  Whew.  A break.

Busy geo-events going on.  Now’s the time to start recommending ideas for the old Meetups!  I know I’m on the hook for ESRI.  Anyone else have any ideas?  Can we even have a geoblogger meetup at Where?  Will anyone attend ASPRS, or has my boss sent me to the wrong conference again?

I was reviewing collaborative atlases tonight when, all of a sudden, the coolest slippy map called out to me:

“Poop here!”

It’s the “Crap, I gotta go!” map on Flagr.

Best quote is from the Borders Bookstore near Union Square in San Francisco:

“Some junky OD’d in one of the stalls during my employment there and I made a point of only using the employee restrooms.”