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Those who know me, know that I don’t talk geography on this blog. I talk swag.

As in ESRI conference swag.

I must say, the haul from the DevSummit and Business Partner Conference was pretty good. Two man purses, a water bottle, some notebooks, some pens, and some pocket litter. Yet, what has caught my attention the most, and the something I can’t seem to put down, is the the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy.

Yeah… You know what I’m talking about…

It’s what ESRI tech support uses to answer questions over the phone:

• Caller: “I can’t seem to export to PDF. Is there something wrong with my install?”
• ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy: “Very likely.”
• Caller: “What could it be?”
• ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy: “Focus and ask again.”
• Caller: “What? Well, I think I need to install a service pack?”
• ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy: “So it shall be.”
• Caller: “Ok, I’ll do that and call you back.”
• ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy: “Consult me later.”

By the way, I was using the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy’s REST API to call up all those replies as I was writing the above.

So, see. If ESRI can dish out swag like this, you better watch out FOSS4G and Where 2.0, because your swag is toast. ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy says, “Very likely.” If they give out 14,000 of these things at the UC AND release ArcGIS Everything 9.3 by the Users Conference, well then, kiss cancer and climate change goodbye! Because with the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy and ArcGIS 9.3 working together to form the ultimate Spatial Decision Support System, what everyone is doing or working on will be irrelevant—which the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy says “there’s no doubt about it.”

Now for the tough questions:

• Will I graduate from the ESRI Institute of Technology? Indications say “yes.”
• Without getting shot? Chances aren’t good.
• Will James Fee ever go to any Where 2.0 conference? The stars say no.
• Should Dave Bouwman have won the ESRI Code Challenge hands-down? Very likely.
• Is Dave now drowning his sorrows in a few thousand dollars worth of Fat Tire? No doubt about it.
• Is the estimated worth of ESRI about the same as the number of people in the world? Yes.
• Will Jack ever sell? No.
• Am I an ArcTard? No doubt about it.
• Will there be an international version of the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy? ¡La verdad!

So, in conclusion, the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy is one of the better pieces of swag on the conference circuit this year—because it speaks the truth!

If you don’t already have one, then it sucks to be you—which the ESRI Magic Eight-ball Knock-off & Stress Squishy-thingy says there’s “no doubt about it.“

(Is this the dumbest blog posts ever? So it shall be.)

Since it is that time of year and since everyone is doing it. I might as well list my top ten dumbest predictions about our world for 2008. If they become true, I’m heading to Vegas with Dave Bouwman’s profits this time next year.

10) Election Maps. It’s election year in the States and once again we’ll be hosed with “red vs. blue” thematic maps. These maps will polarize the country early on with predicted areas of support for candidates and bringing out the nastiness of who’s right, wrong, left, up, and down.There will also be a few mashups of election supporters with breakdowns of where obese folks, intelligent designers, and Oprah/NASCAR moms are.

9) OSHA. OSHA will step in to ban the Wii and GIS. Especially after James Fee has his Wii Bowling accident before Where 2.0 and becomes unable to spell GIS anymore, let alone blog about it. GIS is banned because is causes blindness and hairy palms.

8) Maps is bad. Once the non-western world melts down during the spring thaw, a number of baddies use [Google] maps for no good. Causing knee-jerk reaction by a number of governments to ban or highly regulate mapping. Especially China, who takes out WorldView-2 right after launch.

7) WorldView-2 Stuns GeoEye’s New Bird. Months after China whacks WV-2, WV-2 parts whack GeoEye’s new bird by having it’s debris scratch GE-1’s lens. Bill Gates secretly de-orbits GE-1 onto Sergey’s secret island Googleplex.

6) FOSS4G and the ESRI UC announce plans to combine in 2010. That’s after a prisoner exchange during a TC211 meeting.

5) Jeff Thurston discovers that GLONASS is really a space weapons system. Only because he watched a special on TV, then formed a rescue party that rescued a number of GLONASS engineers from captivity in Siberia. If he would only do that for Manifold users too

4) GooglePhone knows more about you than you do. Google releases the GPhone with its partners and eerily signs you up, books your car, room, and flight to attend Where 2.0 even before you own your GPhone. On a sad note, Glenn is tasered by his N95 when it discovers he decides to think about writing a comparison piece between N95 and GPhone.

3) Acronym soup! VGI, SDI, ESRI, FOSS4G, WTF? 2008 is the year we get acronym’d to death. It starts in DC with the ESRI FedUC and ends when SlashGeo stops with its sloppy seconds.

2) Surveyors reclaim the Earth—only because the lawyers let them. Dusting off the old chains, someone lobbies in DC hard enough to enact licensing for all geo professionals after a rash of high profile court cases that affect senators and representatives and the earmarked buildings, parks, and bridges named after them.

1) Nom de plumes. From me, to the Fake Steve Coast, to Fake Ed Parsons and the soon to be Fake James Fee. The fakes get unmasked; I stop posting b/c too many folks know who I am—and, yes, I will have to kill you; and everyone starts fake <insert name here> blog. On the bright side, in August, the Fake Jack Dangermond hosts the Fake ESRI UC and gives me my fake grad skool diploma.

Didn’t I mention this was a bad list?

So, a number of us had been guests the past week to gracious hosts at the ESRI UC this past week. But in my passing with years worth of colleagues, the major question of the week I encountered was:

“Why are Google Earth and ESRI not doing anything?  It’s just nuts!”

Well, grasshopper, one part could be that there is a “GIS Elitist” market out there?  ESRI would want to protect their and their elitist markets and investments.  This could be why Jack described neogeography with out actually saying it? The “Geographic Approach?” “Storytelling?”  If that’s not neogeography, then what is?

Plus, I heard in a number of venues that some at ESRI feels the OGC process with KML is a rubber stamp. They let their concerns be known, but really didn’t feel like participating than stepping up to an arguement that, unfortunately, could put them in a bad light.  Well, by not participating and starting a debate, they end up looking like the kid who took all his toys home.

Sure there are some things about KML that they’ll support, but the media stuff that they don’t. . . Hello, McFly!  The GeoWeb just doesn’t stop at geometery!  It’s what bring it its richness. Of course, ESRI probably already knows that.

As for Google Earth. I don’t know what’s going on there.  I think they feel like they want to do something, but keep getting the run-around from ESRI. Otherwise we would have seen the migration of spatial operators that GIS professionals use on the desktop to a Google platform for MyMaps or Gears or something similar.  ESRI could have a “Powered by ArcGIS” logo on a Google page or something. Rather than that, as time passes ESRI by, we may just have online geospatial processing powered by Google on their lonesome–probably through the purchase of GeoIQ or something–in the future.  Then that’s when “professionals” really will start getting worried–kind of like what happened surrounding the MAPPS suit, eh?

Face it, whether ESRI or Google hook up or not. It should probably fall within the purview of cross-pollinating folks like us to make the hybrid of Google, ESRI, and whatever else built.  If enablers like them don’t want to bridge gaps, then that responsibility lies solely on us as the geo community that has a diversity of GIS pros and neogeographers to make it happen.

Question is, can we bridge our differences too?

Sorry about hardly posting anything. I’ve been running around to meetings, presenting, and having more meetings, but. . .

The Geoblogger Meetup rocked! I just wanted to say thank you to Rob Painter, the Google Earth Federal manager for sponsoring the event. I also would like to thank Mister Tiki for being great hosts.

So, who showed up? Peter Batty, Dave Bouwman, Dave Smith, The Very Spatial team (Frank-Sue-Jesse), the SketchUp Team, other Googlers, Jermey from ArcGIS Server Development Blog, and a few PlanetGS readers.  It was a little less than we had last year, but I think there’s an explanation to that: Early UC and the Dev Summit.

It was still great to get to talk to a number of bloggers. Peter, the man without a [GIS] country, and the SketchUp team were reminiscing about Denver.  I know I was in a conversation about environmental pollutants with Dave Smith and a reader (sorry, forgot your name) that was interesting.  Even Rob said he had a great time chatting people up and offered to sponsor us again next year.

As for next year. . .

Rob and I had an idea: why not make it a little more than just a meetup?  Perhaps we could get someone like Michael Jones to come and have some short talks about our community and what we could do together. There’s an thought that we can do more to bridge the GIS–neogeography gap.  Heck, Jack in his planary was pretty much talking about neogeography, but called it the “geographic approach.”  So, we may add just a bit of structure next year, some eats, and start something new.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the Meetup for next year.

The UC next year starts 4 August, so start making plans for the Dev Summit and the UC.  Try to get both.  I’ll probably be able to make it to the Dev Summit next year.  I just got into the University of Redland’s Master’s in Geographic Information Science, so I’ll be nearby.  (More on this next).

Well, I’m not going to say much about the Planary Session from Monday at the ESRI UC.  Planet Geospatial Team pretty much took care of that one.  I must note the differences between Frank’s perception and Sebastian’s take was on it.    I got the feeling that this is Frank’s first UC.  So, somewhat two ends of the spectrum: a greenhorn and an a seasoned guy who has been here before.  (Correct me if I’m wrong please.)

This is my fourth UC in a row and I like the planary–I even sat in the front row this time trying to rattle off the events on IRC.   There are people who get recognized, awarded, interesting uses of ArcGIS are displayed, and ESRI treats you like family no matter how cynical you are.  I like it. Would have been better if the Wi-Fi hadn’t bombed on me too.

The things that get old year after year are the notes on the upgrades.  It’s not quite like watching grass grow, from year to year, but it’s about the tease of improvements that gets to me.  Sure, no software package is going to be perfect–ever.  But the anticipation is what I think eats at the dev community, or the early adopters of ESRI’s technology.  For instance, Geographic Weighted Regression, Frank talked about this, I’m stoked for it because it’s what I’ve been wanting. I’ve been cranking it out with somebody else’s tool that I don’t like.  Finally it’s in something that like to use.  When does it come out?  Dunno, but I’ll be bugging the hell out of my friends at Redlands for it.

So, the 9.3 upgrades, sure they’re good, it doesn’t excite me as much as it used to. At least they’re talking to you.  Plus, it’s been “user-ized.”  Tech discussions have been moved to the Dev Summit.  So, the devs who are here really should have gone to the Dev Summit, but with all the socializing going on, why not come?

I saw Glenn from Anything Geospatial in the Map Gallery last night.  We were discussing how different Where 2.0 and ESRI UC are.  At Where, everyone’s on a tear to get as much info to you in the shortest amount of time. Plus, everyone can fit inside the same room.

At ESRI, you get the Monday Morning Update. Then you’re off to a ton of paper sessions and to wander about the exhibit hall.  You may see someone who is doing similar work in one session and never see them again in another. So, as there is a relationship between users, there is no continuity of building a personal community. One user from one part of the country may have met someone from another part may not ever collaborate with the other.

So, Glenn and I thought about WhereCamp-like thing for the UC. . . Nah, that’s what the Dev Summit is for, right?

Thinking about it again, “why not have a JackCamp?”  You have about 15,000 people here, they might want to build a collaborative project and actually apply GIS while they’re here.  So, why don’t we do this next year?

I’ll talk to some people and see what I can get going.  It may be ripe for the time to get the professionals acting like the all of the amatures.   Might as well follow the folks who showed up in the geoworld describing their world using a geographic approach without even knowing it (which may be a mix of UC themes.)

Usually, the Monday of the ESRI User Conference is a day of spatial technology announcements–not all from ESRI. While Jack awards and highlights the accomplishments of his users, other companies are usually out launching their wares too. For instance, I can remember two years ago when Microsoft launched Virtual Earth officially. I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll see a number of these in various forms this year.

1) Geoblogger Meetup: 8pm Tuesday 19 June at Mr. Tiki. Get in on the “Tikicast” from the Very Spatial guys.

2) Jack may have some slides of one of my projects in his Planary on Monday.  Stay sharp!

3) Look for me doing a demo somewhere in the exhibit hall on Tuesday.

I was recently faced with a serious dilemma the other day: Choose between a vendor yacht cruise or the Geoblogger Meetup.  (Tuesday 19 June, 8pm, Mr. Tiki)

This. . . was. . . a. . . hard. . . one. . . 

As much as I like going to sea and all, and hammin’ it up with business partners, facetime with geobloggers at the UC is much more important.   I like everyone and it’s hard to turn down free booze from a vendor, but the conversation with you guys is much more lively

It’s too bad the Chuck Norris of geoblogging isn’t going to be there.

By the way. I made a map.  Includes Mr. Tiki, the convention center, and the course of the Yacht Cruise with video.

Tiki! Tiki! Tiki!
Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

I found a place!

Place: Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge
801 5th Ave, San Diego, CA
(619) 233-1183

Time: 8pm, 19 June

We’re rehashing Mr. Tiki for this year’s ESRI UC’s Geoblogger Meetup.  I’m not sure how many of us there will be. So, RSVP via the comment section

The Mr. Tiki tiki photo is geotagged.

Ok, I’m lay-z.

I’m thinking a repeat of Mr. Tiki on Tuesday is going to be it.  But before I finalize the date and call Mr. Tiki, I want one final “coolness” check with you guys.