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Dear Readers, I get reminded of Daniel Burrus from Day 2’s keynote and Art Spencer from Day 1, as I sit to jot down the proceedings of the third and the final day at the Geospatial World 2004. Yesterday, Daniel had talked on an interesting aspect of ‘time-travel analysis’. Let me put forth his views in brief. He mentioned that while enabling a community with certain scientific tools or technology, it is important to understand the exact space where that community’s mindset is set in a time-scale. The exact strategies of technology initiation should adhere to this time scale understanding or else often the technology remains underutilized. This exercise requires introspection by the technology developers before any form of communication. Along with this, I mention Spencer for his repeated mention of keeping a tag on ‘return of investment ’ before embarking upon any geospatial steps. Most of the last day’s deliberations pointed to these factors heavily. 14th May 2004, was a day packed with sessions and technical paper presentations. Application of technology and service in various facets of human and physical development were abundant. However, even though the mix of presentations, their quality and depth in many cases corroborated the above concepts but again in considerable few reminded me whether we are keeping tag of those two concepts. Are we exemplifying cases advanced in time or actually assessing RoI in every case? Owing to the tight schedule of interesting presentations the day started right on time at 8:30 am after the late hour social event, the night before at the beach side of Hilton Hotel. Quite contrast to the fun-frolic filled and colourful musical ambience of the night before the 14 halls of Hilton went to grim professional business. Papers presented covered topics, application areas and techniques from all the 9 application areas and categorizations presented over the last 2 days. Demo theatres and ‘Ask the expert’ sessions along with the many ‘workshop and training sessions’ particularly of all the divisions of Intergraph’s Mapping and GeoSpatial Solutions happened at considerable phases throughout the day in almost each of the 14 halls. We bring you a brief of Day 3 and some interesting observations of some of the key-persons of the event. Regards, Ayon Tarafdar, Assistant Editor, GIS Development ayon@gisdevelopment.net Interoperability: what does it mean for your organization? The day had a significant and elaborate panel discussion on the topic of interoperability. Bart Hoogenraad, Intergraph moderated the discussion with the panel consisting Carl Reed (OGC); Adena (GIS Monitor); Ignacio (Intergraph); Karen (Nation Geospatial Intelligence Agency, USA); Jim Farley (Oracle). The discussions initially tried to argue upon the direct and indirect benefits of interoperability (of geospatial use) in any organization. Carl made some heavy points in this where he mentioned about interoperability increasing liquidity, facilitating business workflow models and eventually positively affecting the opportunity of the organization. Karen of NGA, mentioned clearly that technology is not an issue actually anymore with interoperability. The issue is actually more with security aspects especially with the days to come. Security and confidentiality of certain data needs to be respected and hence while updating and adhering to global trends in technology (read: interoperable data), it is prudent to make a balance and see that right amount of data reaches to the right people in the right time. She also mentioned that standards is a more critical aspect and forms the foundation for interoperability. Ignacio mentioned the importance of OGC and the need for industry and users to follow its course. Very interestingly, Adena mentioned of a recent report by GITA, USA where a large number of respondents where asked three questions. First whether they had used data from other departments or organizations that doesn’t match their format or style. If yes what where the differences and why did they need to use. And finally if they had used such different format data, how did they do it. Much later in the survey the questions of interoperability were also present. The whole approach towards this much talked about issue can be re-looked with this small example! Jim put in many points, which culminated towards the significance of standards and commonality of platforms. He indirectly reminded many of not re-inventing wheels and perhaps taking up existing platforms that have the capability of such performance. The point of return on investment exposed itself bly in the backdrop. Bart summed up this crucial meet by inviting every panelist to conclude by stating how the word of interoperability needs to be spread and made aware and how each might play a role in it. The Technical Sessions The technical sessions ran parallel in 14 halls drawing mixed levels of attendance. The sessions covered the areas of – ‘Foundation, Commercial Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Solutions, Regional and Local Government Solutions, National and Federal Government Solutions, Military and Intelligence Solutions, Transport Industry Solutions, Utilities and Communications Industry Solutions. Te day had more than 50 papers discussed in all in the sessions spanning cases from over 15 different countries. Observations Given below are a few excerpts of my many discussions with various personalities in the 3-day conference. I just ran through my notes book on the various interviews GIS Development took here and which shall processed in future for our readers. In fact, when I look back, the days had been interesting. Bart Hoogenraad, VP, Corporate Marketing, Intergraph: “Interoperability or openness does not mean your data is others’! It still can be behind a firewall. Its most about mindsets…” Ignacio Guerrero, Executive VP, Intergraph: “the future has to have intermediaries whatever be the level of automation. The role of convergence of methods or outputs of these intermediaries is necessary. Standards come in on its own…” Preetha Pulusani, President, Intergraph : “Is geospatial interoperability actually necessary?… Stop isolating GIS…” Art Spencer, Intergraph: “We are entering an age where the biggest challenge shall lie in maintain large databases with performance, scalability and fast access…” Halsey Wise, CEO, Intergraph: “We aspire to lead – by setting standards that others emulate…” Daniel Burrus, President and CEO of Burrus Research Associates : “Have we talked about making the invisible visible?…” Karen A Irby, Deputy Director, Strategic Transformation Office, NGA: “Conformance and convergence of multiple datasets with an objective leads to geospatial intelligence from its nascent form of geospatial information…” An onlooker (student): “What is Exchange in – ‘Open. Solutions. Exchange’?…” |
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