GIS In Action 2011 Conference

I spent a day at the GIS In Action 2011 in Portland, OR this week. While it was a relatively small conference (~200 attendees), the former Governor of Wyoming and current Esri Director of Policy & Public Sector Strategy, Jim Geringer, was the keynote speaker who had a interesting perspective.

The most interesting part of Mr. Geringer’s keynote was not really about GIS, at least not technically. He posed the question “If you had 10 minutes at the top, what would you talk about?”

It’s an interesting question. What if you had your 10 minutes at the top? What would you talk about? The “top” may be your state Governor or it could be your organization’s IT department chief, Budget Director, or anyone else with little knowledge about GIS but who makes policy and/or budget decisions that affect your department’s GIS.

Mr. Geringer, undoubtedly one who was on the receiving end of many of these 10 minute lightning talks, emphasized that you’ve got to make your talk relevant to something that is on that person’s list of current topics. Following is a slide that Mr. Geringer displayed when talking about this subject.

For example, if there’s a severe drought in your state, it might be in the Governor’s Top 10 list of concerns. In that case, you might emphasize the importance of GIS in analyzing the water resource problem and how it might help develop solutions. Another example might be criminal activity in your city. If you were to have 10 minutes with your City Mayor, you could explain how GIS could be (or is) used to analyze trends in criminal activity so that crime-fighting resources might be more efficiently allocated.

I think the Governor’s point well-taken. It’s very easy (I’m guilty of it as much as anyone) to get caught up in our own world of technology and forget how to explain to people outside of our geospatial industry how important geography is in most challenges we face.

Another interesting subject the former governor discussing were the top 10 issues facing state government, from his perspective.

His point is well-made that all of these issues have a geographic element to them.

To emphasize the #1 issue facing U.S. state governments, he presented the following slide.

And, of course, a conversation about GIS trends would not be complete without a discussion about the explosion of mobile devices.

Another presentation I attended at the conference was one from Jon Aschenbach who discussed a snowboarding half-pipe mapping project on Mount Hood in Oregon.

The problem was that the operator didn’t know exactly where to position the half-pipe during the fall before the snow fell. If they didn’t position it correctly, they would have to move it mid-season, due to lack of snow, at a cost of $10,000+.

The elevation difference from the top of the half-pipe to the bottom of the half-pipe is nearly 1,000 feet.

The crew collected topographic data when the snow was largely melted to understand the best placement for the half-pipe. If they place the half-pipe optimally, they will avoid rocks emerging in the late spring as the snow begins to melt and enjoy a longer season and avoid having to move the half-pipe.

During the winter, the crew took measurements to understand the depth of the snow at certain locations on the half-pipe.

One of the challenges was finding a solid surface to locate the GPS base station and also to optimize the range of the spread-spectrum RTK radios.

According to the presentation, Mount Hood receives an average of 550 inches of snowfall each year. It’s high elevation helps retain snow into the summer. It’s a world-class area for skiing and snowboarding. Olympic snow ski and snowboard teams train at Mount Hood during the summer.

Thanks, and see you next week.

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