GIs Professionals

There are people far more qualified and experienced than me in GIS, Web, Technology, Academia and dare I say business at this years AGI Conference. I went with a slightly tongue in cheek approach and I hoped to put some fun into the proceedings. I also strongly believe that the people I was speaking to understand Geo better than I do and wanted to show them a different angle on technology.

These are my slides:

http://www.slideshare.net/mpbish/web-20-and-hype-presentation

I didn't talk much about maps or Geo and I struggled with my theme in the run up to the conference. I graduated with a GIS degree in 2003. I my course director had told me 5 years ago that I would be presenting at the conference in 2008 (I would have bitten their hand off) but would never have predicted I would not be talking about Geo. Perhaps it has something to do with the time (around 2004) after a few shandies I told a lot of the top guys at the AGI they were a dinosaur organisation with outdated views and an academic focus.

Do I feel guilty about not talking about Geo - yes a little. I love maps as much as anyone and I paid a lot for my degree to learn about geo.

But then look at the fantastic range of speakers all talking about geo at this years conference and I feel a little less bad. Perhaps the fact that I as a product of the system am not talking about Geo says a lot about where we have come from and where we are going? I have aspirations to take the power of location – the enterprise. I can't do that by banging on about maps and tile servers all of the time (some of the time yes).

Apparently my presentation was old news - but let me summarise the opening plenary:

• Someone created a web business understood economics and sold it for loads of money
• The Ordnance Survey is now Web2.0
• 3D models are better for town planners than 2D

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed these sessions – but sometimes these things rely on who is saying it rather than what they are saying.

The sad thing is I think many people in technology and blogsphere are loosing touch with the fact that there are scores of people in our industry (and outside our industry) that don't understand things like web2.0 is. I wasn't positioning my presentation to the technologists, the bloggers, the evangelists, the serial conference speakers. I was positioning my presentation to the people I meet on a weekly basis. Not everyone has a blog or even reads blogs. Most people I speak to will never know or (need to know) what ajax is. There seems to be a great deal of surprise of the lack of understanding of the ‘basics’ of Web2.0. I think the thought leaders in the industry should take a step back from their blogs for a second. Rather than trying to out do each other “top-trump style” start translating this stuff. I count myself quite ahead of the curve, but way back compared to some of the techie people in the industry. By the time it hits my radar it is old news for the elite – but still relevant enough to help many of my customers and the wider community.

Cheers

Bish

Listening to: Kings of Leon - Because of the Times