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Call for Content - NSGIC Midyear Conference
The Conference Planning Committee has released its only call for content for the 2010 Midyear Conference. The Conference is scheduled for March 7-10, at the Lowes Annapolis Hotel in Annapolis, MD.
Because of the reduced format of the Midyear meeting, we have little space for additional content. However, all suggestions for content are welcome. It is really very helpful if you include the names of individuals or groups that can present on the topic you suggest. So, to be fair, we should say that content suggestions with more content are more welcome.
Please submit your ideas/suggestions to Tony Spicci via e-mail. The conference committee will review all suggestions and attempt to accommodate as many as time permits. A separate call for state caucus topics will be made prior to the conference.
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NSGIC Midyear Theme
Folks,
We?re just weeks away from the Midyear Conference?..well, about 16 or so?so it?s time for the Conference Committee to get busy. I hope that you?re starting to make plans. We need a theme, so we?re going to open the floor for suggestions. Given that our conference is in Annapolis, we have had a few naval themes in the past including:
"Navigating Change - Discovering Opportunities"
"Rigging For Action"
"All Hands on Deck for the Nation"
Please send your suggestions for a theme to Tony Spicci. The person that provides the theme chosen for the conference will receive a complimentary beverage in the hospitality suite. Please send your suggestions in as soon as possible since we only have 16 weeks left to prepare for the conference. Some additional conference info is listed below and as always, please let us know if you have any questions.
NSGIC Midyear Meeting ? Theme TBD
Loews Annapolis Hotel
126 West Street
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
Phone: (410) 263-7777
Fax: (410) 263-0084
Toll Free Reservations: 1-800-526-2593
Hotel Cut-off Date: February 15, 2010
Registration will be available soon!
Best Regards,
-- Tony
Tony.Spicci@mdc.mo.gov
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A Few Words from the NSGIC President: On the FGDC Annual Report
 From the desktop computer of 2009-2010 NSGIC President Will Craig, of Minnesota.
A few things stood out for me as I read the Federal Geographic Data Committee's 2009 Annual report.
First was the naming of Bill Wilan as National Spatial Data Infrastructure Champion. Our previous post on the FGDC annual report accurately reflects my thoughts on Bill and his being honored.
I do recall one other thing, though. I remember talking to Bill at the 1996 award event. He was pretty proud of his work.
"I think it is the first layer of the NSDI, isn't it?"
Indeed it was. The NWI is not one of those "core Framework" themes, but it was the first out and it met the needs of all levels of government across the nation.
I was also pleased to see the Fifty States Initiative as both an accomplishment and a part of the FGDC's goals for the next year. This partnership between the FGDC and NSGIC has been very valuable for the states, helping almost all of us increase our strategic planning efforts. I'm happy to see that the FGDC plans to start working with us on a transition from planning to implementation.
Among the success stories in the report is one about using geospatial data for program compliance. This is a story about USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) using NAIP images from four consecutive years, along with Common Land Unit data, to analyze areas suspected of improper claims. NAIP imagery allowed the RMA to identify large areas that were ineligible for payment, thus preventing more than $700,000 in improper payments in one state.
This illustrates the value to the federal government and to states of a sustained orthophotography effort and highlights, I think, the importance of the Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) initiative. Among the goals in the FGDC report for IFTN are "establishing a virtual project management office to implement the governance structure and to advance the funding strategy for full implementation in fiscal year 2011."
And I was impressed by the substance in the white paper on parcel data included in the report: Cadastral Data and the U.S. Mortgage Crisis: A Case for a National Land Parcel Database. A number of studies identify the need for an indicator based on parcels. The conclusion here is basically the same as that of the 2007 National Academies report -- that immediate action be taken to put in place a national land parcel coordinator. Because establishing this position will require resources and because the job is likely be a difficult one, the report also recommends that a review be done of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorities to understand who could take on this work.
It's a start, and I hope it is a start that we make in the coming year. This is important work and I was very happy to see it highlighted by the FGDC in this report.
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Speaking of the FGDC Annual Report...
 Several folks in NSGIC leadership have called my attention to the naming of Bill Wilen as National Spatial Data Infrastructure Champion in the FGDC's 2009 Annual Report. The FGDC honors one champion in its report each year who "has taken a strong leadership role in the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)."
Mr. Wilen, Senior Wetland Scientist at the National Wetlands Inventory Center's Washington office, is chair of the FGDC?s Wetlands Subcommittee and is credited with helping to lead that group to produce the FGDC?s Wetlands Classification System and Wetlands Mapping Standard.
As the citation in the FGDC Annual Report, puts it:
Mr. Wilen?s leadership is well recognized within the geospatial community, as are his exemplary efforts to advance the management and preservation of wetlands. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar?s announcement of the adoption of the Wetlands Mapping Standard in August 2009 came about largely as a result of the tireless commitment, leadership, and dedication to the development of this standard by Mr. Wilen. It is in recognition of his trusted leadership within the NSDI community that Mr. Wilen is recognized as this year?s NSDI Champion. Mr. Wilen also wins praise from those in the NSGIC community who have worked with him.
"I'd like to highlight his focus on Wetland Data for the Nation," noted NSGIC President Will Craig (MN). "He didn't call it that, but I will. He developed the NWI to meet the needs of all levels of government."
"Over the course of its 18 year history, the Minnesota Governor's Council on Geographic Information has given 24 awards; these are commendations signed by the Governor," Mr. Craig continued. "Wilen got the first of these in 1996 for the National Wetland Inventory. The NWI and NAIP are the only two federal programs that we have ever awarded."
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2009 FGDC Annual Report Released
 The Federal Geographic Data Committee has released its 2009 Annual Report, detailing accomplishments from the last year and plans for the year ahead.
According to the introduction from FGDC's acting Chair Karen Siderelis (U.S. Department of the Interior), the theme of the report is "The U.S. Mortgage Crisis and Land Parcel Data."
Land parcel data combined with other geographic information are essential to such functions as the management of emergency situations, development of domestic energy resources, management of private and public lands, support of business activities, and monitoring of regulatory compliance. The feature story of this year?s report underscores the need for a coordinated system of land parcel information across the country. The introduction also points to progress on Imagery for the Nation:In particular, the FGDC is pleased to announce its approval of the Record of Decision of the Phase 1 plan for the Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) initiative, which is an important 2009 milestone. The report includes ten highlights of 2009 progress:
- The Geospatial Line of Business
- The National Geospatial Advisory Committee
- National Policy and Strategy for Geospatial Information
- The Fifty States Initiative
- International Activities
- Geospatial One-Stop
- Standards
- Imagery for the Nation
- National Land Parcel Data
- Homeland Security and Emergency Management
And there are ten goals for 2010:
- Advance the Geospatial Line of Business
- Collaborate with the National Geospatial Advisory Committee
- Kickoff Development of a National Policy and Strategy for Geospatial Information
- Transition the Fifty States Initiative
- Advance International Activities
- Improve Geospatial One-Stop
- Advance the Development and Acceptance of Standards
- Implement Imagery for the Nation
- Advance National Land Parcel Data
- Support Homeland Security and Emergency Management
There is a section devoted to a report on parcel data ("Cadastral Data and the U.S. Mortgage Crisis: A Case for a National Land Parcel Database"), a section outlining challenges to achieve the NSDI, and, among the appendices, a review of the status of the NSDI Framework Data Themes.
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Another Social Media Tool for GIS Coordination
Actually, this is not about a new social media tool. Rather, this is about a new aspect of twitter, which has seen a sharp increase in use among GIS coordinators and others who (let's be honest) like to stay obsessively in the loop.
This week, twitter opened up all users to the creation of lists, a tool that was introduced slowly over the previous weeks to a smaller subset of users. Lists allow users to create and curate collections of "like" twitter accounts. It is an expansion, and focusing, I think of the "following" behavior that makes twitter such an active spreader of information.
And this new way of using twitter is going to shake things up for a time, as users find ways to use it. As a start, we're seeing several professional organizations start to curate self-focused lists. Here at NSGIC, for example, we have started a list of State GIS Coordination tweeters.
Here are a few other lists we've found in the first hours of the list-creation period:
This will be an interesting period. Even as I write this post, and poke around twitter for lists to list, things are changing. I expect that the "list of GIS lists" will change, continuously, over the next few days. So treat the list above as just a teaser.
We'll have to wait and see what the final collection of lists of lists will turn out to look like.
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Standards Take Work
 The blog Iconic Photos this week includes the shot at left of the International Meridian Conference, held in 1884 in Washington DC.
The very first resolution adopted by the Conference should seem familiar to those who work in GIS data standards:
...it is the opinion of this Congress that it is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meridians which now exist. The Iconic Photos blog does a nice job of summarizing what the delegates went through to define 0° longitude. Maybe coming up with framework standards in my state won't be that bad.
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Census Bureau Maps Its Challenges for 2010
The US Census Bureau has released its map of "hard to count" census tracts in advance of the 2010 count.
The data behind this map were developed by studying factors that might suggest people's response to the Census count:
"We looked at what we considered 12 variables that are behind what makes a (Census) tract hard to count," says Steve Jost, associate communications director at the bureau. "Whether or not more people are living in the same housing, whether or not housing has a telephone, the poverty rate, high school graduation rate, linguistic isolation, mobility, unemployment." The Census Bureau has been working closely with the State Census Data Center (SDC) network, with Governor's Liaisons for the 2010 Census, and with advocacy and partner groups to identify hard-to-count areas and, more importantly, approaches to overcome those challenges.
State Census Data Center contacts will likely have "hard-to-count" scoring at a smaller than tract level and may need to partner with their state GIS Coordinators to help expand on that data with additional information to help guide state and local efforts to ensure a complete count of the nation in 2010.
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California's Selection of GIS as a Key Enterprise IT Strategy Featured in ArcNews
 California GIO Michael Byrne joins NSGIC President Will Craig on the front page (PDF) of ESRI's ArcNews this fall. Mr. Byrne, who also serves on the Board of Directors of NSGIC, has written an article on the selection of GIS as a one of California's six key enterprise IT strategies.
What this effort really identifies is a set of unifying business examples that can be leveraged across agencies for increased economies of scale in technology service delivery. The fact that one of the technologies is GIS points to just how important GIS is as a solution for California needs. We need solutions that can tackle the large policy issues we face in this diverse state, and few technologies get us there?but GIS does. Mr. Byrne notes that just under a quarter of California agencies projecting capitol investments in their IT plans include investment in GIS technologies. Including geospatial investments in the state's over-all IT plan allows the state to "analyze common business needs across departments and look for opportunities to align these investments."
He highlights two examples of GIS as IT infrastructure -- CalAtlas (www.atlas.ca.gov) and a Common Operating Picture (COP) effort in response to the state's need to fight major wildfires. And he explains that this is only the start of work to make geospatial data a key part of almost all of the states data assets.
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NSGIC President Pens NSDI Goverance Article
NSGIC President Will Craig's article, Governance of the NSDI, made the front page of the Fall 2009 issue of ArcNews.
The US has been working its National Spatial Data Infrastructure -- the NSDI -- since 1994, he observes, but has not made significant progress. He says that the problem is institutional, not technical.
We simply haven?t figured out how to engage and coordinate all the significant players ? federal, state, and local, and tribal governments, or the private sector. We need comparable data that comes from all these players and which meets all of their needs: Data for the Nation. The problem is becoming apparent to Congress. In July a subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee held an oversight hearing on federal geospatial data management. That hearing was preceded by a report of the Congressional Research Service called Geospatial Information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Current Issues and Future Challenges. The report investigates coordination efforts both internally within the federal government and externally with state and local government.
The US has focused all its geospatial data coordination efforts in the Federal Geographic Data Committee. According to Will Craig, the FGDC has a good mission and a good staff, but comes up short in two critical areas:
First, it has no power to require federal agencies to deliver their assigned components of the NSDI. Second, it coordinates only federal activities, not state or local activities. States have figured out how to coordinate their activities. Many have designated a Geographic Information Officer (GIO) ? giving them the power to make state agencies work together and a mandate to encourage cooperation among other levels of government.
Mr. Craig notes that his home state, Minnesota, has two advisory councils -- one for state agencies and one for other GIS communities. Both have direct connections with the GIO.
He suggests that the federal government should follow a simple model:
- Add a GIO to work with the new federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
- Empower FGDC to coordinate federal efforts by moving it to OMB.
- Create a new council to coordinate non-federal activities ? giving it the resources to make a difference.
- Finally, add a Congressional oversight committee to watch over all this.
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