Tuesday, January 6. 2009

Skidmore GIS Educators Conference Friday

Skidmore is not one of the schools we generally think of when speaking about GIS, but this Friday the Skidmore GIS Center for Interdisciplinary Research hosts a regional GIS Conference for Educators.

This year, topics of interest include GIS and statistics, managing and supporting GIS on a college campus, the use of GIS for visualizing potential development, GIS and mercury in the Adirondack Park, Manifold internet mapping, using ESRI Modelbuilder for automating demographic analysis, and web based GIS systems.

If any readers are attending, we'd love a brief conference report!

Obama's Infrastructure Investment Statements Fueling ADSK Stock Surge?

Back on December 6th, President-elect Barack Obama made a statement that to help "jump start" the economy and stem job losses that he would make an investment in infrastructure. Some have called it an "Eisenhower-like" project similar to the development of the interstate highway system in the 1950's under then president Dwight Eisenhower for the construction of new roads, repair of aging bridges and making public buildings more energy efficient. Bloomberg News reported on December 8th that the total stimulus package might be in the range of $500 to $700 billion.

These statements sent shares of construction manufacturers and engineering firms up solidly. The impact has been felt in the geospatial technology sector as well. Since early December, Autodesk's (ADSK) stock as risen from around $16 per share to nearly $21 per share as of yesterday's close or about 30%.

Podcast: Four New Year's Geotechnology Challenges

With the new year five days old and economic challenges expected for every sector we explore four big challenges and opportunities for those in geospatial technology. We explore four of them: (1) how U.S. investment in infrastructure may propel geotechnologies, (2) marketing of geotechnologies in tough times (3) the growth/contraction of location-based services, and (4) the renewed interest in "openness."

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