Pitney Bowes Business Insights Coming Out of the Shadows?

Pitney Bowes Business Insights has been dark in recent months. We’ve not heard much about product news or company direction. As the company closes in on the fourth year since the acquisition that brought MapInfo into the Pitney Bowes fold, there’s been a steady stream of departures from the executive ranks.

Now, things may be changing. Sources at the company are telling me today that several PR announcements will be forthcoming. Company president, John O’Hara, a MapInfo insider, that took the reigns from Mike Hickey in June 2010, is moving from the UK to Troy. I hope to be able to speak with him in the next few weeks. I speculated in our recent podcast on 2011 predictions that Pitney Bowes may spin out the PBBI division. I’m told this is not the intention of Pitney Bowes.

Directions’ “Channels” Now with RSS Feeds

Last week when we launched our "Channels" our readers asked if we were going to offer them as RSS feeds. We listened an now each Channel has a corresponding feed.

You can find those links on our RSS feeds page where each Channel is listed along with our other feeds for articles, podcasts, videos and more.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Interior Secretary Salazar’s Chief of Staff Leaving

Tom Strickland, who serves as Secretory of Interior Ken Salazar’s chief of staff and as Interior’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, will leave that job next month to seek employment in the private sector.

Laura Daniel Davis, Salazar’s deputy chief of staff, will take over that role. Will Shafroth, the principal deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, will assume the role of assistant secretary, while a full time replacement, who requires senate confirmation, is found. [I knew Archie would ask. ]

Politico via @mapps

New Version of Census’ OnTheMap App Helps Employers

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released Version 5 of this online mapping tool [OnTheMap]. It includes a number of important new features and enhancements including: the addition of data for Connecticut, new analysis types (including Area Comparison, Destination, Distance/Direction, and Inflow/Outflow) and a redesigned user interface with a dashboard layout.

OnTheMap data can help you analyze the concentration of workers in a selected area and provides comparisons of employment areas by workers’ residences, ages and monthly earnings. This easy-to-use online interface has several different types of analyses that provide a wide variety of results.

Date for all states but Mass and NH.
- Census Blog via @nsgic

Education Tidbits

You can take a tele course (two classes a week for a total of 10) based on the book GIS(Geographical Information Systems) Essentials. The course is from New Urban Research. Cost: $1000 includes the book but not ArcGIS 10, which is required.

Daily Herald (Washington State)

The TREE Foundation and TREE Roots & Shoots had organised a Youth Summit at the Institute of Remote Sensing, Anna University, here [Chennai] on Thursday. The event, aimed at empowering students to tackle eco-issues, was inaugurated by A S Balanathan, IFS, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF).

Among the tools they use: GIS and GPS.

- ExpressBuzz

The GIS Education Center (GIS -EC) Program at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) is committed to supporting the SF Green Map and Open Green Map Project whose mission is to empower communities worldwide to map their local green and sustainable resources. Students from the GIS -EC Program and various other CCSF departments will assist with the on-going effort to promote, contribute and manage SF Green Maps and Open Green Map.

- Asian Journal

Check out this tweet:

ESRIcareers: @uchicagonews Meet Esri staff at the career fair today 12-4, Ida Noyes Hall. Learn about our summer programs & career opps. #interns #grads

As a UChicago student who gradated (major Chem; fulfilled requirements in geography) the year the geography department was shut down (1986), this is nice to see. That year we still did pen and ink cartography and used MiniTab to do our stats. And, I’m sure students still call Ida Noyes, “I’m Annoyed.”

Bodhi Surf, a Costa Rica surf camp, received the January 2011 “Making a Difference” award from SustainableTrip.org - a website launched by the Rainforest Alliance that promotes sustainable tourism businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean to travelers, tour operators, and travel agencies….
Grupo SURF, a community-based organization that seeks to empower local youth as agents of change. In September of 2010 Bodhi Surf, along with KETO Foundation Costa Rica, Bahia Aventuras, and La Cusinga Lodge helped Grupo SURF organize local youth as part of the International Coastal Cleanup Day. Currently, the group is involved in a GPS - GIS trash mapping project with the goal to better understand their community’s trash problems and provide lasting solutions.

- press release

Thanks to a new partnership with the school’s neighbor AECOM and some of their community-minded employees, Lake Country Academy’s Eco-club [WI] is learning environmental-friendly ways to make life greener. ...Environmental scientist Amelse shared her expertise in GIS mapping and will be teaching students to map out several natural habitat areas on the playground and plant appropriate native plants.

- Sheboygan Press

A 2010 Wellesley College graduate, Rebecca Spitzer, was the principal site designer for the Mapping Revolutionary Boston website, a project of the Bostonian Society and Wellesley College. The Bostonian Society oversees Boston’s Old State House. It does not look like a GIS site, perhaps because it was developed by a web designer not a historian or GIS guru.

- Wellesely Patch

Beijing Red Cross Foundation (BRCF) will offer 20,000 GPS cellphones to the city’s primary and secondary school students for their safety.

In addition to talking and text message functions, the watch-shaped cellphone allows parents to locate where their children are, according to officials with the Hongxian Fund under BRCF.

Students are not to use them while at school, unless there’s an emergency. Parent pay about US$127 for the phones and two years of service.

- TMC Net

Interesting tweet: “Watch site for upcoming PhD and postdoc position announcements in the area of managing user-generated geospatial content”

The site? http://www.geocrowd.eu

via @geocrowd_itn