Why did you start Land Survey United?

I started LSU because I used to be a surveyor myself and know the difficulty of finding information that surveyors need when trying to figure out how to use equipment in the field. And since tech support isn't always available, surveyors need a way of self-troubleshooting. As I began building my father's website for him, I realized that there are so many choices for equipment that given the amount of time that surveyors are actually on the Internet, there needed to be a way for them to make more educated decisions on which product is best for them. So, LSU creates a place for this to be discussed in a different way than other sites (such as POB, RPLS, etc.).

What distinguishes the site from other resources for surveying?

What distinguishes us most is the fact that names and experience have a face on LSU...Advice can be tracked back to a source with just a click. A member's profile can be grouped with other members of the same company...or association. Also, the site is accessible from any mobile phone with web capability by visiting [this link]. In a sense, LSU combines the useful attributes of Myspace and other social networking platforms and puts them in the hands of surveyors in order for them to help each other and help themselves. Every page is translatable into any language. You might also notice that LSU has satellite locations on all of the other platforms which can allow members to pull their media from other sites into LSU for sharing. Here are a few of the other LSU locations:

land surveyors united elsewhere on the web

Vimeo
Vox
Lingr (chat)
Myspace
Youtube
Surveying Jobs
Scribd
Flickr
Facebook

What has the response to the site been?

The response has been really exciting as we have members from all over the world. Members have expressed how thankful they are for having a way to engage other surveyors in their native language and make connections in ways hitherto unavailable to them. They enjoy coming into the group and searching for documents that they need and finding them. It makes the job of tracking down brochures, manuals and workflows easier when they are all in one central location. On the forums, members simply need to post a discussion with a plea for assistance from the community and once received, you have a friend for life. Members also have a place to link their existing websites and social profiles on their member page and this is terrific for SEO for their own purposes.

Where do you hope Land Survey United will be in 12 months?

In 12 months, I think (along with many members that I talked to) LSU will have changed the way surveyors use the Internet and how they socially network. We don't use any adwords or paid links so everything is free to the community. I think this is very useful because times are tough right now for many surveying companies and they need a way to find work, post positions and discuss projects. LSU helps the small surveying company as well as the large....it bridges the gap and promotes cooperation and transparency in the industry. In 12 months, we hope to have over 1000 members from all countries.