Monday, February 23. 2009

NSGIC Open Discussion

It was a rare situation that on the first morning of the NSGIC Midyear in Annapolis we ended up with extra time. President Learon Dalby opened the floor for comments and question and the never shy NSGICers obliged.

Of note:

- A question about whether GIS coordinators (this is a meeting of state GIS coordinators and related players, as well as Federal and some local players and vendors) were mapping their Governors' State of the State issues. Answer: No, not really.

- A question about mapping stimulus plans. Both New York and California responded yes, which led to the observation that they both had existing infrastructure to do that. That, many agreed was the best way to show the value of geospatial, in contrast to "having one's hand out."

- An attendee noted that the GIS savvy Governor of Maryland was not yet tapping his GIS resources on stimulus matters. (I believe I have that right.)

- An attendee noted that the "fourth leg of the stool" of California's deficit reduction is information technology consolidation.

- Cy Smith of Oregon made what I consider one of the most valuable observations of the day. I'm paraphrasing here. He argued that we don't get the best response when positioning GIS as infrastructure, but instead we should focus on the stack of problems that it can solve at the local/state/fed level. We need a different approach from what we are doing (which I'd suggest is asking for a big pot of money, at least in the case of the stimulus.)

- Stu Kirkpatrick of Montana noted his Governor thinks all states have a full online parcel database. (They don't.) In fact, Kirkpatrick has to write a grant each year to fund it! Another perception: "I can get that on Google." (You can't.)

- Licensing for GIS people came up again with David Nale citing 6 or 7 states that require a license. As he put it,
"the toothpaste is out of the tube," so perhaps it's time to look for using such licenses across state lines. There is confusion as Cy Smith noted that if states adopt both the NCEES Model Law and the Model Rules, there is a GIS exemption.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in NSGIC 09 Mid-Year at 16:57 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

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Per Matt Ball, Maryland is now using GIS to track stimulus.
http://vector1media.com/spatialsustain/maryland-uses-gis-to-map-recovery-dollars.html

He provides no sources but I found the Baltimore Sun and AP.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.stimulus28feb28,0,4832554.story
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/02/27/ap6107155.html

The site was launched Friday.

#1 Adena Schutzberg (Link) on 2009-02-28 20:12 (Reply)

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