ESRI's Proposal to Update Recovery.gov

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Friday, June 5. 2009

ESRI's Proposal to Update Recovery.gov

The Inland Empire's Press Enterprise highlights ESRI's response to a call to update Recovery.gov. The company suggested adding mapping and geospatial analysis to the site. This quote from local Rep. Darrell Issa highlights the possibilities of how "private sector" participation "would improve the site."

Full transparency requires attention to not just what is posted online, but also how the information is posted. Information about how the taxpayers' money is distributed must be disclosed in a structured, open and searchable format.

This is technology which can be implemented. There are a number of companies who can show they do it better than Recovery.gov.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in ESRI, Stimulus at 06:29 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) |

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Yes, the spending needs to be tracked and mapped, but also, the actual underlying demand needs to be considered for geographic alignment, along with the underlying demographic, commerce, infrastructure, environment, and so on.

Several years ago I submitted a white paper to OMB which described the same business case for geo-enabled tracking of spending and need to OMB, with cases such as Grants.gov in mind. Around this same time, the Washington Post ran a series of articles which highlighted similar disparities, e.g. the divide between where USDA funds went, as compared to distressed agricultural counties which actually needed the money most.

Similarly, we need our politicians to understand and acknowledge that some demands are not limited by geographic boundaries, such as state lines or congressional districts - but instead by, for example, watershed, or interstate corridor, which must be considered in a far more holistic and cohesive manner.

#1 Dave Smith on 2009-06-05 07:47 (Reply)

Yes, a number of companies submitted ideas for spatially-enabling Recovery.gov as part of "The National Dialogue" - including publishing a location-based data feed so applications can be developed that enable "at-a-glance" visualization of projects starting up and completing across the country.

This feed would be a key part of the Recovery.gov service and offer a geographic version of the popular RSS news format (called GeoRSS).

#2 Jeff Harrison (Link) on 2009-06-05 14:08 (Reply)

Hopefully these data will be published in a ubiquitous machine-readable format. ESRI native format is NOT such a choice.

Mr. Devaney, we know that Jack Dangermond is beating a path to your office, and after those meetings you may be thinking that his pitch is good (yes, the idea of publishing a map is a great idea) but PLEASE, for the sake of the citizens and the rest of the geospatial community, publish your data in something other than an ESRI service.

It's one thing to publish data so the general citizenry can see and understand the content. Anyone can do that for you, and if your goal is the widest worldwide audience - then publish through Google.

But if you'd like to publish the data in a machine readable format...and you should...use one that can be used by ALL software packages. Please make sure your contracts stipulate data are published as services with open schemas and in GML or KML or XML (with meaningful addresses) or OGC-standard services. Just leaving this up to ESRI is a handoff.

There are legions of good folks who can advise you in this matter - people who will leverage the best of ESRI and the transparency of open standards - and who can make this a ringing endorsement and success story for OMB and your offices - rather than a sincecure to a well-connected and aggressive lobbying interest like ESRI.

Mr. Devaney, sir, please do the right thing here. Check back at the execution stage to make sure this is happening the right way, and that the data are accessible, open, and transparent, and are published using global, open, published standards.

Thank you. We're looking forward to the open process that will allow for a free and transparent competition for the services that Jack has been proposing. We wouldn't want OMB to be accused of improper contracting processes, would we?

#3 Archie Belaney on 2009-06-05 20:53 (Reply)

I agree contracts should stipulate that any geospatial data from the government should be published as services with open schemas - and in OGC GML or KML via OGC-standard services.

In addition, there should be a vendor neutral geographic version of the popular RSS news format (called GeoRSS 'GML') for Recovery.gov to publish a location-based data feed - to enable visualization of projects starting up and completing across the country.

#4 Jeff Harrison (Link) on 2009-06-08 08:26 (Reply)

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