ESRI #Geodesign Summit Day 1 PM

The afternoon of the first day began with a series of Lightening Talks. Most were not the quick, caffeinated ones I’ve seen elsewhere. These were very calm - and eclectic - a term I heard many times, mostly discussing the attendee population.

Michael Flaxman from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) provided a formal definition of geodesign (but it went by too fast for me to see). I’ll try to document it later in the event. It’s here (since it came up on the last day!):

Geodesign is a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic context.

Richard Klosterman presented an issue we’ll have to face as geodesign matures: the changeover from planning for the public vs. planning with the public.

Juan Carlos Vargas-Moreno of MIT highlighted the challenges to geodesign including “experts” being needed to make maps, increased engagement of the public yielding less consensus, and the quickly evolving landscape. A case study from Costa Rica showed how the public consensus in general matched that of the stakeholders.

Joerg Schaller of ESRI Deutschland GmbH shared a suitability study for an climate/energy planning in Germany using ESRI software, including Modelbuilder. It involved public participation at various levels from local to regional.

Keith Reynolds of the USDA Forest Service designs decision support systems or in short, as he put it: he’s a geodesigner. He shared lessons learned in designing a platform for building such a system, the Ecosystem Management Decision Support, EMDS. In particular he noted the importance of support for - transparency (documented process, intuitive explanation of model results), simplicity (break down app into two parts), reasoning in the context of incomplete information, and supporting multiple scales. This was the first of many times the term transparency popped up during the rest of the day.

Michael Gallis, Michael Gallis & Associates recounted a number of anecdotes that I didn’t really follow. I think the key point was: We need to transform pictures (maps) into a language of communication that’s meaningful.

Bill Dickinson of Exceptional Software Strategies showed off an R&D effort to visualize the cyber landscape, a project he described as “geodesign” done before he knew the word.

Ola Ahlqvist of Ohio State University shared insights learned from the integration of location, social networks and games. He included a famous video of a a group playing World of Warcraft - and highlighted the key educational themes therein. These games are actually educational! So, he tried to create a game that would embed geographic learning. It evolved from simple Web app based game to one powered by Google Earth with real time data to a touch table implementation, to the current GeoGame Green Revolution build on Worldwind and a multiplayer massive gaming platform.

Helena Mitasova, North Carolina University showed a “hands on 3D” interface to a drive modeling simulation. You actually manipulate the physical model (malleable clay can be shaped and objects like a CD can be laid on the surface) to explore options to better manage flooding threats. The original tech was from MIT’s Media Lab/Sensible City. NC State connected the “hardware” to GIS. It uses a laser scanner to “read” the newly updated DEM and send it to the simulation algorithm. (Yes, I want to play with this one!). Here’s a video (thanks to @cageyjames).

Brian Lee, University of Kentucky: We need to develop a GeoDesign Performance Dashboard that includes sketching, continual feedback, and metric variety (among other things). He hopes to see that in 12-18 months for his students in Landscape Architecture.

Stéphane Roche, Laval University talked about the GeoDesign Studio a multi-media design studio for geospatial collaboration.

Christina von Haaren, Leibniz University shared lessons learned from public participation efforts. The biggest effect of using geodesign was that the transparency of the decision making was enhanced. That had political and economic implications. Also learned: using an online map enhanced transparency and quality of comments (folks actual thought about and documented their thoughts). A support system for farms was only used by farmers if there were enough incentives to do so. Bottom line: trasaparency may at times be inconveniet, but may be a great resource isn acheiving environmental objectives. (Well said!)

The final session of the day featured nine breakout sessions. The goal for these groups, who will meet again on Thursday, is to tackle one topic over two days and report their results and plans for action on Friday morning. I attended the one on education and training but decided not to document the conversation since I feared it would make the participants less likely to speak their minds. I can say it was a very energetic group and we are looking forward to meeting again.

ESRI helped cover some travel and lodging costs related to Directions Media’s attendance at the Summit.