Insight into GIS Professionals NewsIQ

I attended the New York State Geospaital Summit today (more on that in Directions Magazine on Thursday). During the course of the day I watched with care as the 150+ attendees listened to presentations and asked questions. Some tidbits:

- none had heard of GAMY (Google, Ask, Microsoft, Yahoo!)
- just a few had seen Google Street View
- one fellow had just learned of the MAPPS vs. U.S. lawsuit in the latest issue of ArcNews
- there’s still concern about “Google et al.” hiding sensitive data
- there’s still confusion about licenses of mapping APIs

That confirms something I’d been thinking about lately: that while some of us hang on every new announcement, many of us in GIS are “heads down” at our jobs. Events like this one serve as a quick update, a chance to come up for air.