Winter Colloquium

Thursday, February 28^th, 4-5:30 pm

University of Denver, Boettcher Auditorium, 2050 E. Iliff Avenue, Denver, Colorado

Panel on Current Issues and Directions in GIS

Moderator Tina Cary and Panelists William Gail, Peter Batty and Matt Ball

Notes: Bio-sketches for the panelists and Background Reading for their topics are listed below. The slide advancement can be confusing in places.

Merging of Real and Fantasy in GIS, William Gail, Director of Strategic Development, Microsoft Virtual Earth — GIS is typically thought to be a spatial means for describing and understanding the real world.  But the use of “fantasy” GIS to augment real-world tasks is new to many.  Fantasy GIS employs simulated information to create “what-if” scenarios in real-world GIS frameworks.  This allows us to understand real-world phenomena that are hard to reproduce or may occur rarely in the real world.  Cutting-edge research areas that embrace the merging of real and fantasy, such as virtual reality and augmented reality will increasingly employ the tools of GIS.

- Slide set (Adobe .pdf file)

- Podcast presentation (Voice .mpg file)

Disruptive Change in the Geospatial Industry, Peter Batty, founder and President of Spatial Networking — a discussion of how new generation systems from the likes of Google and Microsoft, open source solutions, and new approaches such as "crowd-sourced" data are having a disruptive impact on the geospatial industry.

- Slide set (Adobe .pdf file)

- Podcast presentation (Voice .mpg file)

The Role of GIS for Sustainability, Matt Ball, co-founder and of Vector1Media — Geographic Information Systems have a huge role to play in the stewardship of our planet. GIS have already contributed a great deal toward understanding and quantifying what is meant by sustainability, and will continue to contribute to our understanding of Earth systems interaction. But to date there hasn’t been much action in the geospatial community to create holistic and multidisciplinary workflows or toolsets that specifically address sustainability. This presentation will discuss the concept of sustainability, the contributions that geospatial community is making, and the promise of future advancements when sensors will be tied to real-time decision support tools and multidisciplinary teams.

- Slide set (Adobe .pdf file)

- Podcast presentation (Voice .mpg file)

Follow-on Discussion

The panelists presented topics of keen interest to them and the other panel members and audience had a chance to react, comment and discuss the points made during each of the mini-presentations; then attention was turned to a series of probing questions on current issues and future directions in GIS technology identified by the Moderator. Podcast presentation (Voice .mpg file)

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Bio-Sketches and Background Readings:

	About the Moderator and Panelists	Background Reading
	Moderator Tina Cary is President of Cary and Associates, a marketing firm developing tools and services for the geotechnology industry since 1998. She recently founded the online GeoStore. Dr. Cary is Technical Editor for the forthcoming ASPRS Manual of GIS and contributing editor of OGC News for the Open Geospatial Consortium. A longtime professional in the geotechnologies, she is past President and a Fellow of ASPRS. Purdue University recently recognized her as 2008 College of Science Distinguished Alumna. Website: http://caryandassociates.com	General Reading: - Why is there so little geospatial analysis? - Geospatial Technology Outlook
	Panelist William Gail is Director of Strategic Development within Virtual Earth at Microsoft Corporation, with responsibility for expanding the capabilities of Virtual Earth and its use throughout the community. Dr. Gail was previously Vice President of the Mapping and Photogrammetric Solutions division at Vexcel Corporation (acquired in 2006 by Microsoft), where he directed a global organization responsible for a range of Earth information systems and services. Prior to joining Vexcel, he was Director of Earth Science Advanced Programs at Ball Aerospace where he led the development of spaceborne instruments and missions for Earth science and meteorology. Website: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/	Merging of Real and Fantasy in GIS: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality, Wikipedia article, Virtual Reality, - http://www.se.rit.edu/~jrv/research/ar/, Website, Augmented Reality - http://www.seriousgamesinstitute.co.uk/, Website, Serious Games Institute - Longer Reading:  Snow Crash, a novel by Neal Stephenson
	Panelist Peter Batty has worked in the geospatial industry for 20 years and has served as Chief Technology Officer for two leading companies in the industry, Intergraph and Smallworld (now part of GE Energy), as well as a being a founder and CTO of a leading edge startup, Ten Sails (now Ubisense). He recently founded a startup focused on combining social networking with location, called Spatial Networking. Website: http://www.ebatty.com/	Disruptive Change in the Geospatial Industry: - http://geothought.blogspot.com Geothought blog (Peter Batty) - http://www.edparsons.com Ed Parsons blog - http://ogleearth.com/ Ogle Earth blog - Book, Ambient Findability by Peter Morville
	Panelist Matt Ball is a freelance writer, editor and co-founder of Vector1Media.com. The focus of this online publication is the advancement of spatial tools for the creation of sustainable and livable communities. Ball was previously editor-in-chief of GeoWorld magazine and show manager of the GeoTec Event. Prior to joining GeoTec Media, he was the exhibits and marketing coordinator for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. Website: http://www.vector1media.com/	The Role of GIS for Sustainability: - http://vancouver.ca/sustainability/sustain_economic.htm, Website, City of Vancouver's sustainability vision - http://buckminster.info/Strategy/GrandStrategy.htm, Website, Buckminster Fuller's Grand Strategy - http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/, Website, UN Division for Sustainable Development - http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm, Book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute - Book, Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature, by Douglas Farr

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The panel session was part of a special topics course at the University of Denver…

Special Topics in GIS Modeling Seminar Series, GEOG 3120, Winter Term 2008

…see the Class Website for more information — www.innovativegis.com/basis/Courses/GM_topics08/