Archived GIS Snippets
Published in 2009

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Hagerstown, Md. Selects GTG to Develop GIS Strategic Implementation Plan

www.geotg.com

After a competitive bid process, the City of Hagerstown, Maryland, selected Geographic Technologies Group, Inc. (GTG) to develop a GIS Needs Assessment and Strategic Implementation Plan. The plan will evaluate current GIS operations in the city and make recommendations that will ensure an enterprise-wide GIS for the future.

The largest city in Western Maryland, Hagerstown maintains an outstanding transportation and communication network that requires the city to remain on the cutting edge of technology.

“Working with Hagerstown is an exciting opportunity for GTG,” said Curt Hinton, CEO of GTG. “The Hagerstown staff is very educated about what an enterprise-wide GIS can do for their organization. The City has a wealth of high quality GIS data that has been created over the past 20 years.

“The selection committee understood that having GIS and having an enterprise-wide GIS are different. We are using our trademarked ‘Seven Keys to a Successful GIS’ methodology to ensure that Hagerstown experiences a quick and pervasive GIS success. We envision all 500 staff members having access to GIS within the first six months of this project.”

The project will include on-site interviews and presentations to all of the stakeholders. The resultant plan will serve as the step-by-step guide of how GIS is governed, implemented, and distributed throughout the City.

first published week of: 06/15/2009

Henrico County Adopts Geo-Centric IT Policy, Implements ESRI ELA

www.esri.com

Henrico County, Virginia, recently adopted an IT policy that requires new enterprise systems to be geographic information system (GIS)-centric. To support this policy, which aims to integrate business systems via GIS, the county obtained an ESRI enterprise license agreement (ELA) that provides unlimited amounts of ArcGIS software.

“GIS is an integral enterprise business system and the infrastructure asset management system,” said Juston Manville, GIS coordinator, Henrico County. “With a GIS-centric approach to system integration, GIS becomes a shared service throughout the enterprise that enables stronger collaboration among agencies and consistency.”

Most business systems, including billing, meter reading, permitting, work orders, and customer relationship management, are location based. With GIS, Henrico County can centralize data storage and management and integrate disparate systems to improve communication, minimize redundancy, enhance accuracy, and ultimately improve service delivery. It also gives decision makers access to the best and most timely information and enables a common operating picture view of the organization. Though staff members throughout the county will be better able to visualize their data and convey complex ideas in an easy-to-understand way, Manville points out that understanding spatial relationships and better managing information are what matters most. “It’s not about the map,” he said. “It’s about all the analysis and data sharing and data storage behind it.”

first published week of: 12/07/2009

hernando de Soto to Keynote ESRI User Conference

www.esri.com/uc

Hernando de Soto, a celebrated Peruvian economist and author and president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), a nonprofit organization based in Lima, Peru, will speak at the 2009 ESRI International User Conference (ESRI UC) in July. De Soto will share how geographic information system (GIS) technology is being used to formalize landownership—an approach he feels is helping the poor take a crucial first step away from poverty.

De Soto says that for some living in poverty, the land they occupy may be their only asset. Without legal recognition of landownership, the owner cannot leverage the land as collateral. This prevents the owner from accessing loans to possibly start a business or improve the property. Many of de Soto’s ideas were put into action less than a year ago when a pilot project in Ghana began using geospatial technologies to create a land titling process and GIS-based land records system. This implementation significantly reduced the time and costs involved in collecting and documenting property ownership information and increased the number of formalized land rights.

“We’re extremely honored to have Hernando de Soto join us as one of this year’s keynote speakers,” said ESRI president Jack Dangermond. “We look forward to learning more about his vision and the role GIS is playing in this wonderful method of formalizing landownership for the poor.”

first published week of: 05/18/2009

Highland Library and Environmental Learning Center Adds GIS Kiosk

www.sbcounty.gov

Among the many displays and interactive activities at the new Sam J. Racadio Library and Environmental Learning Center in Highland, California, is a geographic information system (GIS) kiosk. Recently installed by ESRI, the kiosk uses ArcReader and ArcGIS Online software to promote the use of maps for environmental purposes by those doing research or who are simply curious about a particular place.

Commenting on what is available at the kiosk, Ray Carnes, ESRI technical marketing specialist, says, “Data about the positive impacts that people are having on the environment are showcased through a variety of maps, which range in scale from the library itself to the entire planet. For example, the Highland city map shows environmentally sensitive businesses and community resources. United States maps show the locations and characteristics of the country’s top 10 most sustainable cities, and the Map of the Global Human Footprint illustrates the human impact on every square kilometer on earth.”

first published week of: 04/20/2009

HoudahGeo - 2.2.4

www.houdah.com

HoudahGeo is a one-stop geocoding application for the Mac. With HoudahGeo you may “pin” photos to the locations where they were taken. The thus created information may be exported to EXIF tags as well as to Google Earth KML files. Such a file allows for browsing your photos within Google Earth.