A number of new technologies are combining to enable the real time collection of data, and the sharing of that data in real time with GIS. The result is a dynamic platform which enables real time visualization, analysis, and understanding of our world. This is the new age of real-time GIS.

Some of the new technologies enabling real-time GIS include:

• GeoEvent Processor is a new ArcGIS for Server extension. It gives users the ability to connect to real-time data streams from a wide variety of sensors, perform continuous processing and analysis of those data streams, and send relevant information to users or other systems.
• Geofencing is the creation of a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. In the case of GeoEvent Processor, the GIS server is detecting and using geofences to issue an alert when a mobile device approaches, enters, and leaves the geofenced area (which can be based on any map feature).  GeoTrigger technology will let developers build geofences into their apps that can be triggered based on time of day, speed, or position. This technology will be available as part of developers’ ArcGIS Online subscriptions in the second quarter of 2013.

GeoEvent Processor for Server makes it possible to use GIS features as geofences and create geofences on the fly.

• Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS provides a common operating picture for monitoring events. Operations Dashboard integrates maps and a variety of data sources to create comprehensive operational views that can include charts, lists, gauges, and indicators which update automatically as underlying data changes.
• Collector for ArcGIS is designed with field crews in mind, and is used to capture and update both tabular and spatial information via smartphones using the built-in GPS capabilities of the device, or by tapping on the map. Data captured using Collector can be displayed in the Operations Dashboard.
• Mapping social media data provides insight into what people are saying and where they are saying it. Social Media Mapping apps let you display in real time what people are saying through location-based social media such as Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube.
• Esri is also busy adding new features to ArcGIS Online such as Real-Time Data Services, support for GeoRSS Feeds, and more, and we are working with our imagery partners to enable the delivery of Real-Time Imagery in to ArcGIS Online just seconds after it has been captured by satellites.

New types and sources of geographic content, and new ways of sharing them, provide people with exciting new capabilities to incorporate dynamic, real-time information into decision making. The result, as Esri president Jack Dangermond likes to call it, is a Living Atlas of the World—a new vision for the concept of an atlas. “It’s a kind of global gathering place for integrating and applying knowledge about our planet and sharing it with everyone—and to do it all in real time,” says Dangermond.

The thematic information available within this virtual atlas is dynamic; it’s not stored in one centralized, static database—“It’s live, linked to and feeding in from multiple sources across the web and across the world in real time,” adds Dangermond. “The Living Atlas of the World is not only changing the way we look at the world, it is also changing the way we interact with it.”

Further Reading:

• ArcGIS Enables Real-Time GIS. ArcNews, Spring 2013.
• Sensor to Service.  ArcUser, Spring 2013.

Matt Artz: What is agent-based modeling?

Kevin Johnston: Agent-based modeling (ABM) explicitly models the causality of individuals or objects in time and space. Conceptually, in ABM you give instructions to virtual agents that allow the agents to interact with each other and their environment. Agents can be people, wildlife, tanks, cars, or any discrete object. From the resulting decisions and actions of the agents, patterns are created in time and space. Unlike many other modeling techniques that quantify and then re-create the patterns, agent-based models explore the causes of the patterns; the patterns are emergent properties from the individual decisions of the agents.

Agent Analyst: Agent-Based Modeling in ArcGIS

Matt Artz: What kinds of decisions are aided by agent-based modeling?

Kevin Johnston: Agent-based modeling, combined with spatial data, allows you to address a wide array of problems such as:

• Developing corridor connectivity networks for wildlife movement
• Anticipating potential terrorist attacks
• Analyzing traffic congestion or producing evacuation strategies
• Planning for the potential spread of disease such as bird or swine flu
• Understanding land use change
• Optimizing timber tract cutting
• Exploring energy flow on electrical networks
• Performing crime analysis to deter future impact

Many phenomena or agents exist and make decisions in, and relative to, space. The location of an agent and its surrounding environment will influence the agent’s decision making. The agent can influence or change the landscape it interacts with. GIS is a spatial modeling tool that stores and displays geographic data and analyzes spatial relationships. A natural synergy exists between ABM and GIS.

Matt Artz: How does an agent-based model work?

Kevin Johnston: In its simplest form, an agent-based model works in the following manner: identify the agents and define their actions.

First, the agents need to be identified. As mentioned earlier, agents can be animals, terrorists, land parcels, delivery trucks, weather patterns, or anything that “makes a decision”, performs an action, or changes state. “Making a decision” is being used in the most general meaning: the agent does “this” as opposed to “that.”

Next, the agents act; at each time step they perform an action or no action based on their state and what is occurring around them. An animal agent might run, walk, eat, or sleep. A terrorist might attack. A land parcel might change from agricultural use to residential use.

Time is explicit in the simulation of an agent-based model. Each decision is made in some specified time step. The length of each time step is controlled through a scheduler. The duration for the time step should be determined based on the decision making and characteristics of the agents being modeled. For example, if the model is exploring delivery truck movement, the time step will be much smaller (e.g., every hour), as opposed to possibly using a much longer time interval when modeling the change in land use types based on an economic model.

The main Agent Analyst interface (upper left) for a cougar movement model running within ArcGIS. The Data Source Editor is displayed (lower right) for the male cougar agents. It reflects a cougar GIS shapefile as the data source for male cougar agents, and the fields (the properties) for the agents were derived from the shapefile.

Matt Artz: Can an Esri user create an agent-based model from within ArcGIS using their existing data?

Kevin Johnston: Yes they can, with Agent Analyst, a free, open-source software developed to integrate an ABM development platform—the Recursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit (Repast)—with ArcGIS 10.0. Agent Analyst is a mid-level integration that takes advantage of both modeling environments. Repast is used for the creation of the agent rules, object support, and scheduling. ArcGIS is used for data creation, GIS analysis, and display of the simulations. Agent Analyst is implemented as a new model-tool type supported in the ArcGIS geoprocessing environment. As a result, an Agent Analyst model can be used as any model tool in the geoprocessing environment. With Agent Analyst, the model developer can utilize ArcGIS Java objects, allowing the developer to access the full suite of GIS functions and incorporate them into the agent model.

Esri has provided a great deal of support in the development of Agent Analyst, but it’s important to note that Agent Analyst is not an Esri supported product.

Matt Artz: What resources are available for ArcGIS users interested in using Agent Analyst?

Kevin Johnston: Twelve eminent agent-based modeling experts recently collaborated on a step-by-step tutorial style book called Agent Analyst: Agent-Based Modeling in ArcGIS. Each exercise is designed to expose you to different ABM techniques on agents that are associated with different types of spatial features. The book focuses on agents that can be represented as points, polygons, or raster cells and agents on networks, and its structure is based on these agent types. The exercises build upon previous chapters and progressively get more sophisticated. The exercises are placed in the context of application models that include animal movement, housing segregation, land use change, and criminal activity; however, this book is not about creating specific application models.

Matt Artz: Where can people get a copy of your new book?

Kevin Johnston: Agent Analyst: Agent-Based Modeling in ArcGIS and the tutorial data as well as the Agent Analyst software can be downloaded for free from http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/agent-analyst/.

Diversity describes the composition of American households. Husband-wife families remain the dominant household type; however, their share of all households continues to slip—from 52 percent in 2000 to 48 percent in 2010. From 2000 to 2010, the real increase in family households was in single-parent families, up by 22 percent, and multi-generational households, up by 30 percent. Increasing social acceptance of singles adopting children as well as single parents resulting from divorce or having children but never married may account for some of the increase in single-parent families.

Household size tended to increase in areas that gained population from immigration. For example, multi-generational households are part of the tradition in Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods. Parents go out to work while grandparents stay home to care for the little ones. These seniors may be language-isolated with low cultural assimilation rates. The increase of multi-generational households could also be attributed to the Great Recession. Young people have had to move back home when they either lost jobs or couldn’t find employment, or early retirees ran out of money and moved in with their children and grandchildren.

Although non-family, 1-person households are found across the US, higher averages are located along America’s “Bread Basket” and in the lower South. Below average incidences of these households in CA could be due to the high Hispanic population which tends to have larger family households. This map of the US by county clearly illustrates the presence of non-family, 1-person households in the country. Click on the map to see a larger version.

Husband-wife families increased by less than 4 percent in 10 years, and husband-wife families with children declined.  All family households increased by 8 percent during 2000–2010 and non-family households by 16 percent. The fastest-growing non-family households, however, are unmarried partners. At 80 percent, single-person households retain the highest proportion of non-family households; however, the increase was less than 15 percent in the past decade. Non-traditional family types are the fastest growing segments of households.

Average household size changed little from 2000 to 2010—2.59 to 2.58—with no obvious change in 2012.

These demographic changes present challenges—and opportunities—for governments and businesses. For example, Hispanic and Asian populations with traditional large, multi-generational households may require dwellings with architectural features that can accommodate each generation. On the other hand, the need for smaller quarters or more apartments for single-person households provides additional opportunities for developers. Local governments may also be challenged to find housing for these different types of households.

In the consumer product industry sector, the difference in household size provides savvy companies with expanded opportunities to market their products to a wider, more diverse group of consumers. For example, the convenience of prepared, super-sized, or smaller packaging of food products answers the needs of various household sizes. Catering to different ethnic and cultural needs can also add market share by versioning these same products to fit different racial and ethnic populations.

For more information about Esri’s Updated Demographics data, visit www.esri.com/demographicdata.

What do we need for this transformation? We need authoritative data at a variety of scales – local, regional, and national. We need tools that can integrate data from many sources, and bring it together in meaningful ways. We need analytic capabilities that can help us glean every drop of valuable information that we can from these sources, and gain previously hidden insights. And we need ways to enable broader access to our work, foster collaboration among our peers and stakeholders, and facilitate public engagement when needed.

Today, we’re lucky enough that we actually have all these things. And these capabilities are continuing to evolve rapidly.

Recently Bill Meehan, Esri’s director of utility solutions, told me a story about a potential client that he had visited, one not currently using GIS. One of the corporate executives there told Bill about how they were embarking on a large project to meet customer needs and improve efficiency and infrastructure. It was a costly project that would last for years into the future.

Bill asked them a good, and perhaps obvious, question. Were they sure that this would achieve their intended goals? With what I would imagine was just a bit of hesitation they responded “We think so.”

Going beyond “I think”

Geography is a science that we leverage in GIS. It’s the context within which we work. While some degree of uncertainty is sometimes unavoidable, as geospatial professionals we need to do better than “I think” and achieve a deeper understanding. As GIS professionals we believe in, and strive for geographic understanding. We want to turn “I think” into “I know” or “I understand.”

So how do we accomplish this?

GIS – a platform for geographic understanding

Many years ago I worked with ARC/INFO, Esri’s first software package. I sat at my desk in front of an ASCII terminal to type commands at the ARC: prompt, the only way to perform a task. It was software installed on a minicomputer in a back room that long ago vaporized from the Esri campus.

Today, I think of ArcGIS as much more than software. It’s a platform. A platform we can use to turn simple geography and location into something more powerful and meaningful – geographic understanding. We use this platform to discover the how and the why from the where, and to share and communicate that knowledge with others.

What’s a platform in this context? I struggle a bit to define that exactly, but I can identify its characteristics more easily.

• Platforms serve many communities; GIS serves utilities, health care, local government, conservation, public safety, education, business, and many others.
• Platforms can be used by many different people;  professionals, knowledge workers, developers, and information consumers.
• Platforms include applications, data, services, and APIs.
• Platforms can be used by individuals, workgroups, organizations, and even entire governments.
• A platform provides a base upon which developers can build, leveraging core characteristics and components to create unique solutions.
• A platform supports a variety of ways to implement or experience it, in the cloud, on your desktop, via servers, and on mobile devices.

That’s how I think of the ArcGIS platform – a complete  ecosystem that incorporates the many facets mentioned above. We use it to turn geography into geographic understanding, and to share that understanding with others. What’s are challenge after that? Our challenge as GIS professionals and organizations is to turn that understanding into action.

ArcGIS 10.1

Clearly a significant release, and one of the best and most comprehensive updates in many years, the big milestone for Esri professional GIS users this year was ArcGIS 10.1, fulfilling many initiatives introduced in 2010 with ArcGIS 10.0. Beyond the new features and functions it delivered, ArcGIS was transformed, becoming a complete and unified system, with integrated online and mobile capabilities to support a variety of workflows and needs.

ArcGIS for Desktop received hundreds of improvements, many focusing on advanced mapping and editing workflows, increasing efficiency, and making it easier to create and share content. ArcGIS 10.1 also advanced geographic science, with space-time clustering, grouping analysis, and spatial order correlation improving our ability to visualize patterns and trends in complex data.

Also extended were the ability to integrate and exploit imagery, improvements in 3D capabilities, and ArcGIS Runtime, a new platform for developers that enables the creation of lightweight apps for easy deployment, or embed maps and extend the capabilities of existing applications.

ArcGIS for Server, the primary engine for powering geospatial infrastructure, added native 64-bit support for Windows and Linux operating systems, enabling increased performance leveraging these platforms.

ArcGIS for Server was also extended to support alternative deployment methods, becoming certified on VMWare and VCE’s VBlock platform, and supporting hosting in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud in both Windows and Linux.  A new application was delivered—ArcGIS Server Cloud Builder—designed to help you deploy your ArcGIS Server on Amazon Web Services site, create templates, make backups of your sites, and manage them more efficiently.

There’s just too much to mention in this post, but you can review all the details in What’s New in ArcGIS 10.1.

ArcGIS Online

In 2012, ArcGIS Online grew from a simple platform for sharing maps to a deeply integrated and integral part of the ArcGIS system that continues to evolve rapidly and grow with new cloud-based capabilities. This year ArcGIS Online was introduced with new capabilities for organizations available via subscriptions. These have already made a difference and changed the discussion around geographic information for many early adopters.

Among the cloud-based capabilities for ArcGIS Online organizations are geographic asset management, user management, and hosted map publishing services that make it easy to deliver highly available maps, support self-service capabilities, and engage others in your organization.

The web map ecosystem plays a key role here. More than a map in a browser, an ArcGIS Online web map within Esri is a specification that ensures they can be used anywhere, on any device, and by everyone. This specification has also grown over the past year with new capabilities, and while many of the changes are transparent to end users, they’ve greatly expanded their utility. Coupled with easy-to-configure hosted template applications, you can solve workflow needs, reach a broader audience, and even tell compelling stories, like the many you’ll see featured on Esri’s Storytelling with Maps site, and the Storytelling with Maps community site.

CityEngine Web Viewer was introduced in the September ArcGIS Online update, and provides 3D visualization capabilities of CityEngine scenes.

Esri Maps for Office, released in July, was another key new part of the ArcGIS Online ecosystem and part of the Esri Location Analytics product offerings. It’s a new analysis tool that allows business professionals to visualize data by creating and sharing interactive maps directly within Microsoft Office. Esri Maps for Office is a downloadable add-in for Microsoft Office 2010, available to ArcGIS Online subscribers, that empowers a new segment of users within an organization with GIS maps and capabilities. And perhaps more importantly, enables them to participate and contribute to core geographic assets.

ArcGIS Online’s core services also evolved throughout the year, with expansive additions to the World Imagery basemap, the World Streets basemap, and a cartographic redesign of the very popular World Topographic basemap, also known as the “Community basemap,” a result of the participation of users worldwide in it’s content. Behind the scenes new worldwide geocoders and gazetteers have been put into place, and Task services have evolved for developers.

Again, there’s too much to mention here, but you can view all the details of the past year’s releases in the What’s new? ArcGIS Online help topic.

Acquisitions

Esri’s technology and expertise was supported and enhanced through several notable acquisitions this year. Location analytics developer GeoIQ was the first, joining Esri in July. Their addition strengthened Esri’s capabilities in the areas of user experience design, web development, Big Data, and cloud-based applications.

Mebourne, Australia-based Maptel joined Esri in the same month. The addition of Maptel, who has been the developer for Esri’s ArcPad software for several years, will strengthen Esri’s field data collection capabilities and its overall mobile platform.

In October Portland-based Geoloqi joined Esri, adding their expertise in mobile-focused, trigger-based technology to the Esri portfolio.  Geoloqi’s developer platform for mobile applications, combined with ArcGIS, will create more powerful geolocation and mapping tools for the development of web and mobile applications.

New R&D Centers

Esri formally established several R&D Centers across the globe, located in Beijing, Portland (Oregon), Washington D.C., and Zurich. Many of these centers are anchored around the teams acquired through acquisitions, each bringing their own expertise and vision into the Esri product development landscape.

Retired Products

ArcIMS, once a pioneering internet mapping platform, was officially retired this year with the release of ArcGIS 10.1. While it served many users and many maps throughout its lifespan, the superior capabilities and architecture of ArcGIS for Server have now officially pushed it below the horizon in 2012.

The Road Ahead

With 2012 behind us, the stage has been set for an even more exciting GIS year in 2013. We won’t reveal too many details yet, but in some ways the road ahead is easy enough to anticipate when reading between the lines of the milestones of 2012.

Expect ArcGIS Online to continue to grow and evolve with respect to GIS organizations, and with the addition of GIS analytic capabilities and high-value subscription services coming in Q1, it will become even more potent – truly a full-featured cloud GIS platform.

As 2013 begins you can expect the release of key solutions-focused applications. The Operations Dashboard and Collector for ArcGIS will be the first two, and will appear in January.

And so will a new release of an old favorite—ArcGIS Explorer Desktop 2500—will also be delivered in January, now with deeper ArcGIS Online integration.

The rapidly evolving landscape of easily configurable apps and solutions will get lots of attention in 2013 (they already have been internally at Esri), so you can expect to see lots of activity and new products in this area. You’ll also see a focus on 3D capabilities in mobile apps and browsers, enhanced imagery capabilities, and much, much more.

Some of the upcoming conferences, like the GeoDesign Summit in January, the Esri Federal GIS Conference in February, and the Esri Developer Summit in March, are great opportunities to learn more about these new projects. But there’s lots of other opportunities throughout next year if you don’t make one of these.

Here’s to 2012, and here’s looking forward to 2013!

Seniors are not one monolithic demographic cohort. From those aged 55 to those in their 80s and older, seniors have vastly different lifestyles, preferences, and spending habits. These differences become even more apparent when classified by demographics such as affluence, education, employment, and race/ethnicity. Data about product and media preferences, leisure activities, and shopping habits provides even more detail.

So how can you easily find this type of information about seniors? Through segmentation.

This map of the United States shows the percentage of population by county aged 55+ in 2012.

What is Segmentation?

Segmentation operates on the theory that people with similar tastes, lifestyles, and behaviors gravitate toward others with the same tastes—“like seeks like.” These behaviors can be measured, predicted, and targeted. Segmentation provides valuable insights into behavior, and can answer the who, what, where, and how questions about consumer segments.

• Are seniors retired, still working, affluent, lower income, married, or single? Segmentation helps you to understand who they are based on their demographic and socioeconomic composition.
• Segmentation helps identify seniors’ leisure activities, preferred types of media, and stores they patronize so you can learn what products and services they might buy based on their age, income, preferences, and lifestyle.
• Geography links demographics with neighborhood geographies such as ZIP codes, census tracts, block groups, or census blocks, allowing you to research other areas to find where more people with similar tastes and lifestyles are located.
• Seniors’ media preferences are as varied as their demographics and product choices. These differences provide many opportunities for how to reach the right segments with the right messages at the right time.

Identifying Types of Seniors

Esri’s Tapestry Segmentation system divides US residential neighborhoods into 65 unique market segments based on socioeconomic characteristics such as age; income; education; product, service, and media preferences; leisure activities; and much more. Tapestry classifies seniors into nine distinct segments that range from affluent, active seniors to older, sedentary folks with limited resources.

As seniors’ lifestyles evolve, opportunities abound for organizations to succeed in this growing, discrete, and increasingly profitable market. The more you know about seniors in your area, the better you can identify them, reach them, and serve them.

To learn more, read the white paper “Is ‘Seniors’ One Demographic Group?” [PDF]

For more information about Tapestry Segmentation, visit www.esri.com/tapestry.

One of the most popular basemaps (and the default ArcGIS Online basemap) is the World Topographic basemap, also known as the “Community Basemap.” It’s a GIS crowd-sourced basemap that compiles data from many GIS users that participate in Esri’s Community Maps Program.

The basemap is compiled from the best available sources, and includes boundaries, cities, water features, physiographic features, parks, landmarks, transportation, and buildings. Updates are published monthly, and you can find more details on ArcGIS Online.

The original design for the basemap was based on a USGS topographic map. While recognizable to users in the US, it was not a design that people outside of the U.S. expected to see, and that’s one of the drivers for change.   “The new design has more global appeal,” says David Watkins, Esri cartography product manager. “It underscores our commitment to the global community.”

Here’s a peek at the updated basemap, with the still-in-progress new design on the left, and the current design on the right:

Features of the new cartographic design include:

• Unified global design
• Contemporary look and feel
• Provides a better background to overlay your data
• Consistent data across all map scales

“This release of the World Topographic Basemap shows Esri’s continued commitment to great cartography,” said Sean Breyer, ArcGIS Online content program manager. “The basemap provides an excellent canvas to overlay information, and with the new design will expand the color palette our users can choose from to display their data effectively.”

The World Topgraphic map is important to GIS users and Web developers, and is the basemap of choice for many maps and applications. It’s extremely popular, and that fact provides an opportunity to get a lot of feedback.

“The World Topographic Map gets several million map views each day,” says Deane Kensok, ArcGIS Online program manager. “The changes we’ve made are based directly on user feedback, and in reviewing the many ways the map is being used.”

Esri will be completing the update soon, working with the community of contributors from around the world. I’m definitely looking forward to its public release.

“Our goal is to provide things that help people be successful,” said Damian Spangrud, Esri’s new Director of Solutions. “But the landscape is changing—the types of people we are serving, how they are using our technology, and even the definition of what is ‘success’— everything is changing.  As we started to think about where GIS fits in this new landscape, the questions we started asking ourselves were: What kinds of things can we give people so that they can tailor their ArcGIS system to be more successful? And how can we help them share their GIS investment with everyone across the organization?”

In many organizations, GIS has long been an island—in effect, an IT department separate from IT, because, as many have suggested, “spatial is special.”  But that’s all changing in the new geospatial landscape.  “GIS is no longer an island,” says Damian.  “GIS is the bridge.  Spatial is increasingly being recognized as valuable, and the GIS people are in the position of being heroes across the organization…if they can just provide the maps and apps that the rest of the organization needs.”

Esri has released a number of successful Solution Templates such as these for local government, water utilities, and public safety.

The result of this rethinking of GIS is a new Esri initiative providing Solution Templates.  This initiative has resulted in the creation of a series of communities where users can share best practices and focused maps and apps that add value to their community by illustrating how to best configure the ArcGIS system for specific applications. The intention is to reduce the time and effort users and partners need to invest to deploy GIS, and to make GIS more broadly accessible and useful.

A Growing Program

Though the initiative is still in its infancy, Esri has already released a number of successful Solution Templates.  “The main areas we’ve been focused on so far are local government, defense, and emergency management,” Damian said.  “And we’re looking at building templates in a number of additional areas.”

The suite of Solution Templates ranges from simple examples of best practices all the way to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications.  “The level of refinement of a specific template depends on who is going to be using it, and how they are going to be using it,” Damian notes.  “In some situations, people want—even expect—COTS.  In other situations, it would be a waste of time to release a COTS app, because people would never use it as-is; they are just looking for examples of best practices, and code they can grab.”

These new Solutions Templates also offer unprecedented opportunities for partners.  Being open source, all templates are available at no charge for use by systems integrators and developers in their own projects and products.  “By providing partners with apps that show them the art of the possible, we hope to make their work easier,” Damian said.  “And many partners are already leveraging our investment in Solutions Templates.  It’s gratifying to see such widespread adoption, given that the program has only been fully in place for less than a year.”

Links:

• Damian Spangrud discusses ArcGIS Solution Initiatives at the 2012 Esri Petroleum GIS Conference
• ArcGIS Resources: Communities

The first event was the establishment of the Canada Land Inventory (CLI) in 1962. The CLI set out to produce about 1,500 maps of land use and land capabilities at 1:50,000 and 1:250,000 scales. Though the maps were made by traditional manual methods, Roger Tomlinson (then employed by Spartan Air Services of Ottawa) convinced the head of CLI that computers could be used to automate map analysis. CLI invited Tomlinson to define the functional requirements of what would later be called the Canada Geographic Information System. His carefully considered use of the qualifier “geographic” caught on, and has created opportunities and challenges for the discipline of geography ever since.

We’ve come a long way, baby: “Typical Non-Automatic Tracing
Type Transcription Device coupled to an IBM 526 Card Punch.”
In Feasibility Report of Computer Mapping System, 1963.

In August 1963, just as Tomlinson delivered his feasibility report to the CLI, Edward Horwood of the University of Washington organized the “First Annual Conference on Urban Planning Information Systems and Programs.” Within a few years, that event became the annual conference of a new organization called the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). “Urban and Regional Information Systems” eventually became known as Geographic Information Systems, and the 50th annual URISA conference—now called “GIS-Pro”—takes place in 2012.

Horwood spent most of a month at Northwestern University in 1963 teaching a short course about computer handling and mapping of census data. One participant in that course was Howard Fisher, an architect who taught planning and design at Northwestern. Fisher was inspired to develop his own computer mapping system, and with the help of programmer Betty Benson, soon developed a working prototype of SYMAP. With a grant from the Ford Foundation, Fisher later founded the Laboratory for Computer Graphics at Harvard, where he oversaw an important strand of the evolution of computer mapping into GIS.

Whether we choose these milestones or others as the origins of GIS, the fact remains that GIS has come a long way, baby, in a relatively short period of time. Its impact extends far beyond the hundreds of thousands of GIS professionals at work around the world. The recent Penn State–Public Broadcasting video series Geospatial Revolution dramatizes the far-reaching impact of GIS and related technologies on how we think, act, and interact. At its 50th anniversary, GIS has itself become a kind of movement, and a kind of language.

More information:

An Introduction to the Use of Electronic Computers in the Storage, Compilation and Assessment of Natural and Economic Data for the Evaluation of Marginal Lands, by Roger Tomlinson.  1962.  “This is the paper that started the work on GIS in the Government of Canada.” — Roger Tomlinson

Feasibility Report of Computer Mapping System, by Roger Tomlinson.  Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development Administration, Department of Agriculture, Government of Canada, August 1963.

An Introduction to the Geo-Information System of the Canada Land Inventory, by Roger Tomlinson. 1967.

A Geographic Information System for Regional Planning, by Roger Tomlinson. August 1968.

“The Canada Geographic Information System,” by Roger Tomlinson. In Timothy Foresman, Ed. The History of Geographic Information Systems: Perspectives from the Pioneers. Prentice Hall, 1998.

Charting the Unknown: How Computer Mapping at Harvard Became GIS, by Nick Chrisman. Esri Press, 2006.

An Early Excursion into Computational Geography, by Duane Marble. Unpublished manuscript, 2010.

Hardware, software, data, and methods are challenges that we can manage in straightforward ways. We can understand what needs to be done, and we can identify the solution.

The latter ingredient–people–is the most complex factor. It’s the wildcard of GIS, and is also the primary key to successfully lifting a GIS off the ground, nurturing its growth, and (perhaps more importantly) keeping it relevant over time.

Every successful GIS has champions that helped lift it. The enduring and relevant ones have more than a champion or two, they have a community of “investors,” consumers, and collaborators that add the vibrancy, relevancy, and currency that keeps a GIS going.

But these people factors have needed to evolve on their own, often in complex and politically influenced ways. The GIS software that supports more concrete technical needs, like building and maintaining geodatabases, making maps, modeling processes, and performing analysis doesn’t offer a solution to these complex human factors. Or does it?

With the recent roll-out of ArcGIS Online subscriptions for organizations, the cloud-based capabilities that it provides offer a compelling platform for GIS users. I’m often focused on the technical aspects of what ArcGIS Online delivers, and so when asked about its value I’m focused on the technical tangibles. Features like the ability to publish hosted services in Esri’s cloud, define user roles/access/security, the ability to manage geospatial assets, add mapping to Microsoft Office, tools to support collaboration, and other technical capabilities are often things that come to mind first.

At the recent Esri International User Conference I had the privilege of getting to know John Thomas, Director of Planning for the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), and Frank Pisani, UDOT’s GIS manager. UDOT was an early adopter of ArcGIS Online, participating in our beta program, and integrating ArcGIS Online into UDOT’s daily activities and missions via their UPlan site.

(From left to right) Frank Pisani and John Thomas talk about the success of UPlan at the 2012 Esri User Conference.

I learned a lot from John and Frank, and from UPlan. I learned that the real value of ArcGIS Online is not so much the features and functions that it provides; it’s the transformation it can create in the way organizations think about, and use, GIS.

John Thomas explained that as UDOT’s planning director he needed quick and convenient access to a wide variety of information to make better decisions. Of course! Unfortunately, the reality was that the information he needed was in many different forms, independently managed, and contained within silos that made it difficult to reach and discover. UPlan changed that. As John said, “it’s changing the discussion about GIS.”

One of the maps featured during the User Conference presentation was the UPlan enterprise map, comprised of many different layers coming from many different departments, now brought together in a single, dynamic application with information that is continuously updated.

The UPlan Enterprise Map - built from information contributed by different departments, bringing people (and the conversation) together over a map.

Data previously locked in disparate files or proprietary applications could now be easily accessed by anyone. Hard copy documents that were expensive to produce and were soon out of date had been replaced by live maps that can be updated frequentely, and used by a much broader audience.

Once the first few successes were achieved, John told me that others throughout the organization began to realize the benefits and began to participate as well. This growing momentum quickly transformed information access across UDOT. “I would walk over the traffic group and ask, actually beg, for their information, to download onto a flash drive I’d carry,” said John.  ”Then I would walk that flash drive over to our GIS analyst, who would then download the data off of the flashdrive, and then finally load that data into a map.” How things have changed!

Frank Pisani, UDOT’s GIS manager, described his role as a “service provider” for his organization.  ”It is my job to make sure our spatial data is available, and authoritative. ArcGIS Online is changing the way I am able to support my department, and changing the way people are thinking about maps.” No longer are map requests being satisfied with static PDF files; instead, the expectations are for live, dynamic maps shared via a link that users find in their inbox.

Frank also talked about how the ArcGIS Online-based UPlan site, custom configured to display a unique UPlan look and feel, along with a gallery ribbon of specially chosen content, provides a meeting place for all members of the organization. It’s also a place where even casual users can find needed information easily.

A gathering place for all - the UPlan home page where anyone can find and use needed geographic information.

I was permitted administrative access for a time, and was able to look behind the scenes and see how ArcGIS Online was being implemented. ArcGIS Online groups at UPlan reflected how UDOT organizes itself. “Our groups mirror the way we operate at UDOT,” Frank told me. I discovered that some of the groups are focused around collaboration on specific projects, while others are focused on different regional management units and their activities, yet others represent different departments within UDOT.

“Historically I had to be the gatekeeper to all Web publishing,” Frank said. “But now with ArcGIS Online I can empower my users to manage and deliver their own content in an organized way.”

John summarized by saying “UPlan is a place where we can bring information together, so we can all begin to collaborate with a wide range of information users, GIS users and non-GIS users alike. It helps to make us more relevant, more efficient, and more agile.”

These things all address that key aspect of a successful GIS implementation–the people. What I learned from my time spent with UDOT, and with John and Frank, is that the real value of ArcGIS Online lies not just in the details of the technical capabilities that it delivers, but in how these reflect themselves within an organization to facilitate participation, collaboration, empowerment, and communication.

Perhaps we’ve finally built software to support not just essential GIS functions, but also software that supports that elusive and all important aspect of a successful GIS–the people.