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Google's Ed Parsons Keynote at GeoTec 2007, Calgary

posted by Satri on Wednesday May 16, @02:15AM   Printer-friendly   Email story  Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the if-speeches-were-a-perfect-map dept.
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Participating at GeoTec 2007, Calgary, here's my summary of Ed Parsons' Keynote, which was one hour of pure geowisdom. Read more below for my summary.
Ed underlined he was sharing his personal views, not the ones of Google or the Ordnance Survey. Geospatial is not your fathers industry anymore, thanks to Yahoo, Google and the others for making neogeography main stream. A whole new language and set of terminology appeared (OGC, REST, LBS, GeoWeb, Metaverse, etc). Defining neogeography. Industry: from professional users widening to a larger audience. Geography at Google vs Google's mission. GeoData is everywhere, most data in databases have a geolocation component. Open source as an alternative: open source is here to stay... there is a lack of understanding from the big industry regarding geospatial open source. OpenStreetMap with the OpenLayers interface shown. User generated content is now omnipresent (e.g. thus the new Google MyMaps). The geospatial industry is not known for innovation: innovation comes from places you might not have thought of. We forget how hard it was to put a map on a website only a few years ago. Google/Yahoo!/Microsoft will not kill the traditional geospatial industry, but one can see further if standing on shoulders of giants. Technology has changed significantly, there are now new types of businesses (e.g. iTunes), and the costs of infrastructures are falling. Web 2.0: (a) software as a service (e.g. ArcGIS Explorer, WMS), (b) the wisdom of crowds (Tele Atlas' Map Insight), (c) data as the Intel Inside (e.g. Google Earth): data becomes more important than the application, (d) lightweight programming (e.g. mashups): what's the value of mashups? Combination is adding value, (e) cross device applications, (f) engaging user interface (which reminds me of last years' GeoTec keynote from Peter Morville), (g) community generated data: Darfur - using geodata to tell stories efficiently, (h) standards. Lessons from neogeography: look to the edge to innovate, keep it simple, empower your users, content is king, heavy lifting still needed, you (us, geospatial professionals) no longer represent the user: 200,000,000 users of Google Earth.

 
I liked Ed's speech very much, I am now a confirmed Ed Parsons fan! ;-) Additional notes: (1) Ed also participated to the 1h30 panel discussion that took place right after the keynote. (2) Ed was using a MacBook and his stunningly beautiful presentation was made with Apple's Keynote presentation software. I hate to say this, but this commercial software blasts away Microsoft's Powerpoint or OpenOffice's Impress. I used it myself and it's surprising how better the experience is, not only the presentation itself, but building the presentation. Whatever my enthusiast, Apple's Keynote does not support OpenOffice open standard ODP format yet. (3) Sorry Chad, NASA World Wind was not mentioned...

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