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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | Re: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS" |
| Date: |
04/04/2003 08:55:01 AM |
| From: |
Glenn Letham (GeoCommunity) |
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Exactly,
Unfortunately nobody is going to come out and ramble on about GIS and how
its the "killer app" - particularly on prime time TV, however, those who are
truly interested will dig deeper and realize that GIS and related
technologies are the backbone of the applications that we are seeing. Look
at National Geographic as an example. We've all been looking at the nifty
maps that fall out of the yellow magazine for years now, yet when do you
ever hear them discussing GIS? Same with the "District", we all know about
the cool analysis that they do every week on the TV show, yet ESRI and
discussions of GIS are delegated to a supporting role.
This isn't really anything new and after all... GIS is a decision support
tool/system isn't it?
Think of this as a great opportunity to help you explain to others what you
do. How often do people ask you about GIS... now you can tell em "remember
the EarthViewer fly over of Iraq" or "have you ever seen the show The
District"
Cheers
Glenn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glenn Letham, Managing Editor
ThinkBurst Media, Inc
ph: 850-897-6778
fx: 850-897-1001
GeoCommunity - http://www.GeoComm.com
GIS Careers - http://careers.geocomm.com
GIS RFPs - http://geobids.geocomm.com
Wireless DevNet - http://www.wirelessdevnet.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Hoskins" <healthmaps@attbi.com>
To: <gislist@geocomm.com>
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 7:43 AM
Subject: RE: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
Totally right-on comment. When I show up at community meetings with cool
maps and statistical models of why the such and such death rate near a
toxic waste site is higher than elsewhere, I sort of have my feelings
hurt because the community passes right over the technology, GIS,
computation, and statistical effort that it took to produce the results.
Then I remind myself that is exactly why we are using the technology in
the first place, that is, so citizens and policy makers can focus on the
problem and not on some arcane process outside their scope and interest.
When technology becomes transparent - we have done our job.
Richard E. Hoskins
WA State Dept of Health
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Gould [mailto:gould@lsi.uji.es]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2003 5:27 AM
To: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: Re: GISList: NPR, CNN, Iraq & the elusive "GIS"
Anthony seems surprised that people on the street i.e. the press, do not
talk about GIS.
This seems strange to some of us deeply embedded in the GIS field, but
in
the end "normal" people care about results, not the technologies behind
the
scenes. I can imagine that experts in tire rubber compounds are amazed
that
Formula-1 commentators only talk about speed, positions, how much
drivers
get paid, etc. and do not focus enough on how well a certain tire seems
to
be adhering :-)
Earthviewer lets people see Bagdad. They don't care how many GISs it
took
to produce each view or which SUN server is driving the web site.
Just an observation.
cheers
Mike Gould
sig below
At 16:22 03/04/2003 -0500, Anthony Quartararo wrote:
>Just listened to an NPR report on the media's use of various
>graphic-intensive tools to illustrate the ongoing war in Iraq. It was
>a nice piece, Keyhole's CEO had a few blurbs, and DigitalGlobe got a
>few plugs too. I've seen the new coverage and the celebrity anchors
>and talking heads use the "John Madden War Telestrator" tools (aka.
>Earthviewer with Digital Globe). Not once though, did Keyhole's CEO or
>even the NPR commentator mention "GIS", "spatial information",
>"geography" or even the ambiguous "location-based services". My first
>reaction is one of yet another opportunity lost to plant the "GIS flag"
>firmly in the public's view, but after a few minutes of reflection, I
>can't seem to make the case for why this is truly a "lost opportunity".
>The public is well aware, now at least, of the ability and tools
>available to bring information (the good, the bad and the ugly) right
>into their own homes in near real-time. Keyhole's CEO admitted that
>they had never really anticipated Earthviewer.com would be used in the
>way the TV media has for this war (hindsight on this would scream "why
>not..."), and so the Keyhole engineers have been swamped with trying to
>keep up with traffic generated by coverage on TV. It's good for
>business, as the claim of subscription's doubling in the last 2 weeks
>is no doubt good for business, it is also good for the industry, and
>further solidifies growing evidence that GIS is mainstream. If going
>mainstream means that "GIS" loses it's relative identity, that may be
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