The last week of July, as many of you are likely aware of, was when ESRI held their 19th annual user conference in San Diego, CA. I had the pleasure of attending this event - my first ESRI UC and I'm already looking forward to next year's conference. The event attracted over 9000 attendees, featured over 700 paper presentations, exhibited over 200 vendor and demonstration booths, not to mention the map gallery taking up the same area as a football field, technical workshops, special interest groups, commercially hosted parties, a kids camp and much more - this event is HUGE! Anyone who is unsure as to exactly how large of an impact ESRI and GIS in general is having on our lives should attend an ESRI UC at least once and be prepared to be blown-away by an awe-inspiring showcase of almost 10,000 GISers like the event that I was exposed to.
 

Conference Highlights:

Fun stuff 
Book signing of "Geographical Information Systems: Principles, techniques, applications, and management" by DR. M. Goodchild & Dr. D Maguire.

Map Gallery reception and oceans GIS exhibition - this event on the first night got everyone wandering around the floor with their complimentary beverages and mingling amongst the hundreds of posters on display and the showcase of GIS in coastal zone management and related "Ocean" concentrated GIS projects conducted by NGS, NOAA and others. Interesting for me since I've worked in coastal and marine applications involving GIS for the past 6 years.

A photo opportunity with Jack Dangermond (actually a cardboard cutout of him!). I stood by the cutout and asked a passerby to take a shot of me. I was thinking, wouldn't it be funny if the person I asked to take the picture was actually Jack himself!

5k fun run/walk along the waterfront and the boardwalk.

ESRI golf tournament at the Carmel Mountain Ranch Country Club

Opening day Plenary session
Jack Dangermond gave a very inspirational speech - many people commented that this was the best speech ever delivered by him. He enthusiastically powered through a slide show that offered up numerous images and examples of how people are using ESRI software. This was done very effectively in order to convey the many different ways in which different organizations are achieving common goals using the power of geography (and ESRI tools of course).

Jack's vision
Jack sees the future favouring GIS and reiterates the importance that is to be placed on "geo" knowledge. In the future, geographic information will be everywhere and geographers will be the managers and disseminators of this information. He used as a small example, opening the "Arizona Republic" one morning and noticing several maps in it. This was a small way of confirming to us that geography is indeed everywhere and more importantly, a common means for us to gsather and convey information.  A vision of Jack's is that a new form of accounting will be offered by GIS. A way of accounting for biodiversity, accounting at various scales (national, county, watershed).

GIO
Jack has proposed that organizations emphasize the importance of Geographic information by forming a new position. A Geographic Information Officer (GIO) is to be an executive officer responsible for geographic information, rather than GIS falling under the IT realm. This will likely be a term that we will all become accustomed to seeing - note the USGS has recently advertised for a GIO. This position will fill the role of someone I charge of data, data itegrity, and data security.

When I asked Jack about ESRI's private rather than publicly held status he admited that it is not an easy thing for companies to do today, particularly in light of the rapid mergers and acquisitions that occur in the technology sector and with hi-tech companies. He is proud to discuss how he and his wife paid themselves a small salary for 4 years to get things off the ground. They take pride in the fact that ESRI is debt free and he indicates that this is a fundamental key in building a business or even getting your own personal finances in order. With the company being privately held, ESRI is allowed to focus on the task at hand. In 30 years ESRI has only made 2 small acquisitions in order to strengthen their position in certain areas.

Challenges
Like any business, there are challenges and obstacles to face. Jack see's the main challenge in the GIS industry as being data. People need to know more about data management. A solution towards this challenge is to get the GIS department out of the IT department. GIS, he summarizes nicely, "is becoming a mainstream". I believe that GIS is not becoming but actually is a mainstream.
It is easy to agree with Jack, particularly when you pick up the newspaper (like I did with the "USA Today" on Wed. July 28) and find a full page spread on GIS in the tech section. Is it coincidence that this was run during the same week as the ESRI conference?

2000 Conference
The 2000 ESRI US is already in the planning stages. It is set for June 26-30, 2000 at the San Diego convention center again.

Submission deadline for abstract submissions is October 29, 1999. Conference registration deadline is May 19, 2000.