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Editor's note:
These letters were sent in response to the editorial by Roland
Mangold in the Sept 2001 issue of EOM - it can be read on EOM's
web site at: https://www.eomonline.com/Common/currentissues/Sept01/editorial.htm
Dear Mr. Mangold:
While I respect your right to editorialize on the benefits of
the GeoData Alliance (GDA), as a state GIS coordinator, actually
tasked with coordinating GIS instead of writing about it, I
must respectfully but strongly disagree. Your recognition of
the size of the geospatial community is correct, however your
assessment that the state of affairs is fragmented and in disrepair
couldn't be further from the truth. It is in GDA's best interest
to perpetuate this myth since this group's only authority is
derived from within GDA, through their own self-anointment and
their exclusive mutual admiration. They have no real legitimacy
such as the FGDC or state councils have. They perpetuate their
illusion of legitimacy by intimidation of non-inclusion in "their
version" of the movement. Additionally, it is precisely the
size and diversity of the Geospatial community that makes it
so absurd to think that a governing body as proposed by the
GDA is representative enough to guide this movement.
Unfortunately, efforts promoting
GDA may eventually harm legitimate existing efforts at sector-wide
coordination. The combination of local coordination, sector
based (FGDC, NSGIC, NACO, IGC, UCGIS, MAPPS etc.) activities,
and forums held occasionally to bring these groups together,
was progressing quite nicely. Apparently, the for-profit sector
wasn't in enough control this way. Your statement "this industry
needs to pull together to address the issues that fall across
all sectors" pretty much sums GDA up - an industry attempt to
regulate both itself and others for private and not public benefit.
GDA, like a pesky mosquito, is sucking up precious funding and
energy from existing, successful coordination efforts ($500,000
plus and still counting after three years of fluffy rhetoric
and zero action).
Finally, I find GDA to be an
insipid attempt to establish a pretentious organization of theorists
on top (around, upside-down - it isn't clear) of the people
who really do the work. Any organization that has as an agenda
item "book signings by the famous authors among us" is not one
that most state GIS coordinators want anything to do with. While
the GDA mantra is "If not this, then what" my personal mantra
is " If you got time for GDA then you got way too much time".
My wish for those who attend the Geodata Forum in Denver is
to have a warm, fuzzy, theoretical, chaordic time, and then
disband the whole shebang and get back to the real GIS coordination
efforts that can and will succeed.
Sincerely,
Stewart Kirkpatrick
State GIS Coordinator
State of Montana
Dear Roland:
Thank you for serving on the 2001 National GeoData Forum Steering
Committee. In your September editorial: Forum for All Seasons
and All Reasons-you predicted the Forum would be "a unique
and auspicious opportunity for us all". How right you were!
Praise for the 2001 National GeoData Forum has been rolling
in since the end of the conference, Nov. 1-3 in Denver. In unsolicited
emails, participants said they enjoyed the opportunity to discuss
shared problems and to plot collaborative solutions. Others
said the one-year-old GeoData Alliance has already proven itself
a key asset to the GIS and geospatial data community.
The forum was convened with one
central objective: to share success stories on collaborative
efforts. Collaboration was the focus of two panel discussions,
which were sandwiched between a range of speakers, workshops,
an evening dance and hallway shop talk about new applications.
The Nov. 2 panel, "Stories from
the Field: What does it take to create and sustain a successful
collaboration?" was moderated by Jan Hauser of Sun Microsystems
and featured John Moeller, David Schell, Victoria Reinhardt
and James Duckens-all engaged in efforts to improve the use
of GIS in the public and private sectors.
Saturday's panel, "Bridging the
Public Private Divide in the Rocky Mountain West," was the forum's
most raucous discussion. Moderated by Joan Fitzpatrick, deputy
regional director of the USGS, panelists and audience members
shared their frustrations, offered advice, promised to work
together to overcome obstacles to public-private ventures and
pledged to push standardization and interoperability.
Many agreed that a lack of public
funding and reluctance on the part of the private sector to
share proprietary data are major roadblocks. Others said that
it is important for all members of the GIS community, whether
public, private or nonprofit, to remember the tremendous societal
and environmental improvements that geospatial data can reap
if people collaborate. The keynote speakers urged the GIS community
to use its skills for the common good, to bridge the divide
between scientists and policymakers and to work diligently toward
data standards. All the speakers agreed that spatial technology's
potential to improve policymaking, the environment, and community
planning has yet to be fully tapped.
Speaker Harlan Cleveland spoke
of his days in the Kennedy administration and offered this advice:
The development of public-interest goals is best entrusted to
committed individuals "whose source of interest is not derived
from their paycheck."
Mark Schaefer, CEO and president
of NatureServe, addressed the ability of data to assist policymaking,
from disaster preparation to environmental planning, urban growth
and conservation priorities. There is tremendous interest in
geospatial data, but much of it is "not readily understood or
known about by policymakers."
Economist and author Hal Varian
spoke of the historic tendency to over-invest in technological
innovation and the ensuing strategies for survival in a poor
economy. As the geospatial data community works toward standards,
he said it is better to standardize one component at a time
rather than all at once. Your thought-provoking editorial convinced
many people to find out for themselves what the GeoData Alliance
is all about. They discovered as you predicted that the "GDA
is an open forum where all sectors can have a voice in this
process". Again, thank you for your many contributions to the
community.
Warm regards,
Kathy L. Covert
2001 National GeoData Forum
Project Manager
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