Agile GIS? Many would assert that’s a contradiction of terms. Not to Chris Spagnuolo, with whom I recently talked, and the leading evangelist for agile GIS. Chris is a manager at Data Transfer Solutions (DTS), a growing geospatial services spinout from Space Imaging, with headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Chris and some Ft. Collins cohorts, including Dave Bouwman (another agile evangelist), recently joined DTS and are developing customer solutions using the Microsoft .NET framework with ESRI’s development stack. Chris and the DTS development team adhere to the growing agile development philosophies, specifically Scrum.

Scrum is a rugby term for packs of players binding together for strategic advantage. Scrum is also a project management method that is growing in use for software development. Like much of agile, Scrum is not new, first described in an article in 1986. Its key traits are iteration and incremental progress. For a more complete explanation see Ken Schwaber’s paper “What is Scrum?“. Schwaber’s Advanced Development Methods, Inc. developed and used Scrum way back in the early 1990s. Today, some claim significant productivity increases using Scrum.

Back to Chris, who’s worked in GIS for more than a decade, in project and product management, some with ESRI. He spent time recently investigating agile practices for development and project management and began applying them to GIS projects. His blog, Chris Spagnulolo’s GeoScrum, provides ongoing commentary on his experiences using Scrum for GIS projects with DTS. The team is using Scrum for a project underway with the Colorado Department of Transportation and another with Tahoe Integrated Information Management System. All new DTS projects will apply Scrum from the start.

Chris told me that while he knows Scrum works on GIS projects because he’s seen it make a difference, clients have to be educated about the changed way of doing things. That clients can see product pieces every two weeks or so and the pace of change is rapid are foreign to those used to traditional project methodologies. The iterations and constant client review at the core of Scrum methods provide unprecedented visibility into the ongoing work.

Educating the GIS world on the benefits of Scrum is an ongoing challenge that Chris tackles with his blog as well as by working with agile proponents such as Rally Software Development Corp., an agile software development tool and services provider. With Rally, Chris can go after some tough customers such as government contractors used to fixed scope contracts that require additional presentations and seminars to understand how to contract for such projects.

While Chris promotes GeoScrum, he believes there is nothing particularly unique about GIS development and project management. All the reasons that agile and Scrum work on other projects in other markets apply here. But the GIS community, for whatever reason, seems a bit more traditional in its methods than many other sectors.

The buzz is loud around agile practices in the software development world. There are large conferences, books, Web sites, seminars, and agile-specific vendors. The big vendors in enterprise application development tools (Borland, Microsoft, IBM, BMC etc.) all have agile positions. For its part, ESRI recently hired a VP of Product Management touting his agile background. This is cause for optimism amongst agile proponents in GIS because where ESRI goes, many in GIS generally follow.

Where all of this will end up in GIS remains to be seen. But the benefits are now emerging often enough that GIS developers and project managers ought to be taking a close look at agile methods including Scrum. Short cycles and ongoing business involvement mean that Agile processes provide early warning as well as the ability to change course without too much pain during a project.

Meanwhile, while his methods may be new to GIS, Chris and the DTS team will continue to build proof for what he so strongly believes the old-fashioned way — one successful project at a time. (From left to right, the team is Mike Juniper, U.G. “Vish” Viswanath, Jeff Germain, Chris Spagnuolo, and Dave Bouwman.)

Let’s say you are an emergency coordinator dealing with a chemical spill and need to notify all police, fire, medical, and rescue professionals within a 50-mile radius. Send a message with the alert, and only those in that radius are asked to respond. Even residents of an area can subscribe to the service to receive alerts from officials should there be a disaster or other emergency.

Or you may be a retailer that has excess inventory to move in a certain store. You want all of your customers that happen to be in downtown Des Moines to know that there is a big sale going on at your store there. You don’t want to bother anyone else because the sale is local. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to send a message advertising the sale, and only people in or near downtown Des Moines get it?

SquareLoop is an emerging company that provides such services – the ability to send people messages based on where they are. The Reston, Virginia based firm today announced that Sprint is the first carrier to deploy its service, called Mobile Alert Network. Also announced is that Contra Costa County in California is the first jurisdiction to offer the company’s alerting service to its residents. I recently talked with Joe Walsh, Chief Operating Officer, and Brad Wills, Wills & Associates, representatives of the company.

A SquareLoop is an aerial acrobatic maneuver. One of the company’s early founders was an aviation buff and owned the URL. When they were thinking of a company name, he suggested it, thinking that one can draw a square or a loop on a map and send a message to everyone inside.

SquareLoop also Read all »

The Geo Factor recently interviewed Matt Ball, founder of Vector1Media, a new media company with a mission to “promote spatial design for a sustainable tomorrow.” Matt answered questions about what drove him to start the company, why sustainable living is important, and how spatial analysis is important to its achievement.

TGF: What is Vector1Media?

Vector1 Media is a new media offering with a mission to promote spatial design for a sustainable tomorrow. This new venture is an alliance between Jeff Thurston, formerly editor of Geo:Connexion and GeoInformatics and myself as former editor of GeoWorld.

The intent of our coverage is to promote the use of spatial tools for sustainable development. Sustainable development balances economic, social and environmental considerations when planning communities and infrastructure investments. The focus is on green issues, but also on areas where minimal investment in spatial tools can provide considerable financial returns.

Our content is delivered through the Vector1 Media website, daily Blog posts and the weekly V1 Newsletter. The content is a mix of news items, interviews, reviews, columns, features and opinion pieces.

TGF: Why did you start it and why now? What do you hope to accomplish with the site? What have you already accomplished?

Jeff and I have known each other for nine or more years and have shared a similar outlook on the geospatial industry. We both were experiencing a frustration at the state of mainstream geospatial press where the technology focus tends to spin the thinking toward the flavor of the moment.

While there’s a growing market for consumer-oriented GeoExploration tools, map mashups and location-based services in our mobile phones, these products and applications stray from the core promise of the geospatial toolset. Our decision to focus on sustainable development was a conscious effort to take a process-centric approach rather than technology-centric.

In addition to goals related to the use of geospatial tools for sustainable development, we’d like to see more use of spatial analysis, more realism and additional dimensions (3D and 4D), an increase in real-time data by harnessing sensor networks, and a more holistic and multidisciplinary approach to solving spatial problems.

Our site has been active since mid-September and we’re pleased that we’ve seen more than a 30% increase in traffic each month. We’ve also subscribed more than 6,000 people to our weekly e-newsletter and have seen significant traffic to our Blogs. We’re happy that our message is resonating with readers, and we’re eager to see what we can accomplish in the new year.

TGF: What is your professional background?

I worked for GeoTec Media for ten years. I started out with conferences, and was the manager of the GeoTec Event, Canada’s largest geospatial conference and tradeshow. I was also the editor of GeoWorld magazine for six years, and Business Geographics magazine for a little under a year.

Prior to GeoTec Media, I was the exhibits and marketing coordinator for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. I worked on a special software fair that presented a number of geospatial technologies to geologists, and made the connection with GeoWorld (then GIS World) at that event.

I’m a journalist by training, earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I also studied magazine publishing at New York University, and worked several years for a consumer publication in New York City prior to moving to Colorado.

TGF: The site promotes sustainable environments. Why is spatial analysis important to this?

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have a huge role to play in the stewardship of our planet. GIS have already contributed a great deal toward understanding and quantifying what is meant by sustainability, and will continue to contribute to our understanding of Earth systems interaction.

Sustainable development is at the confluence of economic vitality, healthy communities and sustaining the environment. Sustainable development also must relate to meeting present needs with a great deal of forethought to future needs.

There are a lot of metrics to follow and quantify at all scales of sustainable development, and there’s a need to integrate information from disparate systems and sensors in order to understand the large picture. A robust data handling and visual communication system is the most efficient means to arrive at a consensus, and this is where GIS shines.

To date there hasn’t been much geospatial community or GIS vendor action to create Read all »

Last year The Geo Factor lamented about how analyst predictions are, mostly, self-serving shams. We shouldn’t take them too seriously. But this year I decided to join the fray. What the heck – it’s a new year. Count on these geo things happening in 2008.

GPS Meets Reality TV. With the writers’ strike dragging on, CBS signs up Garmin and Rand McNally to create a new reality TV show. Dubbed “Lost … and Found?” two teams of contestants compete for the $1 million prize. Both teams are dropped in remote parts of the earth, one team with a GPS device, the other with paper maps. The team that reaches the destination first, wins. The contest rages on for weeks, but ends with no winners because none of them know how to read maps or follow directions.

New Meets Old. While many pundits predicted the growth of traffic services on GPS-enabled cell phones, 2008 brings a different popular solution to the forefront. Combining the power of GPS with the world’s oldest profession, cell phone makers see rapid growth in a new application used by johns to find their entertainment. Pimps worldwide protest vehemently as they are disintermediated by the new app, carefully dubbed “ho-nav” by none other than the resurgent Don Imus. Al Sharpton and Nokia immediately call for his firing.

Google Expands Map Services Again. In a bold move to grow it’s provision of geographic information, Google announces it will map everything below the surface of the earth, including sewers, natural gas pipelines, geologic formations, skeletons, and anything else under there. Google ridicules existing infrastructure and underground data sources, saying, “Those sources are for the one in a zillion people who oversee the infrastructure. Our data will be for everyone else.” In a move many interpret as a response to Google’s announcement, Microsoft renames Windows Vista to “Thermal Core”.

GPS Finds New Uses. 2008 finds many new uses for GPS chips, as they shrink in size and grow in sophistication. In one exciting development, engineers at SIRF figure out how to implant GPS chips and receivers into human sperm and eggs, possibly solving a big problem for many infertile couples. The ACLU immediately protests, citing the right of every sperm to go wherever it pleases without intervention.

Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) Made in China. In a widely anticipated move, China expands its manufacturing of personal navigation devices in 2008. As the devices reach the automobile market, police reports begin to show correlation between excessively speeding motorists and the new China-made PNDs. A Consumer Electronics Association study finds excessive lead in the devices, prompting a massive replacement program, dubbed the “lead foot” recall.

GIS Decides the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. Computer mapping becomes so advanced in 2008 that it decides to move from its after-the-fact-here’s-a-pretty-map status. GIS developers, tired of lingering in the shadows of modern computing, decide it’s time to move the new automated voting machines out of their prominence by rigging them with geobots that steal votes based on geography. The ruse goes undetected until FOX TV announces that ESRI founder Jack Dangermond wins the electoral vote. Hillary demands a recount, but Bill talks her out of it by saying, “Honey, geography was your worst subject in high school. And besides, the White House needs a new GIS.”

Well, surely much more will happen in 2008 tied to the growing use of maps and location-based information by consumers and businesses. The Geo Factor wishes its readers a happy, prosperous, and location-based 2008; and please tell your friends where to find us.

All of the news about the Wii this holiday season has been about its scarcity. If anyone has been worrying about location and the Wii, it is about where to find one. While the Nintendo game platform is not new, the company apparently could not keep up with demands this holiday season. However, my crafty wife landed one a couple months ago so I’ve played it the first time recently. While the games are sure unique, using the motion of the remote to take action, there is an incredible implementation of news and weather reports tied to maps that seems to have gone almost unnoticed.

To get the Wii news and weather, one has to buy the Internet connectivity for $5. Once connected, the Wii has separate news and weather applications regularly updated over the Internet. So what? There are countless news and weather sites on the Internet and channels on TV. But like its games, the Wii news and weather are different.

It’s different because on the Wii, the news and weather are tied to interactive image maps. With NASA earth imagery as their backgrounds, the weather and news show on their locations on a globe. There is zooming and panning, making you feel powerful, moving the globe like the Greek god Atlas. Go anywhere and see the weather – for the larger cities. See news in an area with the pictures stacked up in the location the news occurred. Or review the news by category, select the story of interest, and see the full text next to the NASA image of the place.

I find the geographic interactivity of these Wii news and weather applications unique. It provides a sense of place and control over earth observation tied to current events. Kudos to Nintendo for creating a fun and interesting way to give news and weather while teaching people to see the places. Now if Nintendo only would show a map of where to buy one of these hot game machines …