00:01Hi, my name is Jack Dangermond, and I'm going to talk about the dimensions and directions...

00:09...of what I think are happening in the geospatial field.

00:13In science, in government, in consumer worlds, et cetera.

00:18I think we're entering into what I would call a new modality.

00:21And we've seen this and read about these kinds of things in other fields.

00:26For example, when film was first invented, the way they did it was film stage plays.

00:31And that was interesting because you could film stage play acting and put it in the can...

00:36...and ship it out and take it to many theaters...

00:38...and that acting activity was disseminated everywhere.

00:43And then people learned that you could take the camera outside and do live performances...

00:47...and we entered a whole new modality of film.

00:51When people began to play around with digital text, the first generation to some extent were still here...

00:58...was make electronic books and put them into these called nooks or other little devices...

01:03...and we can page through them and read books, and it's interesting.

01:07But what about Wikipedia and living books and living stories?

01:11Or, at the age of a new modality of dissemination of living text and living reading?

01:18And we're figuring that out right now.

01:21With maps it was the same thing.

01:22We went from paper maps to digital maps.

01:24And the first efforts were largely based on CAD.

01:27We would automate the map, and then we could disseminate the map just like in theater, and stage plays.

01:34Lots of people could see the map, but we didn't really leverage the map.

01:38We could change the scales, of course, and so on.

01:41And then GIS came along and we were able to build a data model of geographic stuff behind the map.

01:48That allowed us to create many different maps from the same data and combine the data and do spatial analytics.

01:55It became a new modality, and the world changed.

01:59We could share this data, we could share the knowledge.

02:01And we've really been living in that modality for some decades.

02:07We're now entering a new modality for GIS.

02:10One that is on the Web.

02:12And the first generation was we put maps on the Web in the '90s...

02:16...and then the invention of these slippy maps and Web maps, as they're called...

02:22...with cached information came about and people began to interact with these maps...

02:26...like contribute information back.

02:28The age of volunteered geographic information emerged.

02:31And then distributed GISs that were served and could be mashed up and integrated.

02:37We could do distributed GIS, and the world is changing.

02:42And just like with film, we're right in the midst of an enormous change.

02:48What is this change going to result in?

02:50I think we're seeing it already.

02:52On one hand, the development of integrated systems.

02:58So instead of just buying a desktop or buying a server or buying a mobile device...

03:04...we're seeing the emergence of GIS systems where all these devices are connected on the Web...

03:10...with a warehouse of geographic information...data and maps and analytic models and workflows.

03:20Data models...people are beginning to share this.

03:24So we're creating, collectively, an ecosystem of knowledge.

03:29So when I buy a desktop, I connect it into the Web and I can get other people's maps, I can get their data.

03:35I can download information.

03:37I can use their models, their services.

03:39And the age of geoservices is emerging.

03:42What does this mean?

03:43It means that government agencies will continue to use GIS exactly as they have in the past.

03:49They will buy technology, they'll automate their maps, they'll make better decisions because of that.

03:54They'll integrate science into their work.

03:57They'll communicate more effectively and they'll drive efficiency...

04:01...like FedEx does, and all of these interesting private sector companies.

04:06But at the same time, many of them are connecting into this ecosystem.

04:11They're drawing on cloud information resources, integrated basemaps for the planet, for example, or datasets or Landsat.

04:19And they use them in system, in their enterprise systems or their desktop systems.

04:24And at the same time, they're sharing much of their content into the infrastructure.

04:29This term, the spatial information, or SDI spatial data infrastructure, is actually coming alive...

04:39...finally with the emergence of GIS on the Web.

04:43I buy an iPhone, I have GIS on it, and I access this ecosystem.

04:48Just like when I buy an iPhone and I access Apple's marvelous ecosystem...

04:54...of music and the Web and all of these things.

04:58This is right in the midst of a new modality for GIS where it's multiparticipant...it's distributed.

05:05People build on top of their existing workflows and activities...

05:10...geographic knowledge that is sharable and usable.

05:15How is this coming about?

05:16It's being driven by five main elements.

05:19The first is the technology itself.

05:22The hardware is getting cheaper, faster...all of the Moore's Law stuff...

05:28...and now being put onto mobile devices and on the Web, and connected.

05:34That's one.

05:35And that just continues to evolve.

05:37A second evolution is measurement itself.

05:40We started with digitizing maps 40 years ago, and then remote sensing and more automated techniques...

05:46...for capture, and then sensor networks...

05:50...where we could actually sense online and connect it to the networks...

05:54...and have real-time information coming in.

05:56And now, crowd sourcing.

05:58Individuals, citizens, can input measurements into GIS on the Web.

06:04We can get volunteered geographic information into these systems.

06:08And that's making our systems become more real-time and alive and available to everyone...

06:15...through mobile devices and this emergence of the Web and geo on the Web.

06:21A third trend that's emerging is the software tools themselves.

06:24We've moved from mainframes to minis to workstations to PC software and client/server and enterprise.

06:32And now, putting all of these systems in the one system, connected by Web and Web services.

06:38This is just very exciting, because it says that we can create, author, data in our desktop; share it on a server...

06:47...access it by anything; share it with our friends; share it with everybody...

06:52...or keep it in a more proprietary environment.

06:58This is going very fast.

06:59We're adding 3D.

07:01Time is now an integral part to space in geography.

07:05Being able to visualize better, more real-time kinds of activities.

07:11This...this is a march that keeps going on, which is very exciting to me.

07:17A fourth dimension is that this technology is affecting what we know, our science.

07:23We're able to understand and model processes on the planet.

07:27Everything from soil erosion to where it's best to grown particular products.

07:32We're able to understand and interpret biology systems, health...

07:38...the science of geography is evolving, now moving into social networks...

07:43...and the integration of social networking technologies and systems with geospatial technologies...

07:50...is giving us new insight into how humans behave.

07:55And finally, at the same time, as these other four things are occurring...

08:00...we're seeing the emergence of new, open data sharing policies.

08:05This is driven by sometimes political initiatives.

08:09In my country, we're seeing it actually from the top.

08:13The president of the U.S. himself is driving it.

08:16But also, we're seeing in state and local governments.

08:19The willingness to share data and get citizens involved, promoting citizens engagement in government...

08:27...is a healthy way to have open democracy...is occurring.

08:31It's a fifth dimension to what's occurring in the development of geospatial systems.

08:38What does all of this mean?

08:40I see in the future the connecting of all systems for collection.

08:47Authoritative source datasets and the emergence of a geospatial infrastructure connected through the Web.

08:56And open, based on standards, accessible, so that many vendors can participate...

09:03...and many application developers, coders can build apps on top of the infrastructure...

09:09...and push along better behavior in our government.

09:14Push along better understanding so our business are more efficient.

09:18Push along citizen understanding about the world, what's occurring here.

09:23Our environment...push along efficiencies, push along communication...

09:28...because maps are logical instruments for communicating stories of what's going on.

09:34This is...this is a big idea.

09:37On the other hand, I'm as certain as I'm standing....I'm certain as I'm standing here that this evolution will occur.

09:45In terms of the way it'll occur, I see it emerging in two forms.

09:50One is a government-business-academic-dominated, distributed environment.

09:55Many nodes feeding into one networked system, distributed much like the Web itself.

10:01And second, into systems that are clustered around search like we see with Microsoft and Google today.

10:09Maps that are a platform that express map services and location services.

10:15And they'll be different kinds of information that are emerging on these multiple platforms.

10:21In one case, authoritative source information that describes the basic civil society in our science...

10:28...and on the other case, new kinds of information that are collected by following traces...

10:33...of how cell phones move around, building applications about location and location interaction.

10:41That'll...that will affect behavior of individuals in their daily lives...everything from search to behavior expressions.

10:50In the case of the governments systems and the building of infrastructure, it will affect the way...

10:55...people at the societal level make decisions in government.

10:59It will drive the way businesses operate, driving more efficiency and better decisions.

11:06So these are two infrastructures, and they will mix and share information.

11:11Interoperability standards on the Web itself mean that they can feed each other.

11:17We can use the Web to reach consumer information with authoritative source and vice versa.

11:22Consumer data and personal behavior data will mix into this kind of emerging infrastructure.

11:30So you, in the geospatial field, from the executive down to the technician, are working in a field that's growing very fast.

11:40It's emerging and will provide a new kind of knowledge for us to behave and evolve into the future.

11:49An infrastructure which will look at all of the footprints of human beings on the planet...

11:56...and guide us in terms of where we put our footprints, how we build...

12:00...how we develop, the decisions that we make...

12:03...areas that we can serve, areas that we protect, areas that we develop.

12:08All human behavior and activities will be guided with these geospatial infrastructures...

12:15...which are increasingly socially available to everyone.

12:19I challenge you to play harder than this, because I think our future depends upon it.

12:26I think it's important.

12:28Thank you.