00:01Well, I want to now move on to the vision of this conference, the theme of this conference, GIS Opening Our World.

00:11And let's start with this. You and I live on a little planet.

00:19We breathe the same air. We're also increasingly concerned about our future.

00:26Your own personal future, the future of your families, the future of your communities, the future of your countries...

00:34...even the future of life itself on the planet.

00:40The evidence suggests that all of these concerns are going to be challenging for you and me for the rest of our lives...

00:48...and for our organizations.

00:50We're also living in a time, however, when scientific discovery and technological advancements are accelerating.

01:01They're like no other time, and we read about this, but when you begin to sit back and think about the huge discoveries...

01:09...that are happening, we're creating data about just about everything, and tons of data, big data.

01:18But data actually is not enough.

01:20Clearly we need more integrated knowledge and ways to be able to create better outcomes.

01:30Do something in the way of footprints, like the Trust for Public Land has done, which creates a future...

01:37...different than the so-called trends that are so disturbing to us and will be challenging to us.

01:45Geography is our platform for understanding the world.

01:49Roger Tomlinson taught me this many years ago.

01:52By the way, this is the 50th-year anniversary of GIS and we have a lot to thank Roger for, let's just do it right now.

02:10And GIS makes it come alive.

02:13It makes geography come alive.

02:17GIS condenses down all the data and our information and our knowledge and our science into a kind of language...

02:26...that we can easily understand.

02:29Maps. Maps help us integrate our knowledge, but they also help us apply our knowledge...

02:35...the very work that I just showed of yours a few minutes ago, represent it.

02:40Maps also tell stories about, just about everything.

02:45We need to learn how to make these maps your kinds of maps.

02:50Maps about decisions, and more efficiency, more pervasive, opening up our world.

03:01We also need to learn how to make maps that create better outcomes.

03:06Geodesign maps, maps about creating a better future.

03:11These are the two big challenges that you as professionals can help today work on.

03:19Now I'm pretty, I'm pretty confident that we can actually do this.

03:24One of the reasons I'm confident is that GIS itself is advancing, it's getting more powerful, it's getting easier to use.

03:34It's evolving with lots of new capabilities, and it's also moving to a new platform, cloud. I like to call this cloud GIS.

03:43It's many things, but that's how I'll call it and refer [to] it in this presentation.

03:49The notion of this platform is that it allows geography to be pervasive, to create pervasive understanding.

03:58Not just simple, simple maps, but the deep kinds of knowledge that you have.

04:03GIS is evolving and advancing a kind of leveraging many other trends that are occurring that are interesting...

04:10...more measurement, more data, more computing, faster computing, cloud computing, SaaS computing, personal computing...

04:20...device computing, apps.

04:23And also GIS is coevolving with science itself, again, leveraging all of the big stuff, the big science trends that are occurring.

04:35The convergence of all of this is enabling us and will enable us to reimagine our world, not only the real world...

04:45...but also the world of GIS or your field.

04:49It's going to allow us to integrate geographic knowledge into everything we do, meaning everything everyone does.

04:58Today we have two and a half billion people connected with devices.

05:04Imagine the implication of this over time.

05:08This cloud GIS enables pervasive access; it integrates our traditional GIS, your work, desktop servers...

05:17...with a whole new pervasive world of apps.

05:22It makes what has been scarce, not that you haven't shared your stuff enough, but it makes that relatively scarce commodity...

05:31...your knowledge, abundant; it provides geography as a platform.

05:39Cloud GIS integrates all types of geospatial information.

05:44Maps, of course, and data, imagery, the new dimensions of social media, and crowdsourced information, and sensor networks.

05:53As we wire up the world, we can bring this together in a platform which is accessible. 00:05:59

06:09This model changes the discussion; it breaks down the barriers between different workflows and disciplines...

06:17...and it brings them together.

06:20Web maps provide this medium for integration and understanding.

06:26This will enable us to better collaborate and share and approach problem solving more holistically.

06:34You've seen probably this diagram before; well not exactly this diagram, but something like it, in the '80s and in the '90s.

06:45We would've looked at a database cam in the center, but database cams didn't make it because they were too rigid...

06:53...we couldn't get everybody to collaborate around common data models.

06:56This is different; this is a new agile and flexible environment, and we are already starting to see organizations adopt this pattern.

07:08Organizations are adopting this pattern rapidly.

07:12One of our partners, the Eye on Earth network in Europe, Jacqueline McGlade, who runs the European Environment Agency...

07:23...was an early adopter of this and used it saying, I'd like to put my data in the cloud. 00:07:28

07:36But then when she put it in there she began to share it, and other people started to do the same thing, the UN, the World Bank...

07:43...US government agencies.

07:45And what they discovered was not only can they get these advantages, they also can start to share information...

07:53...through this new medium of web maps.

07:56They began to create a new kind of infrastructure.

08:01By the way, I'd like to recognize Eye on Earth not only for their great partnership, but also a couple weeks ago they were in Rio...

08:08...and the whole Rio delegation embraced this as a foundation for organizing environmental data for the entire planet.

08:18It's quite an achievement.

08:20This is about creating geography in a pervasive environment as a platform.

08:27Geography as a platform, the theme of the conference, will open our world, the theme of the conference.

08:34And we're going to spend a lot of this morning talking about the enabling technology that is now here to do it.

08:43And also what it takes to embrace these sorts of patterns, and also we'll talk about the culture of collaboration and sharing...

08:53...and this isn't about we have to do something; it's actually just quite naturally emerging.

08:59This whole thought is going to help us reimagine the role of GIS in our organizations.

09:08It's of course going to help us better accomplish our work, your work, and so it's very exciting to me at this particular moment.