Next week I will be attending the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, and if it has anything like the impact the conference had last year on the Geographic Information world, it will not disappoint.
Although last year saw major announcements from the GYM club, it was the presentations from people like Nathan Eagle and the father of mash-ups Paul Rademacher who really demonstrated the paradigm shift that is happening in the use of geographic information.
Neither Nathan or Paul come from the “traditional” GIS industry and although it is not unusual for innovation to come from the edge of an existing domain, it is causing a real cultural clash with the established industry.
The “mash-up” community have a different culture and a different world view to the traditional industry, this was perfectly illustrated this week in the blogosphere with a discussion around how the developing GeoRSS standard is taken forward, with well argued points made by Allan Doyle in his blog, where he expresses concerns as to the potential for OGC to “hijack” the standard.
The OGC, I hope in this case, wish only to move towards greater adoption of GeoRSS, but may have to modify their processes radically in recognition that the dynamic of the industry has changed – a point many other organisations representing the “traditional” GI industry would do well to recognise.
If you are travelling to where 2.0 drop me a line – It would be good to catch up over a beer and meet in real life.
Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.
