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My new office…

You may have picked up on the rumors that I have a new job, well it’s true !!

This week I joined Google as the Geospatial Technologist for EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and to say I am excited would be somewhat of an understatement.
Google Door

Google (and yes Microsoft and Yahoo as well 🙂 ) have had a massive positive impact on the traditional GI industry and are developing truly innovative ways of distributing and exploiting geographic information – and there is still much more to come !

The “heavy lifting” of the data providers and sophisticated software tools developers is still a very important part of the industry which after-all is data driven, but through the efforts of Google the information is getting into the hands of a new community of some 200 million users, when they need it, and how they need it.

It’s really important that the world of neogeography and the more established industry come together as there is much to learn from both ends of the spectrum, there is already much good working going on to integrate geoRSS and KML with existing OGC standards for example.

Google lives up to its reputation – I feel like I’m back at university, really bright people getting on and solving problems, but unlike most university departments or corporate research units, with all the resources needed to do so – and yes there are lots of Lava lamps, as much free food and drink as you could cope with, and a games room 🙂

I have been smiling continuously for the last week, but I can see life is going to get really busy !!

Written and submitted from home, using my home 802.11 network.

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53 replies on “My new office…”

Cool stuff Ed. I think you’re the right bloke, in the right place, at the right time – now all you have to do is live up to the hype.

Have fun, and carry on pushing the open source message.

Ed, MANY congratulations to a past Kingston employee from a current one. I’d like to echo Steve Chilton and invite you to contribute to The Cartographic Journal at some stage…what about a ‘Google’ based Special Issue?
Regards
Ken Field
Principal Lecturer in GIS
Editor The Cartographic Journal
Kingston University

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