I have been quite busy lately -- not only with GIS stuff, but with the launch of our corporate branding and web design and development division. We are now live and operational. Check us out at ENT3R.com.

        

Did not forget the blog -- have been extremely busy, that's all. Will be back, eventually.

        

The biennial MAC URISA conference took place April 7-9, 2008 at the Enterprise Center, Burlington County, Mount Laurel, New Jersey.  The conference had a new format (two-day conference plus one day workshops) and a new venue.  I liked both, even though I had to travel farther.

Dr. David Robinson of Rutgers University gave the keynote address.  Dr. Robinson is also the New Jersey State climatologist, and was introduced by Seth Hackman (MAC URISA Treasurer and a former student of Dr. Robinson’s) as a Nobel Prize winner. 

Beginning his address, Dr. Robinson humbly refuted Seth’s introduction, stating that he was merely a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore.  Dr. Robinson proceeded to present a stimulating address on global climate change and GIS.

I had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Robinson after his address.  I asked his opinion about the statements of another State Climatologist (Alabama’s), who was also on the IPCC team.  Dr. John Christy from the University of Alabama-Huntsville confused plenty of folks, including me, with his statement that, among other things, Alabama is getting colder, not warmer, and the Antarctic ice cap is thickening.

Dr. Robinson told me that he knew Dr. Christy personally, has high regard for him as a scientist, and that Dr. Christy just “sees the data differently.”

        

The title is an actual humorous exchange between my client and me.

On a serious note, this was a challenging project.  I hope Census will make use of the products of our hard work.  And, for the record, the Census Tools for ArcGIS extension was not very useful.

        

In case you missed the news, the New Jersey Geospatial Forum (NJGF) has a new leadership. Dave Kunz from Sussex County is the new Chair, Brian Embley (NGO representative) is the new Vice-Chair, and Lyna Wiggins from Rutgers University is the new Secretary.

See full Executive Committee membership list here.

        

[UPDATE March 25, 2008] Scott A. Grams - Executive Director, GISCI, wrote to me to point out that the GISCI Code of Ethics and Rules of Conduct interrelate to these issues.

The New Jersey chapter of the American Planning Association (NJAPA) published my article "GIS and Privacy" in its 2008 March-April bulletin "Plan This!", in the Opinion Corner (page 24 of the PDF).  The article originally appeared in Directions Magazine in 2005, and is now being republished with minor updates.

With more non-GIS professionals (such as planners) becoming exposed to GIS all the time, the NJAPA thought it important to educate its membership on some of the non-technical issues surrounding GIS. 

From the article:

        

[UPDATE April 3, 2008] Check out this screenshot of the new interface of ArcExplorer Build 600. It sure looks like a Microsoft Office application, dunnit? <via James Fee>

This Google search string brings a lot of traffic to the ENTCHEV GIS blog, so I am going to milk it for even more traffic.

No, seriously, I want to address the question.  In my opinion (I am not the first, nor the only one to say this), Microsoft and ESRI are on a converging course.  Hints abound, the most recent in a James Fee post from the 2008 ESRI Developer Summit, about an upcoming build of ArcGIS Explorer (AGX) [bolding mine]:


My answer to “is microsoft competing with esri?” is “No.”  My supposition is that there is a Microsoft-ESRI merger or acquisition in the works.

I wrote about other events pointing to the same conclusion here and here, as did Directions Magazine here, Ogle Earth here, and James Fee again here.  We even have pictorial evidence from Virtual Earth for Government

        

Believe it or not, there are other GIS blogs out there.  Here are a few snippets from three of them:

James Fee reports from the first day of the ESRI Business Partner conference in Palm Springs:


Ed.: It appears that Jack is betting the farm on ArcGIS Server…

###

A commenter who goes by ‘appliedmaps’ speculates about ESRI’s future on the UK ArchaeoGeek:


Ed.: While we don’t normally lend support to anonymous opinions, this one is very much in line with our own thinking.  We are also impressed with the rare proper use of apostrophes throughout the entire post.

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Christopher Schmidt tells us Why Open Source Matters:


Ed.: But let’s not forget, as John Cowan reminds us, that the licensor even of open-source software is still the sovereign owner of the code, and could revoke the license.

        

My original post New Jersey GIS Positions – Supply and Demand generated a lot of insightful responses and comments.  To summarize: Readers agreed with my observation that, as Cool Hand Luke puts it, "What we've got here is failure to communicate."  Indeed, there is no other way to explain the seemingly paradoxical situation where a large pool of GIS job hunters coexists in space and time with a large list of GIS job openings.

Could it be that the job postings are written in a way that discourages qualified applicants?  Or are the expectations merely unrealistic?  A glimpse into the situation may be offered by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in his “Parkinson’s Law”, published in 1957.  Writes Parkinson in the essay “The Short List”:




Compare this with a GIS job opening that has been sitting on NJGIN for over four months:


Why is this position still open after four and a half months?  Is it asking too much, or offering too little?

        

Both BusinessWeek and New Jersey Transit announce that Google will soon be helping New Jersey Transit train riders plan their trips.



FWIW, New Jersey Transit has consistently avoided ESRI technology in the past, and this most recent development continues the trend.