I read a while back that the Department of the Interior and the Federal Geographic Data Committee where putting together a federal advisory committee on all things geospatial. When I read this I thought it was quite encouraging given the rapid change of geospatial technologies and the huge number of new users appearing through the GeoWeb. A ray of hope that a new group could direct us towards truly open public data, a metadata standard that did not require 331 elements, and could guide the government towards creating a more inclusive environment for geospatial technologies in general.

This week the announcement comes out with the 28 members appointed to the committee, and sadly not a single true representative of the GeoWeb. Plenty of old school GIS, photometry folks, state and locals, feds, and academics, but nothing that reflects the huge change in democratizing geospatial technologies over the last four years. I read Microsoft’s name, and thought at least Virtual Earth is in the mix, but it is their director for e-Government ???? Take a look for you self by firm (who in this mix is really going to lead the charge of open access to public data?):

1) Fugro Earth Data 2) Waukesha County Land Use 3) NGA 4) State of Utah 5) Hunter Co1llege 6) Alta Vista (check out their map page it is done by Yahoo!!!!!!) 7) State of Louisiana 8 ) Hennepin County 9) Association of Tribal Colleges 10) Metropolitan Council 11) State of California 12) EPA 13) National Geographic (at least doing GeoWeb stuff, but not why they are there) 14) District of Columbia 15) Buffalo County 16) University of South Carolina 17) Dewberry 18) ESRI 19) Pictometry International 20) State of North Carolina 21) Photo Science 22) Microsoft 23) OGC 24) GeoEye 25) Southwest Florida Management District 26) Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors (the guys who sued the government saying you needed a surveyor license to win contracts for anything geospatial - yeah…) 27) IONIC (probably the closest to a GeoWeb company…sort of) 28) Pennsylvania Topographic Survey.

We have an audience of well over 300 million using GeoWeb technologies - we have government agencies embracing and asking for more access to GeoWeb technologies, yet when our government puts together a Federal Advisory Committee they exclude true GeoWeb representation. This may be why there are calls for reform of Federal Advisory Committee’s because of “concerns raised about secrecy, industry influence and political interference”. I’ve served on a FAC before and they can be great facilitators for changes and crucibles for creating progressive policy. They can also be cabals of corporate interest with an agenda not aligned with the public good. It will be interesting to see where this FAC goes, and worthwhile for those interested the GeoWeb and open access to public data keeping tabs on.

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