Whose Asking for SDI’s and National GIS’s to Begin With?
January 26th, 2009by Sean Gorman
I was looking over the various geo related “stimulus” proposals and began to wonder where is the “demand” coming from. It is obvious where the “supply” is coming from. I think just about every large geo company I can think of has their name on a proposal. Is the customer the federal government, state/local government, citizens (the public), the economy writ large?
The more cynical side of me says that spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are a solution looking for a problem. Since it has the word “infrastructure” in the title I can see the appeal, but is this really what the masses are clamoring for. I think “masses” is the key word here, because if we are building something for the GIS community or even the Geoweb community we are missing the boat and the point. I’d argue we’ve made more progress on making geodata available to the public in the past three years doing the opposite of SDI’s. Bottoms up defacto standards that are adopted widely - KML or GeoRSS come to mind. How much did that cost?
Fred Wilson’s post on Selflessness vs. Selfishness sums it up well, “I realize that it’s a good idea to allow everyone to throw out their ideas and suggestions. But when people are plotting about how they can “spin” their pet project as “infrastructure” spending, it’s gone too far.” I’m as bullish on the potential of the Geoweb as anyone, but I think we have to ask some hard questions. What is the customer really demanding? Further, what is the cheapest way we can deliver the most value to the customer? How can fulfilling those demands best grow the economy?
Is there a role for “geo” in driving an economic recovery - definitely. Should the role of “geo” in the recovery be shaped by vendors - probably not. We’ve had some lively conversations on what problems need to be solved in the office, and I’ll get a post up on it specifically, but would love to hear what other folks think. Maybe I’ve not read all the proposals in enough detail and given them short shrift. Was the public clamoring for SDI’s and National GIS’s before there was a $850 billion dollar pot of money to go after?
Popularity: 11% [?]
January 26th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I understand your points with regard to the “GIS for the Nation” and what Adena at All Points is referring to as the “Third Proposal”.
The concept paper at http://www.nsdi2.net does indeed advocate a bottom up approach and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts specific to that document.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Hi Jason - the bottoms up community driven approach is a bonus but to be honest I have much of the same issues. Is NSDI2 solving a problem demanded by the public or is it vendor motivated?
The creators of the proposal build/sell software and services to manage SDI’s. The case studies they reference are driven by the same software.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting your technology and skills. I just don’t think you should set policy based on those motivations.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Hi Sean-
Just to clarify, some of us (myself included) actually work for a local government or state agency.
I regularly work with folks in my community that have an interest in freely available, standards based data on demand.
We’ve had success with our ‘community GIS’ approach and making more and more data, and data services, available to the public (loosely defined as both private and commercial interests). It’s been well received by the community.
To answer your question more directly, and as honestly as I can… it is both vendor motivated and meets public demand.
Good discussion here, I appreciate your critical eye towards government expenditure.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Oh, I didn’t explicitly mention… I’m one of the co-authors/collaborators on the NSDI 2.0 concept paper.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
I don’t think the general public knows or cares about SDIs or National GIS. The average person on the street gets as much as they want from GIS with Google Earth.
However, what the average person REALLY cares about is whether they have a job. And I think this is what the idea is behind a National GIS. Not as an end, but as a means. Think of what a National GIS could have done for Eisenhower’s interstates or for the CCC. It seems to me that the rationale behind a National GIS is that it can be used as a tool to drive other Federal programs (or at least make them more efficient).
January 27th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Terry,
I couldn’t agree more. Providing open data from local/state agencies offers a chance for job creation. It would be a new resource around which plenty of innovation could occur. Look at “Apps for Democracy”… sure, Google mash-ups dominate the geospatial offerings there though in my opinion there is much richer “geo” data available.
Furthermore, to the point of jobs take a look here: http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/16610/2/
“A recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that at least $30 billion is generated by geospatial-related companies annually. Geospatial jobs are high paying, high tech, and high quality jobs - the type of jobs the U.S. economy must continue to create and maintain as our information society evolves. The geospatial sector has steadily increased by 35% a year, with the commercial side growing at an incredible rate of 100% annually. The U.S.Department of Labor predicted that the geospatial sector was one of the three technology areas that would create the most jobs in the coming decade.”
January 27th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Hi Jason
I 100% agree the real value is the data, and if we can divorcevendor technology from the policy there is real opportunity for collective benefit.
Will blog more later today.
Best
Sean
January 28th, 2009 at 11:27 am
[…] the last post I whinged about what I thought was wrong with the various “geo” stimulus proposals, so […]
January 28th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Sean, with regard to demand, I would suggest that there very much is still public need for data - several national mapping initiatives still remain uncompleted, and many crucial data flows between a variety of stakeholders, from federal to state to local to academia, NGO and industry alike remain lacking.
This is not some sudden realization, it’s not some new-fangled notion, the wheels have been in motion for decades - for example, OMB Circular A-16 in 1990 which set in motion the Federal Geographic Data Committee and so on - it was recognized that building an NSDI would be a lengthy and arduous task, and their mandate at the time was to put some of the FRAMEWORK in place. Now that the framework is in place, we need to complete populating it.
Given discussion with H.R. 1, the Stimulus bill, it is anticipated that spending programs may go toward transportation, broadband and a whole variety of other infrastructure. This again points up the need all the more for having the data available for planning and informed decision-making, so that we can best triage and target investments to provide maximum benefit.
The drivers are many, and on multiple levels - from Federal vision, to budget-hampered states, which have to deal with funded mandates with limited resources (as well as having to deal with unfunded mandates), to local government and a host of others.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
The way I look at is we have an opportunity, as an industry/community, to inject new and innovative thinking into the system.
There are those that want to innovate within the existing system, NSDI etc. and that is admirable. There are also those of us who think there is a new approach that will better serve the public good.
Is is a natural difference of opinion - just as there have been distinct differences on the direction of the Geoweb. It will be interesting to see how it all pans out.
January 28th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Regardless of particulars, I would definitely agree that the time is ripe, if not overdue, for innovation.
However it should also be recognized that there are many existing hooks and eyes that can provide yet-unrealized benefit in said innovation - and that we are well-served to collaborate and try to gain economies of scale, as opposed to everyone off building the same things, which may already exist elsewhere.
We, as a community, need to share ideas and innovation.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:31 am
Those of us collaborating on the NSDI 2.0 concept paper firmly agree that the primary need is to provide updated, accurate data - and to ensure most of it remains easily accessible to everyone. We think this can become a reality by re-using the portions of NSDI 1.0 that do work, and melding them with several other, more modern and innovative approaches.
Governance and policy are issues that aren’t real sexy to the “cutting edge Geo-geek world”, but that’s also a component that has to be addressed. Paul R. is correct in that the biggest, baddest job of all is the data itself, not the data serving/access infrastructure. That’s where the State and Local Govs play the primary role. We’re the data production backbone, and frankly, that backbone is showing quite a few slipped discs and stress fractures these days. A lot of our datasets are severely out of date because program funding and staff continue to decrease while demands for data and everything else increases. We DO want to be able to keep all the data up to date, for our own programs as well as for the rest of the nation to benefit from, but without some additional resources, it just ain’t gonna be possible.
If the Federal Government truly wants a working NSDI 2.0, GIS for the Nation, or whatever it is called, then there is a need to start seriously focusing on sustainable funding for the actual data production at the local source, rather than on expensive top-down infrastructure building exercises. I don’t really think some of the numbers mentioned in several other recent concept papers are anywhere near what it will take, if we really intend to develop an accurate national public data resource.
This business case study from last year for our State has some pretty good numbers for GIS data development costs, although it probably does not completely capture 100% of the costs of the Local Gov datasets.
http://www.ncdot.org/programs/environment/development/interagency/NCILT/download/Goal1/GISBusiness_CaseReport.pdf
If one extrapolated these representative costs to all 50 states and added in additional funding cost-shares on a recurring basis to help provide a minimum number of dedicated data production FTEs to State and Local Agencies to maintain data once the first big push for a massive data refresh was over, then the total cost figure for data alone will be quite different than some of the other proposals we’ve seen. I will also point out that this business case is extremely relevant for the planned stimulus funding activities to renew the nation’s transportation and utility infrastructure. There are some significant cost savings for infrastructure projects when all of the necessary spatial data for planning, design and NEPA/SEPA type permitting processes is also “shovel ready”.
A key point that I, particularly, would like to bring some exposure to is that the nation already has, in the Exchange Network, a secure standards-based (not OGC, but there is work going on to integrate that) national data sharing network that is in place in all 50 states, as well as in some Tribes and Territories. A few States, such as CA, are already using the EN to share data efficiently with Local Gov agencies too. The thing that’s unique about the EN is that it was designed to solve the problem of 50 states, each with their own internal data systems and schema, being able to share data electronically with EPA and each other in a consensus-based, community data exchange schema - without having to radically change any of their back-end databases or business systems. The EN web services transform the data from internal native schema to the public community schema on the fly. This type of functionality is not yet easily or inexpensively available for OpenGIS type data services. A few commercial vendors provide that functionality, but it’s generally way out of the range of what State and Local Govs will ever be able to afford. So why not try to use something that already exists and doesn’t cost a bloody fortune?
Work is already underway to build both .Net and Java flavors of open source, 2nd generation Exchange Nodes for the community to use. The idea of harmonizing the functionality of the existing EN network infrastructure with NSDI 1.0 and OpenGIS Services, as well as with the newer, innovative “Where 2.0-ish” type data services (GeoRSS, KML, GeoJSON, etc), is a direction we think can provide a very flexible, do-able approach for an NSDI 2.0.