Spatially Enabling the Enterprise: Best Practices

Outline:
This workshop will use real world case studies to demonstrate how large enterprises can be guided through the assessment, investment, implementation and sustainability phases of spatial information technology innovation and accrue enhanced business value by exploiting location intelligence. The workshop will consist of two 45-minute segments. The first segment will focus on appreciating the organizational culture and readiness for spatial IT investment and the ways and means that enterprise clients have found most effective in assembling compelling business cases for spatially-enabling enterprise operations. This segment will include discussion of how to bridge the challenging chasms that typically separate the business and technology cultures in large organizations that often frustrate both executives and technologists alike. The second segment will focus on best practices for implementing the optimum spatial technology stack and proven critical paths to follow in assessing the wide array of technology options now available to the enterprise client. The second segment will conclude with a summary of spatial IT implementation principles that will yield successful, long-term adoption and sustained spatially-enabled enterprise operations.

Introduction to Neogeography

Neogeography combines the complex techniques of cartography and GIS placing them within reach of users and developers. GoogleMaps, Flickr Photo Mapping, Virtual Earth, and Platial are a few examples of sites and services that are providing their customers with straightforward, powerful geography tools. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce Neogeography acquainting/imparting participants with the next generation of web applications and user-centered location-based services.

In this workshop you will learn about existing and emerging standards such as GeoRSS, KML, and Microformats. See how users and developers can add dynamic maps and locations to your website; pinpoint the locations of online visitors; and geotag and share travel photographs.

There will also be a survey of the current and upcoming mobile devices that provide geolocation technology and how you can deploy new services to these users.

We'll discuss the effects of location metadata licensing and projects such as OpenStreetMap that aim to develop open geospatial systems. The workshop will also present mapping tools such as OpenLayers, geolocative technologies, and other aspects of the emerging GeoStack and how your services can fit into it.

Expected Audience:

This workshop is targeted to managers and developers that want to provide a better user-experience for location-based services. There will be some programming and use of cross-platform tools. It is also useful to a general audience that wants to use neogeography in their personal projects and websites.

Google's Geo Products

Google has three main Geo products, Google Maps, Google Earth, and SketchUp. This workshop will introduce you to the three technologies, and show how they are converging in new and interesting ways. In this workshop, we will cover:

1. Recent developments in each of the products
2. A high level overview of what is possible with each product
3. How Maps, SketchUp and Earth interoperate
4. How businesses are using Geo products
5. How KML Search works
6. How the KML Schema can be incorporated into your applications
7. Designing 3D buildings and viewing in Google Earth
8. How to get started on building your own applications with Google Geo products

Standards for Convergence

Your average programmer views standards as an impediment to getting the job done. Your average business man views standards as interesting so long as they do not interfere with his or her business model. The fact is that both are "right" in certain circumstances, but wrong when it comes to long term business viability which leaves them with this dilemma: When does wrong transition to right and can I make a difference on when that time arrives? Managers are expected to make decisions in the best interests of their companies and embracing standards at the right time is crucial.

The Internet was built on standards. The World Wide Web was built on standards. Innovation is required to jumpstart new technologies, but organizational structures (standards) are a necessity for any technology to expand to its fullest extent. The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc., which is the geospatial community's standards development organization (SDO) for technology implementation specifications has been working in collaboration with multiple other SDOs to enable the convergence of geospatial technologies like GIS, remote sensing, GPS, Sensors and navigation with businesses such as location services, real estate construction and management and others on the World Wide Web. This workshop will inform you of these standards efforts and help you understand the breadth and depth of the work and how you can find the "right" time to care and leverage that information into the expansion of your own business.

Data Visualization with Microsoft Virtual Earth

Location Intelligence leverages your existing data with up-to-date, accurate and easy to use geographic information. Whether you are trying to direct customers to your store, analyze operations by geographic region, manage and plan for disaster scenarios, or simply figure out where to go on vacation, you need maps and spatial intelligence. Microsoft's Virtual Earth platform is the perfect solution for these needs. In this workshop, you will learn how you can develop applications against the Virtual Earth platform, including leveraging bird's eye imagery and 3D mapping systems.

Through example solutions presented by Infusion Development, learn how to use Virtual Earth for location-enabled solutions. For example, use the basic geocoding platform to analyze where stores are in relation to customers; add sales information and show results in a Microsoft Office SharePoint dashboard; or create a trip planner that allows customers to find your hotels along their vacation route and take a 3D fly through of the surrounding terrain.

See how to evaluate disaster planning scenarios for your company. Draw a circle mapping the affected area and immediately generate a report of affected buildings, get a list of critical personnel, and send email notifications showing alternatives.

Government agencies might use 3D imagery to help coordinate services for a major event like the Toronto Grand Prix. Where should emergency vehicles be staged? Are you prepared for traffic control? Or perhaps, you need a 311 system to let users identify pot holes from the latest blizzard. Why not let them mark locations directly on a map?

This workshop will give you the tools you need to solve your location intelligence problems, and show you glimpses into rich, visual, location enabled applications that you've never dreamed were possible.

How DigitalGlobe is Imagery Enabling the Global Enterprise

DigitalGlobe's is the world leader for global commercial earth imagery and is the only geospatial content provider who provides an end-to-end solution for global acquisition, access and distribution. DigitalGlobe has become the preferred content partner for imagery enabled applications for commercial, civil government and web portal distribution because of its commitment to developing online and offline content discovery and access through APIs, plug-ins and web-services. DigitalGlobe's use of web-services as a content distribution solution has opened up many types of new users and applications within global enterprises. Viewing, using and manipulating global imagery is now accessible to casual users, decision support executives and managers as well as the traditional geospatial specialist.

In this workshop, DigitalGlobe will demonstrate how its imagery and content solutions are easily integrated into desktop applications, web portals and other GIS software solutions through its open systems philosophy. We will present case studies for imagery data integration, and how new groups of users are increasing utilizing imagery to present greater clarity in their decision making, and reaping the benefits of increased visibility into real world scenarios when viewed through global imagery.

Sharing Maps Through Interoperable Open Source Applications

Seamless integration of BI analytics, operational data, and standards-based IT infrastructure technology fulfills the long awaited vision of the location-enabled enterprise. In the same way that the GIS has been the critical application platform for cartographic and land management applications, the enterprise BI system is the essential platform for enterprise-wide Location Intelligence solutions.

This workshop will show a location-enabled enterprise BI system, and how this seamlessly supports operational workflows in a number of vertical markets, representing frequently required scenarios.

Case studies will include:

• Building an after-market sales analysis BI portal with Oracle Business Intelligence (formerly Siebel BI).
  This case study will highlight some of the rich functionality of the location-enabled Oracle technology platform such as
  • Multi-level security
  • Customization, and personalization
  • Display of interactive maps and graphs
  
  The paltform's personalization capabilities are used to show content at different levels of detail based on the user's profile. The interactive mapping demonstrates the use of thematic maps, and drill down through a custom definition and hierarchy of sales territories.
• Map-oriented real time analytics application. This application is used to set and maintain sales prices. The user is a retail-pricing analyst. The user can set the price of an item for all, or some, of the stores, by first checking out the price of a store, and then manually setting the price or by assigning the price to an aggressive promotional or other price group. A map showing the locations of stores, competitor store, and suggested and actual sales prices, inventory level, and supplier details of a selected item is a key user interface to the application.
• Enterprise asset management. This demo will show how a map-based interface may work with an enterprise asset management application. The locations and status of open work orders, assets, and trouble tickets are shown on a map. A user can click on any item to get further details on it, or click on a location on a map and enter a new work order or trouble ticket for an asset located at or near where the user clicked.
• Store locator. This case study shows how various Oracle Spatial components, such as the geocoding and vehicle routing engines, can be used in conjunction with feature rich digital navigation databases (from NAVTEQ), and map servers (such as Oracle AS MapViewer or Minnesota MapServer) to build an online Store Locator service like Where2GetIt.com.

Sharing Maps Through Interoperable Open Source Applications

Interoperability is the key to sharing and leveraging access to geospatial data. The platforms used to serve information to end users of mapping applications can be as diverse as data sources themselves. In this workshop you will see several examples of data sharing platforms working together. All applications used in the workshop are freely and openly available with a particular focus on mapping with MapGuide Open Source and GeoServer.

Attendees will be shown how to quickly and easily serve their data, through web services, to their own web-based mapping or desktop applications. The opportunities are endless when open source applications such as these are combined with open standards for sharing information. You will come away from the workshop with real- world examples of application frameworks that you can use today, along with examples of some of the most mature and powerful interoperability specifications.

End users and developers will get a sense of what is possible with the open source software toolsets. Consultants and other business- related attendees will benefit by seeing the kinds of tools they can pull together for clients and the types of support services they may be able to provide.

Enterprise GIS Trends and Methods - How to Leverage Them

Successful enterprises have a "free flow" of information among the systems that support their missions and functions. The community of interests often expands beyond the company to its customers and wider business community. If we agree that successful enterprises do indeed have a free flow of ideas and information, the question becomes; "How do we achieve this?"

Figuring out how to answer this question, and ensuring the overall success of an enterprise, is not the job of departments but of the enterprise stakeholders. Success comes from addressing the needs of the 3 "C"s – Company, Customers and Community – independent of whether you are a government, private or public organization.

This workshop addresses the strategies, challenges and methodologies that can be adopted to successfully transform GIS into an enterprise resource. Enterprise GIS can only be successful if it enables intuitive analysis and decision-making while conforming to operational templates and standardized workflow.

The workshop describes how to:

Move GIS into the Enterprise

• Evolution of GIS in the enterprise
• Removing silos
• Evangelizing the value of GIS tools
• Expanding the user base
• Understanding the benefits (quantifying tangible and intangible)
• Enterprise GIS success stories

Understand Enterprise GIS Trends and How to Leverage Them

• Critical components
• Platforms and information frameworks
• Solutions vs point integration
• Deployment architectures
• User communities and needs
• Managing enterprise data environments
• Geoprocessing in business decision-making
• Advancing statistics and modeling with GIS

Hands-On with MapQuest Advantage API

Sign up now and receive 10% off your Location Intelligence Conference registration. Use Registration Code 766fc266

MapQuest has further enhanced their Advantage API™ 5.0 platform, taking MapQuest Business Solutions to the next level in developer productivity, interoperability, and feature richness. Learn about the latest additions to the MapQuest toolset and get hands-on training. See how we can help you location-enable your web applications.

You'll find Advantage API is easy to integrate. Our new JavaScript API requires fewer lines of code - a quick and easy way to add location functionality with limited development effort. But don't take our word for it, come see for yourself.

This workshop is geared toward developers, but all are welcome. Bring your laptop and your curiosity to get hands-on experience with Advantage API. And, as an added bonus for attendees, stick around to enjoy a world beer tour afterward!

New Integration between ESRI ArcGIS® and Business Objects BI Platform Enables Users to "Mash Up" Business Information with Geographic System Information (GIS) Maps

A newly developed Integration Kit between ESRI ArcIMS and ArcGIS Server and BusinessObjects™ Enterprise XI R2 now provides a two-way bridge between industry-leading technologies, enabling users to "mash up" business information with geographic information system maps to gain a more complete understanding of the link between relevant data and location.

The BusinessObjects Integration Kit for ESRI GIS provides advanced self-service analytic capabilities that allow both GIS and business analysts to realize more value from their existing data.

With this new Integration Kit for ESRI GIS, users can create Crystal reports and perform web-based ad hoc queries that include detailed map information. The integrated solution also enables maps to be embedded into Microsoft Office documents, including Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files. Using the solution, users could, for instance, combine GIS analysis with BI information on customers, facilities, and personnel to strategically balance sales territories based on where salespeople are located and how many existing and target customers are in the area. This information could be shared using a map image embedded in a report.

As an example, The City of Troy, Michigan has used the beta version of the Integration Kit with Crystal Reports Server XI Release 2. Their goal was to use the URL reporting capabilities of Crystal Reports to generate a report with an embedded map image from their ESRI ArcIMS server, based on a variable in the report.