NSGIC

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NSGIC
NATIONAL STATES GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COUNCIL
2105 Laurel Bush Rd. Bel Air, MD 21015
443-640-1075 www.nsgic.org
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Making BetterUse of the Web
Blogging!
And Wikis
And Tags!
oh my
Mike MahaffieState of DelawareThursday, October
5, 2006
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Show of Hands, Please

• Do you ever read blogs?
• Comment on them?
• Have you listened to a podcast?
• Have you edited a wiki?
• Have you tagged anything?
• Do you read RSS?
• Do you blog?

We wont tell
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Adventures in Social Networking

• GIS Coordination depends on Communication
• The web is where communication happens
• We (NSGIC, Local, State and Federal Coordinators)
  need to take full advantage

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Adventures in Social Networking

• The web is becoming a universal medium for
  information exchange. (wikipedia Semantic Web
  Definition)
• The Semantic Web
• A common framework
• Allows data to be shared and reused
• Across application, enterprise, and community
  boundaries

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Berners-Lee explained that the power of the
Semantic Web comes not from a single source of
data, but from when multiple data sources are
combined.
"It's the serendipitous reuse that's exciting,"
explained Berners-Lee.
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Both Ins and Outs are Important

• Information-in
• We should use the web to track our industry, our
  communities, our states
• Information-out
• We should communicate on-line with our industry,
  our communities, our states

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What Tools are Available?

• The same tools apply for information-in and
  information-out.
• Blogs
• And RSS
• Wikis
• And Tags
• There will probably be more soon.

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Blogs

• Blog is a contraction for WebLog
• Evolved from on-line diaries
• Often personal. Increasingly political.
• Becoming a tool for public as well as private
  communication.

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Blogs

• We used to be tied to HTML coding

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Blogs

• We used to be tied to HTML coding
• Blogging tools have freed bloggers from HTML

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Blogs

• We used to be tied to HTML coding
• Blogging tools have freed bloggers from HTML
• We can add content from anywhere. At anytime.
• We dont even have to all be in the same agency,
  state, country.

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Possible Uses?

• Regular news page updates
• Group blogs
• Distributed entries from all members of a team
• Team-wide, open and on-line discussions
• Enabling the non-technical to post to the web
  ..fast.

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(Some) GIS Blogs to Track

• The NSGIC Blog (www.nsgic.org/blog)
• All Points Blog (www.allpointsblog.com)
• Anything Geospatial (gisuser.blogspot.com)
• James Fee (www.spatiallyadjusted.com)
• Planet Geospatial (www.planetgs.com)
• An aggregator!
• There are many.

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The Echo Chamber Exists
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Yes, But..

• There are so many GIS Blogs
• How shall we ever read them all?

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Use an RSS Reader

• RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication
• At least, thats what I understand
• Theres also explaining RSS the Oprah way
  (From the blog Back in Skinny Jeans)

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RSS IS Also Great for Info-Out

• Anything we publish on-line, we should also push
  as RSS
• RSS is only XML, after all

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We Can Edit It Ourselves
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Or Have It Created For Us
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Then We Need to Advertise
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And Engage in the Conversation
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Podcasts

• A blog presented as audio, rather than text
• Easier to consume
• But may be harder to do right

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And Then There are Wikis

• From the Hawaiian for Fast
• A website that users can edit.
• Collaboratively
• Continually
• They can be password-protected
• The obvious example

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Weve Already Used a Wiki
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Wiki Uses?

• Writing standards
• Drafting Requests for Qualifications/Information/P
  roposals
• Drafting policies
• Maintaining and updating glossaries

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A Market in Wiki-Like Tools

• Socialtext (the first wiki company)
• From the CEOs blog
• This week I participated in a workshop with the
  CIA on blogs and wikis.
• There is a shared understanding that these
  tools, with the right practices and change in
  culture could transform intelligence from a
  manufacturing model that delivers reports to a
  complex adaptive system where intelligence is a
  conversation with decision makers, an inherently
  counter spin.

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What About Tags?

• Tags are like metadata for social
  networking/semantic web content
• Many types of blogging and other social
  networking tools include tags
• And there are tools specifically to create tags

Yeah, I said metadata!
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Tagged Blog Postings
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Tags Can Be Published as RSS
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Oh. And There are GeoTags
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And So, Mashups Were Born

• Regularly updated content
• tagged by subject
• .or by location
• or whatever
• can be aggregated, mixed, matched and mashed to
  create new kinds of information.

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I Have No IdeaHow to EndThis Presentation
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But Ill Try

• The world of on-line publication and mixing of
  information is open ended.
• Almost every day brings new opportunities.
• We have only to explore them, find how best to
  use them, and go forward.

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Questions

• Yes, I still have many
• Resources from this presentation
• del.icio.us/mmahaffie/nsgic-ppt-blog

This is your last slide. Dont advance from here
or the audience will see a blank screen.