Setting: the ESRI UC newsroom.
Guy comes into the room. “Is this a place I can check my email?” he asks.
I reply, “No, it’s the Press Room. You can check your email down the hall.”
“What does ‘press’ mean?” he asks.
“In this case, people who are journalists, writing specifically about the GIS industry,” I answer.
“What do they write?” he asks.
“Magazine articles and newsletters, primarily,” I say.
He touches his GeoTweet button. “What about tweeting? Does tweeting count?”
“No,” I reply, a bit incredulous. “Anyone can tweet.”
“Anyone can write an article,” was his response.
“Maybe these days, that’s true,” I say, well aware that I’m living in the age of bloggers, tweeters and anyone else who feels they have the right to speak authoritatively (or not) on any given topic.

Of course, many more salient retorts came to me after I had left the room. Just imagine how crowded the Press room would be if filled with tweeters at the conference!

I became a writer during a period of history when it was relatively challenging to become published. To find a publisher for your books was not something that just “anyone” could do. Many good writers were turned away because their work “didn’t meet editorial needs.” Does anyone remember what a “rejection slip” is?

Now there are courses on how to publish for yourself, and anyone can set themselves up with a blog. Twitter is even easier – just write one line about anything, and you can see your name, or user name, in print.

Although we have created these easier to use venues for people to express themselves freely, I think it’s important to not lose sight of the difference between a tweet, a blog, a magazine article, a book, and a newsletter.

Generally, writers are paid to write magazine articles, books and newsletters. Those writers have gained a certain credibility by writing, earned either in their field of study or in journalism.

One vendor at ESRI noted that the “NextGen” generation of people don’t care if the information they disseminate is accurate, they just feel that they should disseminate information. Twitter gives them the opportunity to do this in short bytes. A blog can also contain anything from how they are feeling that day to actual useful information about technology, weather, location, etc. It’s up to the reader to determine if any of this information is relevant. For vendors, tweeting may contain some crowd-sourcing information.

So this commentary is not just about writing: if you look at what most vendors are generating these days: easier-to-use, quicker, accurate – they are looking to appeal to a wide audience, not just those who are GIS professionals. This doesn’t negate the need for full blown GIS – GIS is the underpinning for each of these easy-to-use technologies as well.

There is still also the need for GIS for the GIS professional.

You might say we are looking at the difference between the “Google Earth gen” and the “full blown GIS gen.”

It would be interesting to know how many GISCafe readers read blogs, post tweets and read Twitter and how often they do this compared to reading an article or newsletter?

My day began with a breakfast hosted by ITT Corporation, who announced their new image processing product for GIS professionals. The new product, ENVI EX, is the first image processing and analysis solution resulting from a partnership with ESRI. The product is tightly integrated with ArcGIS, and is designed to be easier to use and integrated with GIS workflows. The demo shown was a classification workflow with vector data in ArcMap. To use it, Richard Cooke, president of ITT’s Visual Information Solutions group, said, you don’t need to know image science. “No longer are imagery and GIS living in separate worlds.”

The addition of Lawrie Jordan, original founder of ERDAS, to the ESRI team has spearheaded the integration of imagery with GIS at the company. This technology integrates the ArcGIS projection engine into ENVI.

The exhibit floor was not as crowded with exhibitors this year, and some exhibitors also said that traffic was light. The Map Gallery also had fewer exhibits than in previous years.

So far, themes encountered on the exhibit floor include: imagery, community input, real-time map, grab-and-go geospatial products.

During the keynote, there seemed to be very few empty seats, so I would guess that attendance is still high for a trade conference in today’s economy.

The afternoon of this all-day pre-conference seminar featured case studies and panel discussions followed by a networking reception.

Aurelie Shapiro, remote sensing specialist for the World Wildlife Fund US, spoke on “Satellites, Species: GIS and remote sensing for conservation at the WWF.” She covered Indonesian humanitarian efforts, tiger conservation landscapes, and other projects that combine remote sensing and GIS.
Visitors will be able to see the WWF exhibit in the Map Gallery Monday evening.
Martin Hogeweb, project and product management, ESRI, active in GEOSS and GeoPortal, spoke on improving access and use of imagery using open and interoperable off-the-shelf technologies. Hogeweg said that international collaboration is essential for exploiting the potential of earth observation for decision making.
www.esri.com/geoportal
http://goess.esri.com/geoportal

Two industry panel discussions: “Imagery software providers” and “Imagery data providers” were interspersed between case studies.

Lilian Pintea, director of conservation science for the Jane Goodall Institute, also spoke on their APES MAPPER, a portal based on Microsoft Silverlight, powered by ArcGIS Server and leveraging ArcGIS Online layers and services. The Mapper collaborates with other databases. Pintea said that after 15 years of applying satellite imagery to the research of chimpanzees, they can now study spatial behavior with GIS and remote sensing.

The ESRI User Conference 2009 held in San Diego July 13-17 is already in full swing with pre-conference technical sessions. On Monday afternoon, June 13, the plenary session will be available on the UC website. http://www.esri.com/events/uc/about/about.html for those who are unable to attend the event.

Additionally, the Q&A with Jack Dangermond addresses a lot of questions that readers might have about the upcoming ArcGIS 9.4 release and much more. http://events.esri.com/uc/QandA/index.cfm?ConferenceID=2A8E2713-1422-2418-7F20BB7C186B5B83

This year, social networking sites are also offered as ways to interact while at the conference.