This blog post was written mid way through back to back Esri conferences in Palm Springs. The Partner Conference preceded the now buzzing Developer Conference. More cosy than the July User Conference, this is a 5 day deep dive into the Esri world.
For WebMapSolutions, this year has been a little unusual. We were invited to be part of the Partner Plenary. This gave us not only the chance to share our experience with the ArcGIS platform, but to sit together with key folk at Esri.
Based on conversations, presentations and reflections on the focus and tone of this years Esri conferences versus 2013, in this post we give our thoughts on 3 strategies for making money with the ArcGIS platform. (more…)
As a mobile GIS development company we have had many fascinating conversations with clients, and built some very cool apps. We thought it might be interesting to look back at our experiences and list 4 popular uses of Mobile GIS.
Disaster Management and Assessment
Time is of the essence when managing disasters. Both providing relief to affected communities quickly, then following up with assessment and help with rebuilding. Mobile GIS has become a very important tool used by NGO’s and public safety departments.
We wrote last year about work we were doing with Monroe County. They were looking into improving their pen, paper and spreadsheet based approach to disaster assessment. Providing iPad’s to non-GIS trained Red Cross volunteers, loaded with a simple to use GIS app, was the goal of the work. The mobile GIS app built by WebMapSolutions allowed these volunteers to view interactive maps, collect data, share and collaborate while on site. The data resulting from the field reporting was quickly provided to state officials as an interactive Web map which was easy to understand, showed damage information at a parcel level, and helped with discerning patterns. This Web map approach has dramatically helped the decision making process, allowing for fast turnaround of relief funds.
Difficult seeing and demonstrating the benefits to management.
We have heard these responses and many more from clients. Stepping into the brave new cloud enabled mobile GIS world is hard. But the benefits are considerable. (more…)
Why? Cloud services and low cost (mobile) hardware.
Simple? Let others host and maintain while you focus on the solution.
Our conclusion from conversations over 2013 was that many still see GIS as this complex system. They have nightmares remembering GIS technology choices, licensing fees, tuning/maintaining/upgrading servers, publishing data. But their thinking had still to move forward.
GIS was once a niche technology. It was expensive, and used largely by those who had geospatial training. In 2013 that picture began to change. GIS is undergoing a rapid evolution. The increasing popularity of cloud computing, and mobile devices: tablets and smartphones, have helped broaden the appeal, and reduced the cost of location technology. In this article we will discuss this evolution and look at powerful new ways to apply GIS in 2014.
iPad minis are cool. Their size means they are easy to carry; ideal for field work. But they are poor cousins to their larger relative. The biggest complaint is their lack of resources. Put simple they are badly under-powered. RAM is the biggest problem, try running too many apps or start using the camera and slowness and app crashing is inevitable. We wanted to demonstrate mobile offline data collection on an iPad mini. Our integrated ArcGIS Online mobile disconnected app has been recently optimized with this aim in mind. The short video shows the app in action:
GIS was once a technology used only by those with the deepest pockets. Today things have begun to change. In this post we will discuss 3 reasons GIS is now more affordable, for big and small organization alike.
With this years conference now over, I thought it worth listing my 5 reflections on the South West User Conference (SWUC) held last week in Salt Lake City. The conference was a great success. WebMapSolutions was one of the sponsors of the event, along with a number of other local GIS focused companies including Gateway Computing and CityWorks. We took an informal survey of SWUC attendees.The results we thought were surprising. Below we reflect in our overall thoughts on the conference. (more…)
Last week we were one of the sponsors of the excellent South West Users Conference (SWUC), here in Salt Lake City. One of our activities at the conference was to conduct an informal attendee poll. Nearly one third of attendees responded. It proved to be a very interesting survey on ArcGIS Online. We asked 4 simple questions; the results are below: (more…)
