As I mentioned in my previous post “Redistricting with GIS: Exposing Powerful People to a Powerful Technology”, Geographic Information System (GIS) is the key technology behind the redistricting process.  As the redistricting process winds down and candidates transition into campaign mode, they need to be aware of some tremendous opportunities to continue leveraging the power GIS.

Targeted Campaigning with GIS

If we look at the campaigning process in three phases, GIS brings tremendous value from start to finish.

Phase 1 – Build a Strategy:  Strategists are immediately confronted with the challenge of understanding their new district boundaries and the constituents that fall within.  This information is the foundation for building a strategy for targeting likely voters, efficiently and effectively communicating your message and ultimately getting out the vote.  This process will be especially challenging for candidates from the party that didn’t control the redistricting process.  This is because they have just recently seen the new boundaries while their opponents have been analyzing them for the past several months.

The ability to overlay new district boundaries with relevant political information (age, race, income, party affiliation, past voting results, etc.) is by far the most efficient way to build this strategy.  It allows campaigns to identify the geographic areas of their district that contain voters that are most likely to vote for them.  While using GIS can make this process much more efficient, it can still be a challenge if you’re a state party official that needs this to happen across the state.  This is where web-based GIS applications (Web Mapping Applications) come into play.  State party officials really need to be focusing on building a centralized GeoCampaigning database that is exposed to campaigns across the state via the Internet.  Build it once, use it many.  This type of system will allow campaign strategists from across the state to log in to a website and start using the power of GIS to organize their outreach efforts.  A longer-term benefit of this approach is that you are exposing party officials across the state to the value of GIS and how to use it as a campaigning tool moving forward.  The party that is maximizing the use of geospatial technology will definitely have a strategic edge moving forward.

Phase II – Outreach:  With a campaign strategy built, it’s now time to focus on reaching out to likely voters to gain their support.  This has historically been done with walk lists and canvassers, but I’m proposing that we spatially enable these walk lists and allow canvassers to also leverage the power of GIS while in the field.  Through the use of smartphones and tablets, which most campaign staff already have, canvassers are able to see where they are currently at (via GPS technology) on an interactive map in relation to the portions of the district that they are targeting.  In addition, canvassers can enhance the centralized GeoCampaigning database by collecting information in the field as they place signs, talk with voters, etc.  Because all of this information is being stored in a centralized database that is (securely) being exposed over the Internet via web services, other campaign staff (canvassers, strategists at campaign headquarters, etc.) are able to see this information in near real time.

Phase III – Analysis:  With all of this information flowing in to a centralized location, strategists are able to quickly analyze the progress canvassers are making in addition to the reaction of voters.  Every time a canvasser talks with a voter and collects information, this is represented by a dot on the map.  Dots are color coded by likelihood to vote for the candidate and by clicking on the dot you can see the information entered by the canvasser.  A “common operating picture” for spatially analyzing campaign information and connecting campaign staff is very powerful.  In addition, this information will be stored for analysis against actual voting results and thus preparation for the next election year.

Campaign Message

While you may think that GIS is just a technical tool for making your campaign operate more efficiently, it’s actually much more.  Whether you are for big government or small government, I think that all candidates can agree on a more efficient and effective government.  If this is part of your campaign message, which I personally think should be, then GIS is key to following through on this campaign promise.  We are already seeing this from incumbent John Isbell, Assessor of Property, Sumner County, TN who is referencing “GIS Implementations” as an accomplishment while in office.  I am really encouraged by this and it makes me proud that public officials are looking for ways to leverage technology to increase operational efficiency.  There are very few technologies that bring value to so many different aspects of government.  By visiting the Esri industries page, you can see the vast array of government agencies that can benefit from GIS.

So as you start to build your campaign strategy and craft your message, don’t forget about GIS.  After all, it is the secret to success. 

With the increase in political debates, campaign rallies and attack ads, it is clear that we have entered a new election year.  What you may not know is that the elections this year will be completely different from those of the past.  The 2012 elections will be the first to be held on new political boundaries that have resulted from redistricting.  While I won’t go into a lot of detail on what Redistricting is, the process involves adjusting political boundaries/districts (U.S. Congressional, State Senate, State House, County Commission, etc.) to account for population changes that have taken place over the past decade.  Politics is of course a part of this process which means that decisions are not strictly made based on population counts.  Redistricting officials also use this process as an opportunity to shift the political makeup of districts and put their party in a better position to gain or retain control moving forward.

While gaining political power might be important to you, for me, the most exciting thing about redistricting is that it is exposing very powerful people to the power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  GIS is the analytical engine that powers the redistricting process.  It provides the ability to overlay relevant information (streets, population counts, demographics, political boundaries, past voting results, etc.) on an interactive map for officials to spatially analyze and base decisions.  More politicians than ever are seeing, firsthand, the value of leveraging GIS to gain a more thorough understanding of information which ultimately translates to more informed decision making (political strategizing in this case).  What these elected officials need to know is that the value of GIS is not isolated to redistricting and it definitely doesn’t stop when the Governor signs these new political boundaries into law.

The U.S. Department of Labor has identified geospatial technologies, which GIS is part of, as one of the fastest growing industries.  This rapid expansion is driven by the fact that the value GIS brought to redistricting is also brought to nearly every sector of the economy.  This is especially the case in the public sector.  By visiting the Esri industries page, you can see the vast array of government agencies that can benefit from GIS.  Below is a small sample:

• Public Safety
•  Property Assessment
• Public Works
• Environmental Management
• Planning & Economic Development
• Education (Geospatial Learning)

The good news is that government is already a big user of GIS, but we are just scratching the surface.  What this means is that there are real opportunities to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government through the increased use of GIS.  With the explosion of cloud based capabilities and widespread Internet connectivity, we find ourselves in a perfect position to deliver targeted, lighter weight, more cost effective GIS solutions these new users.  This ability, in combination with support from our elected officials, can set us on a path to creating an efficient and effective government that we can all agree on.

In conclusion, I am someone that truly believes in the power of GIS.   I believe that it can play a key role in creating a more efficient public sector, a more competitive private sector and ultimately a more competitive nation as a whole.  My hope is that the exposure to GIS that has resulted from redistricting will trigger a sequence of events:  Increased use of GIS in campaigning  ->  The election (or re-election) of pro-GIS public officials  ->  Increased support for the use of GIS within government  ->  A more efficient and effective public sector.

If “GIS in campaigning” caught your eye, check out GIS: The Secret to 2012 Campaign Success

Come join us for a series of Local Government GIS Seminars to be held in Jonesborough, Crossville, Columbia, Germantown (MAGIC Conference), and Jackson, Tennessee.  

Lunch is on us after the Seminar!

The Tennessee Geographic Information Council and the State, Office for Information Resources, GIS Services (OIR- GIS) invite you to take part in the state’s development of a business plan for statewide enhanced elevation data.

This is really a great opportunity for the TNGIC members and the broader GIS community to input/shape
a statewide program.

Visit this link to register.  Visit this other link for more information.  If you are unable to make the meeting you can still watch it live from the Map This! Blog.  Coverage of the meeting starts on Wednesday, August 31 at 9am.  

The first step to accomplish our mission on this project is to create a business plan that identifies the business requirements, costs, and benefits of creating a LiDAR derived elevation GIS dataset.

Using grant funding from FGDC and the NSGIC “50 States Initiative”, OIR GIS Services and Applied Geographics will be conducting regional GIS coordination meetings and stakeholder interviews to gather detailed business requirements that support the argument of why Tennessee should invest in LiDAR/elevation GIS data products.

Here are just some of the ways LiDAR/elevation data can be used:

• Floodplain inundation modeling/delineation
• Emergency management and response planning
• Forest canopy delineation and forest metrics
• Delineation of building structures
• Powerline mapping
• Hydrologic modeling
• Mapping wetland drainage
• Transportation mapping
• Ortho Image rectification
• Soils mapping
• Impervious surface mapping
• Dam breach inundation analysis
• Utility line maintenance

Mt. Juliet Recycling Survey

The City of Mt Juliet, TN  government, in coordination with GEO-Jobe GIS, has released an online resource for collecting citizen interest in a city-wide recycling program. The online mapping site allows for the public to find their location on a map while answering a few questions dealing with how they would use the program if it were implemented. Locations are then recorded on the map showing the citizens interest in the program.  Capturing the locations on a map will not only build an interactive map showing program interest but will also assist the city in the planning processes, such as the best locations for recycle bins. The goal is to have a very detailed map showing all the interest while allowing the Mt. Juliet citizens a way to assist city officials in the planning process.  Even better for citizens, there is a feature on the map that allows people to make comments. Accepting citizen comments might necessitate some changes to procedures, and so it is proposing a 120-day pilot to test the processes and monitor results.

The site is created with ArcGIS Server and hosted on the geopowered.com network at the GEO-Jobe GIS data center. The geopowered.com service was created so that organizations can easily create fast and flexible GIS web mapping applications without the hassle of expensive software costs, hardware, and technical expertise. For more information on this service give us a call @615-883-0085.

On July 5th and 6th 2011, Vice President of GEO-Jobe GIS consulting, Richard Duncan, was asked to attend a meeting in Vienna, Austria by the United Nations (http://www.un-spider.org/crowdsource-mapping).  Not only was he honored to be asked but he was looking forward to meeting GIS Professionals on an International Level and  learning from Emergency Management Professionals and Crowdsource Experts with the goal of making a global impact.

The meeting summarized by Richard Duncan:
The first day consisted of a series of introductory presentations on UN-SPIDER (http://www.un-spider.org/), the Secure World Foundation (http://swfound.org/) who also financed the meeting, the Haiti Disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_earthquake_2010) from a GIS Data and Crowdsource contribution perspective and short discussions on several other world disasters.  The speakers that really caught my attention (all the speakers were good but these were exceptional) were Agnieszka Lukaszczyk (Secure World Foundation) and John Crowley (Harvard).

Agnieszka Lukaszczyk presented on the Secure World Foundation and its role within the Space Based Community (comprised of any information that is gathered from Satellites/GPS/etc as well as the GIS Community, Satellite Community, etc).  Their mission is as follows:
“SWF works with governments, industry, international organizations and civil society to develop and promote ideas and actions for international collaboration that achieve the secure, sustainable, and peaceful uses of outer space.”  They are an organization that is privately funded and is dedicated to increasing the knowledge about the space environment and the need to maintain it, promoting international cooperation and dialog, and helping all space actors realize the benefits that space can provide.  They engage with the space and other relevant communities to support steps that encourage the long term sustainability of outer space and the effective use of space to benefit humanity. It works through three primary methods:

• Informing – The Foundation generates research and analysis for decision-makers to promote the creation of sound policy and raise awareness of key issues that may threaten the security, sustainability and utility of outer space.
• Facilitating – The Foundation convenes timely public and private meetings with stakeholders on key issues to encourage discussion and constructive dialogue for the next steps in support of its mission.
• Promoting – When viable solutions or next steps become apparent, the Foundation formulates and disseminates policy positions that are aligned with its vision and mission in order to move them from idea to implementation.

John Crowley presented on the utilization of Open Street Map (http://www.openstreetmap.org/) during the Haiti disaster.  Base data was not available in the area and had to be built.  One of the resources they used was Satellite Imagery provided by Google, the US Airforce and various other sources.  The Images were then used to digitize planimetric data.  Crowdsource (Or Volunteer Geographic) information was used to populate attributes such as street names, refugee camps, disaster areas, etc.  Once the base data was collected they printed maps that had QR Codes on them that were used for tracking the map as it physically moved through the region geographically and for documenting the redlines that were put on the printed map.  The final redlined map would then be re-scanned and georectified at which time the redlines were converted into vector data.  Also during the scanning process, the QR code would document its final end point on its geographic journey.

The second day consisted of 2 more break out sessions that focused more on the actual issues related to creating a better template for future response to Emergency Situations, how to better utilize Crowdsourced data, better desiminate GIS Data during a disaster, how to quickly analyse the data, how to quickly and effectively initiate Space Based Agencies (USGS, etc) help, etc.

There will be a report generated and given to the Secretary General of the United Nations which will be considered by the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (STSC/COPUOS) when it meets in early 2012. The second expert meeting is currently scheduled to be held in Geneva on November, 16 2011 together with the next International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2011). (Please see http://www.un-spider.org/about/updates/ june-2010  For more details)

ArcGIS Server allows you to create folders for organizing map services.  More information on this topic can be found here.

I created a new folder through Server Manager yesterday called tn.Sumner for map services for Sumner County, Tennessee.  After the folder was created I added a new map service and went to the Rest services directory to check it out.  When I went to the services page the folder was there, but clicking on the folder name produced an error:

Oh boy.

After a little head scratching I went back and created a new folder, this time changing the folder name from tn.Sumner to SumnerTN and published a map service.  When I went to the services page I could open the folder and view the new map service.  Success!

I’m not sure if this is a feature, bug, or something else, but there was something about the dot ‘ . ‘ in tn.Sumner that the server didn’t like.  I looked in the \Server10.0\server\user\cfg folder and the tn.Sumner folder was there, along with the configuration files for the service.  The strange part is that there was no indication that the naming wouldn’t work, no errors, etc., and I didn’t find anything in the documentation about folder naming conventions.  Hopefully this saves someone a few minutes of stress if they encounter the same thing.

Richard Duncan, GEO-Jobe GIS’s Vice President, was explaining the Trimble Yuma to K-Towns finest! 

We would like to thank everyone for coming!