Matt Ball — "At this point in time, geospatial technology, in all its different forms, drives most environmental policy decisions. The information that can be synthesized through observation, modeling and analysis of geospatial information, provides a valuable tool for informing both sides of any given environmental debate."

Matt Ball — "Overall, the geospatial marketplace will continue to hum with reasonable yearly growth. Large public geospatial companies have long operated at a profit, with some cyclical variance depending upon their focus.The opportunities in the geospatial market sector are very broad and diverse, but evolve largely around better decision making. As long as geospatial technology contributes to better decisions, meaning greater efficiency, there will be no better place to weather out economic downturns."

Matt Ball — "Livability is the component of sustainability that recognizes the pleasure we gain gain from our surroundings when the factors of economy, society and environment are all considered. Underlying this question of geospatial’s contribution to livability is the issue of design versus management, with CAD tools traditionally used on the design part of the livability question, and geospatial tools traditionally involved on the management side."

Matt Ball — "The use of spatial information has reached a point of wide adoption, where online visualization of location information has become an expectation. There are many trends in the use of spatial information, some that have been building for a long time, and others that have emerged more recently. All of the trends that I see revolve around ways that the Internet has improved data access and distribution. That’s certainly no surprise, for the Internet will be central to any future trends regarding spatial information for some time to come."

Matt Ball — "When considering an über model, there’s the issue of organization, and the need to determine whether the digital city will reside within an interoperable framework or as a central collective repository. Another way to look at this is to assess the different requirements of specific domains to determine if there’s a compelling need for separate modeling environments for different professions or workflows. The issue of ownership and governance of the model also comes into play, particularly in light of security-related issues, which will demand a level of centralized control."