Jack Dangermond, president and founder of ESRI, delivered a standing-room-only Practice Keynote at the APA National Planning Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning. In the introduction by Paul Farmer, APA executive director and CEO, we learned that this was the first time that Jack has spoken to this group since 1993.
Jack’s talk began with some history, with background on thinkers that helped shape the foundation of GIS technology, including Alexander von Humboldt, Ian McHarg, Roger Tomlinson and Carl Steinitz. With each of these founding fathers of the geographic approach, there was discussion of their contribution and some detail on how their thoughts are being applied today through technology. An acknowledgment of how far we’ve come came with many benchmarks, including the fact that today’s computers are a million times faster than the earliest processors that ran the first GIS.
Jack spoke of the pressing problems of our time that are crying for a new approach, a geographic approach. He delved into the workflow process of planning and how GIS facilitates the analysis of a site, collaboration between disciplines as well as the visualizing, planning and design processes. GIS provides a system for environmental accounting that allows us to measure the performance of our built environment.
There was discussion of a process-oriented approach through geoprocessing models that allow users to map out a sequence of map algebra functions to arrive at in-depth analysis. The ability to share geoprocessing models removes barriers for expert analysis and allows users to share science as well as best practices in a library of knowledge.
Jack delved into the GeoWeb and the significant investment that Microsoft and Google are placing in base map data layers that are focused on the local search market. GIS is still the authoritative data source for these environments, yet we all need to prepare for citizen input and contributed content that will soon surpass authoritative data sources in volume.
Jack closed his talk with a brief demonstration of the ArcSketch extension and discussion of “Geographic Design Systems.” The capability to quickly lay out the design of places, based on layers and underlying rules, is something that Jack sees great promise in. The ArcSketch capability is being enhanced and extended, with the aim at breaking down barriers for collaboration and interaction through geographic design.
While planners certainly make use of GIS tools, there was an underlying message that planners aren’t pushing the tools to their potential. ESRI was a top-level sponsor of this event, with a small booth presence but ongoing hands-on GIS tutorials that took place in a workshop setting.
I sat down with Jack after his keynote for an in-depth interview that we’ll be sharing with you soon on V1 Magazine.
