Education

“What’s best for the geospatial economy, free or fee geospatial data?”

This week we attempt to answer the question, ""What's best for the geospatial economy, free or fee geospatial data?"

 

 

The 'fee or free' geospatial data debate has crossed 5 continents, spanned 4 decades, involved 5.5 million people, created a lot of high blood pressure in places, resulted in lots of research papers and hypothesis, made friends of enemies and enemies of friends and generally resulted in the development of new models for economic development and capitalism that would cause a good economist to scratch his head more than a few times.

 

I have come to the opinion that all geospatial endeavours begin as infants. As beginner's, few know anything about geodata, mapping technologies, geo-referencing, image analysis, satellites or anything about geographic information systems (GIS) or computer-aided design (CAD). As time passes, the become more aware and things evolve, grow and change. As maturity increases, and expansion crosses through organisations, more people become aware of spatial information and data. This pathway can be seen time and time again, wherever spatial information and geodata are initiated.

 

Stages

If we look at the geospatial industry from its origins to date, many of us can recognise this transformation and the stages of growth moving from infancy to maturity. The needs of individuals working with geodata and organisational needs change as capacity grows and the rate of change increases as well.

 

 

It is much easier to acquire and maintain data for smaller countries, counties and projects than larger ones. Russia is not fully mapped with up-to-date data, nor is Canada the United States or Australia at the same scale as, for example, Great Britain – or of the same high quality.
If we wanted to build capacity, to get people and organisations thinking about spatial information and starting on the path, to maturity, then giving data away is a good approach to begin. In almost all cases, this data will be of coarse resolution and probably 1:20,000 or 1:50,000 in scale or greater.

 

As we move toward increasing maturity, then our capacity to not only ask more specific spatial information questions (and get the answers) increases, but the industry supporting that capacity expands and becomes ingrained into the policy and decision making arm of governments, organisations and businesses, and also grows. The questions we ask, using spatial information in maturing environments with geospatial tools and existing data, tend to be more complex: supporting models, spatial analysis, security systems and economic policies and other tasks.

 

These tasks, by their nature begin to demand better data, more accurate data and higher resolution data – if we are to make better decisions. Such decisions having less uncertainty and of the type we can depend upon, invest in and trust.

 

Scale and resolution

To achieve this level of maturity represents not just a willingness to use spatial information, but it means that the systems which drive the economy and their underlying processes embrace spatial information and geodata. It means that modern cities and organisations depend upon geospatial tools and technologies to exist and thrive.

 

At this level of functioning, spatial information and data is a requirement. It is no longer a wish to exist at 1:20,000 – it is a primary driver to a thriving economy. Without it a country is crippled. Without it a business is achieving mediocre performance. Without it sustainability cannot be achieved and without it, we cannot understand how we populate the planet and what we are doing.

 

Spatial is special – for all these reasons. If we fail to comprehend this, then we cannot see geodata and associated technologies and services as a differentiator, leading to sustainable living.

 

This is not only a strategic relationship but a critical one.

 

At the end of the day, any governor or mayor or CEO will tell you that health, transport, community and all kinds of other topics compete for budget and are important. How can we expect free geodata when primary transport is not free? How can you expect free geodata, when health services in communities need to be delivered? How can you expect free geodata, when education facilities need replacing and military needs have to be funded and water needs to be monitored, as examples?

 

One budget pie, with may pieces.

 

Yet, here I am suggesting that geospatial data is a primary need – as much as all these others!

 

So, how do we balance this? What is the priority?

 

The Future

The future of the geospatial industry (including the science part) will become much more real-time oriented. The data will be continuous and of high resolution – with high economic costs and returns. It is false to believe that consumer applications will not grow in complexity and that they will not demand more data too, for all the same reasons about capacity building I earlier explained.

 

Consequently, the geospatial future will require very expensive data to acquire, process and deliver. The tools for visualisation will also become more expensive.

 

All of this progress will pay salaries to people in research, operations, maintenance and IT and so on. Even at Microsoft and Google, the free use of services will, I think, likely change as consumers demand more and better. All of this is predictable as capacity builds, awareness grows and demands increase – setting sail towards a path of maturity.

 

However, at the end of the day we are still faced with environmental issues, solving spatial disease problems and water quality issues and many more. To tackle these tasks we will need more geodata, better geodata and more talented people to work on developing the solutions.

 

The question is not “pay or not for geodata?” The real question is, “do you want to solve the problems of an economically sustainable world or not?”

 

Geo-tools and geodata will help to overcome these issues. But people need to feed their families and pay mortgages etc. to make this happen as they do it. It is reasonable to expect they can solve these problems and fund their families.

 

Important issues to recognise

 

• the data to drive many decision making models and operate the administration of a sustainable world is much more expensive than we sometimes realise

• geodata and its creation competes with other basic sources of funding like health care, education and transportation

• all European countries (and others) are not at the same level of maturity as others – they are tracking differently and in unique ways

• geographic size matters – a whole lot; smaller countries can actually gain competitive 'geo' advantage

• e-government is innately tied to geo-services; few if any government has developed a successful e-government yet

• the world has not developed any means to sort good from bad or useless geodata, yet

• on what basis do we assume free data creates wealth? Within Europe, the number of people willing to start a business is shrinking

 

The outcome of free data

While I recognise that free data can build capacity and is an important part of developing countries and projects. To compete against the world demands taking a leadership position. This means excellent data, excellent technology and excellent services – all coupled to policies aligned to produce excellent outcomes.

 

Do you want to be excellent?

 

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Read what Matt Ball has to say on this topic here.

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