Education

AGI Geocommunity 2008: The Big Debate

At the end of the AGI Geocommunity 2008 conference this year I had the opportunity to chair the exchange for the second time. The beauty of these types of events lies in the fact that nothing is practiced or debated before hand. It adds a sense of instantaneous response and leaves the door open to veer as the dialogue develops. This year a significant amount of time was given to the audience to ask questions - to engage them.

The first question I asked as we began was, "how may of you consider what you are doing is delivering a professional service?"  About 70% of the hands went up. Then I asked, "how many of you consider yourselves as professionals?" About 50% of the hands went up.

And that fit neatly into the following debate, "what is the role of a GI professional today?"

Every time I fly into the UK I come with a outsider view, neutral to the events happening within the country. And what I saw and heard this year, as compared to last year, is that the audience has shifted. It is attempting to merge the 'neogeography' folks with traditional GI folks. It is striving to understand how new approaches and old approaches can possibly work together. It is wanting to move beyond 'neo' and 'Web 2.0' and is struggling to understand how to integrate highly complex geo-technologies with crowd sourcing, mass market contributor's and how to interact with the rest of the geo-world.

Frankly. I think most of the people in the room would wish to offer professional services. And, as summed up at the end, everyone, regardless of how and what they are contributing in terms of GI, are trying to figure out how it all comes together in a professional way.

It was interesting to hear comments about the need to inform people and help them to understand data - and is a responsibility of everyone in the GI community. It was interesting to hear people indicate that 'professionalism matters'  and it was interesting to hear how people are combining user generated and traditionally generated geoinformation together.

And that was the point.

I think the geocommunity reached the point this year where it realises that reference to the paleo or the neogeography community is passe, that it hinders the forward momentuum that seeks to integrate the traditional GI with what previously called neogeography and move the whole issue forward one more step.

I think AGI made a big leap. A leap that others in the world have yet to discuss and think on - as much.

Not perfect, nor finished. But a real good start.

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