Communication is very important to this job. I recognized and appreciated this long before taking on the job responsibilities. I’m counting on this new website to be one of the larger keys to our Office’s communication with the Wisconsin geospatial user community.
For your sake and mine, this focus on Web communication is probably a good thing. The GIO website will have information about everything the office is working on, what we’re thinking, and where we hope to go. We will be able to respond to big issues on an even bigger stage (the Web) through the blog posts. And the really good part is that you can pick and choose what part of this is critical to you and where you want to pay attention or interact.
Since it took us so long to go live with this website, we are quite a bit behind in communicating what we’ve been up to and where we’re heading. So, for this catch-up post, I wanted to share a bit of that by presenting a partial listing that I recently wrote up. In the future we will find a better way, within the website, to keep a live list of activities. Here though is what we have been up to before today:
GIS Architecture
Established the needs for enablement of an agency shared GIS
Began project to build out shared GIS technical architectures
Assisted the development of an initial hosted state agency application
Established rate structure and began hosting first application on enterprise GIS architecture
Established rates and helped the build-out for an R&D Virtual environment
GIS Management
Developed instructions for, distributed and collected agency Land Information Integration and Modernization Plans (LIIMP)
Worked through State Bureau of Procurement to re-establish a Master Purchase Agreement for statewide acquisitions of GIS software
Worked on definition and promoted adoption of GIS contractor definitions to be included in an restructured Wisconsin VendorNet system
Placement of GIS Technical and GIS Services Architects within the Geographic Information Office
Creation, and distribution of an enhanced Web survey to replace the paper LIIMP, showing Return on Investment (ROI) through the inclusion of GIS/Business Program relationship questions and working in concert with the Ramona GIS Inventory.
Coordination
Established collaborative working relationships with State Agency Geographic Information Coordination team (SAGIC)
Established collaborative working relationship with State Cartographers Office (SCO)
Joined the Land Information Officers and Land Information Association round-table discussions
Worked to found a Wisconsin Geographic Coordination Council (WIGICC) and accepted Ex-Officio responsibilities
Support and coordination work to help meet objectives of the Wisconsin Regional Orthophotography Consortium (WROC)
Developed working relationships to continue the Wisconsin Land Information Association’s (WLIA) Parcel Data Task Force strategies
Participated with the United State Geological Survey (USGS) to develop strategic objectives for the future of the National Map
Gathered Wisconsin stakeholder information relative to a Wisconsin Spatial Data Repository
Investigating the possibilities for cost savings on GIS software through an Enterprise Licensing Agreement with the primary vendor
Investigating the needs and possibilities for cost saving opportunities through shared GIS application development
Promoting federal partnering efforts where beneficial to Wisconsin’s GIS stakeholders
I am very proud of the work we have started and how we are going about it. I feel very good about where our path is heading also. We’ll keep you ‘posted’ as we work our way forward – Because we’ll need your help and guidance along the way.