National Map Corps Volunteers Receive Recognition in National Map Gamification Effort - The USGS The National Map Corps launches a recognition program based on the number of points a volunteer contributes. Levels of recognition are displayed in the form of icons or badges of antique catalog drawings of sophisticated pieces of surveying equipment. As a volunteer attains each level, congratulations are sent and recognized via social media
GCS "Geospatial Big Data" Webinar Series - GCS has announced a new webinar series focused on developing solutions to the challenges of Geospatial Big Data by leveraging the fusion of location analytics, mobile platforms and cloud technologies. The first webinar (June 12, 2013) will feature Montana Site Selector, a cloud-based, web-enabled GIS application that GCS built for a consortium of economic development organizations.
Free Webinar! Rebuilding After Sandy: Surveying the Aftermath - Last October, the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history put our mapping and forecasting systems to the test. As it turns out, the tragic truth is that the best means of determining the accuracy of risk predicted by the Flood Insurance Rate Maps is to have a flood. In this edition of the Amerisurv webinar series, we'll cover key areas of interest to land surveyors, planners, GIS and mapping professionals.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife Connect With Anglers via Colorado Fishing Atlas - Colorado Parks and Wildlife Connect With Anglers via Colorado Fishing Atlas and Social Media. Some fine civic engagement from the Parks and Wildlife service in Colorado as some new resources designed to connect with Anglers have been released to the public.
Top 10 Features in The New Google Maps - Google has reinforced that Maps are all about exploring and discovering, especially on mobile. The experience will only get better, for the developer and end user. We can all expect to enjoy new features and enhanced navigation experiences from gMaps in the near future.
AEC Firms Lose an Average 100K a Year - Architectural, engineering and environmental firms she works for easily lose $100,000 each year through inefficient and ineffective practices
Canada Post Suing Over the use of Postal Code - An interesting issue is unfolding in Canada and quite frankly its darned amazing! Imagine this, you have a website and offer some kind of product or service. You also use a map so users can search your product by Postal Code... uhoh, now you get a letter from Canada Post stating that they are suing you
Location, Location! 10 Map Services Your Business MUST Be Listed in - You have a business... perhaps a bar, a coffee shop, or maybe a consulting firm. Regardless of the business type, if you have a brick and mortar presence then you need to get your business listed in some of the popular online, location-based resources and search tools.
Editing OpenStreetMap (OSM) Just Got Easy, Really Easy! I'm sure that many (if not most) of you have often wanted to mess around with OSM and add/edit some features but were a little lazy - I'm guilty! But now we have no excuse thanks to the new OpenStreetMap in-browser map editing tools available from the iD Editor
Creative Cartography Meets Music in The Song Map - Oh yes, I love art. I also love music too, heck, who doesn't right? Well, I know you GeoGeeks and music lovers will really dig this one as we stumble onto yet another amazing cartographic product that quite simply will make you say WOW
Why is Landsat important and the Landsat Missions Timeline - Landsat has the optimal ground resolution and spectral bands to efficiently track land use and to document land change due to climate change, urbanization, drought, wildfire, biomass changes (carbon assessments), and a host of other natural and human-caused changes.
Mobile Market Trends show Apple users most loyal - Results from a recent survey indicate that Mobile Market Trendsreveal Apple users are most loyal, T-Mobile customers most likely to bail - are you still confident that your clients are loyal to your brand?
10 Must Have Gadgets and Technology for the Remote Office - Chances are good that if you happen to work in technology or you're a consultant, that you may be working remotely or from a home-based office at some time soon - or perhaps you already do
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I recently had the opportunity to attend a local hackday event, this local event here in Victoria planned by OpenDataBC was just one such event of many that took place in locations around the World.
The event took place on Saturday, Dec 3 as part of the Global hackday effort - a grassroots movement designed to bring more awareness to such events. I wanted to share the experience and encourage others to consider attending or planning a local Hack Day event.
ODHD Victoria
The event I went to, organized by the awesome team behind OpenDataBC, billed as open data hack day #odhd was actually the 17th local event which typically take place one Saturday a month - if you happen to be a local developer, social enthusiasts, or just plain interested in chasing an idea then you might consider taking part in the future. the events are open to all and local sponsorships are always welcomed!
I have to say, I was very impressed with the event from start to finish. Word was spread far and wide prior to Dec 3 so many locals knew it was going on. Some prime office space including WiFi, restrooms, desks etc... were donated by Refractions Research here in Victoria B.C - shout out to them! To keep us awake, motivated, and full, some awesome sponsors provided us with morning pastries, coffee, soda, and pizza - an awesome surprise! Finally, the last component to the mix was the attendees. We had a group of about a dozen local developers, novice hackers, social media enthusiasts, government, and business folk. The variety of the crowd proved very helpful, everyone having skills and experiences to share from a variety of disciplines.
So what happens or what do you do at a hack day? Well, using our day as a model, we started with introductions, followed that up with people pitching what kind of idea they had or what they felt they would like to work on. Some brought ideas, some had the wheels turning, others were there to help out or listen to what people were doing - this is a great way to get the wheels turning. For yours truly, I had several ideas but hadn't really narrowed down a fixed project that I was going to tackle.
ODHD Victoria kicked off with introductions and people pitching their hack ideas
What I took away from the event was the networking and listening / watching people chase their ideas. I learned about some data resources that I wasn't familiar with, heard about some excellent ideas for apps and web services, and watched people create and code, churning their ideas into something that could then be tested by others in the group or pitched to them for feedback and criticism. I was impressed with the ideas that people had and wowed even more with how far some of them had gone with their ideas during the day. For me, like usual, I brought too many ideas with me and had a little trouble getting focused. I also realized that quite often we are trying to accomplish too much in one solution, rather than getting focused and keeping it simple. As it turns out, a couple of the ideas I was most impressed with during the day were essentially very simple, however, they definitely served to deliver a solution that was needed and would be very useful. Indeed perhaps I need to learn to focus and keep it simple!
I did spend some time building on a previous project that I had started as a "testbed" using ArcGIS.com to visualize some of my existing geo-tagged social data products - see more details ArcGIS.com Mashup Tutorial with Flickr and Foursquare data
For myself, I spent much of my time seeking out data resources. In particular I was searching for local data products and feeds, things that are local in context and specific to our region. It became apparent to me that perhaps there was even less data out there than what I had expected and what was out there really wasn't very usable. On the flip side, there exists many tools that are at our disposal that can really help. Using visual display environments from Google, Esri (arcgis.com) and Geocommons I spent my time testing various data feeds and WMS services and KML layers that I located on the web. I also poked around with Google Code and the various developer resources from Google, trying to identify some resources that I might use for a project once I get a little more focused. Google docs, fusion tables, Google places are just some of the things I explored a little more.
When it came to data I spent some time looking for sources that I felt could be useful. Naturally, there's loads of social media and social layers out there including Twitter, foursquare, flickr, and youtube so I poked around, searching for ways to access and scrape the data that I was interested in... this proved challenging at times. Quick mashups were easily created and shared using tools like Google maps, ArcGIS.com, Geocommons, and Bing Maps although I have to admit I was quite impressed with the tools and capabilities provided by openlayers, something I plan to look at much closer in the future. Openlayers is an open developer environment and toolset available to developers. Data was tricky, however, it is out there but you may have to be patient... it also helps to have some good contacts! I really was disappointed with what was available with our own local government agencies (they really could take a lesson from the City of Nanaimo and Surrey, B.C) although at the Provincial level there was some good finds during the day although finding and accessing what you need can be pretty tricky - does it really need to be so tough to get at public data?
THOUGHTS ABOUT THE DAY
Overall, our local hackday was an awesome event and I'll definitely be back again, hopefully every month. I'm now trying to focus on an idea and will put in some time to get better prepared for the next event. For the community, I'd suggest that anyone who's remotely interested in learning about developing apps and services to give it a go. Data publishers and stake holders, I'd encourage them to attend and encourage or help people to look at your data. For local governments that are publishing data or working harder at becoming a platform for citizens this could be a great pace to make a 5 or 10 minute pitch about what your doing. Business people, developers, and others will find these to be great networking events and could even be a place where you can find some talent to help your business.
Tip - A Google Places how to:
How to... Get your Google Places reviews as a feed Your rating & review data is your own. We want to make sure you always have access to your data, in its entirety, on demand, and in a convenient format. This allows you to keep your data for your own personal storage or share your content with other sites. To get your reviews as an Atom feed, follow these steps:
Sign in to Google Places. Click your photo in the upper left corner. This opens your profile page.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and select See reviews as a feed link.
Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, the project team created a map of community services that are accessible by walk-in - http://ourservices.ca/
Geoenabling BC’s Official Places in Twitter: The project team wants to create a Twitter #hashtag for every official place in BC. Could be used eventually by http://www.pep.bc.ca/index.html
Map of Development and Liquor License Applications in Victoria
Modelled after Mapit UK, People can input a postal code or a point such as latitude and longitude and the app will map surrounding administrative polygons, such as municipal boundaries. The project team is working on a Mapit for Canada
Geocoding BC School Locations and Test Results
Nanaimo Business Registration hack
Google Fusion Tables were used to visualize health trends over the last 10 years
Visualization of MSP (health) Payments by Practitioners
So what kinds of things were going on at our event and at other hack events?
One group of non-developers started a list of available icons for a food project. The list is on google docs and open so others can contribute
Mapbox maps all the legislators influencing the house ag committee and their contact info
Vancouver hackers tackled different areas. Bikes, Trash, Libraries, Transit, Food…
Waterloo region waste data into Recollect and Spreadsheet Gutter, JSON CSV service - http://sheets.recollect.net/
Search #odhd for more
SOME RESOURCES OF INTEREST:
On Twitter @Data_BC @opendataBC @herblainchbury @daeaves
MORE ARTICLES- Check out all the GISuser articles in the archive, stored by category
Featured Events
HxGN Live - The Hexagon Global Network - Learn about surveying, mapping, laser scanning and geospatial solutions from Leica Geosystems. June 3-6, 2013, Las Vegas, Nevada
Join us at GIS for Government 2013 taking place June 24-26, 2013 in the Washington, DC Metro Area to find out everything you need to know about GIS. Click here for more information
To register for the first GCS Geospatial Big Data webinar, visit the new GCS website at www.YourDataSmarter.com. The one-hour free webinar will be broadcast live at 3 pm EDT Wed, June 12, 2013
National Map Corps Volunteers Receive Recognition in National Map Gamification Effort
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This is a section devoted to providing our valued contributors with a corner to do whatever they like with and discuss Geo/Tech topics that are near and dear to them! Be sure to check out ALL of our experts for commentary, editorial, links, and advice! Interested in becoming a contributing expert? 
