Tim Craig – GIS Stuff, A collection of Misc GIS related links, information and other GIS blogs.
Just found Tim’s blog in my site referrer list and the number of ESRI bloggers in my RSS aggregator just keeps growing. I’ve seen another one in my site logs that hasn’t posted anything yet. I’ll sit on that one until they post something (they seem to be an ESRI Software Developer who is into CSharp, GotDotNet and .NET 247).
Link – MSN Blogger Map
How long till we see something like this at ESRI? This is the kind of stuff ESRI should be playing around with. Little things that people can then download the code and create other mashups themselves. Sounds like a great ArcWeb demo for ArcWeb – Public Services.
I had a great time at the blogger meetup tonight at Dick’s Last Resort. We had a great turnout with just about all the ESRI developer bloggers and many ESRI Developer Network people. Even Scott Morehouse was there! I ended up spending most of the night talking Art, J, Steve and sitting down with so many great ESRI developers was a blast. Rob Elkins handed out some nice looking EDN t-shirts which I’ll make sure I update my photo on this blog with me wearing it later. I think a big thanks to Steve, Rob, Art and Brian Goldin for getting this meetup organized!
Personally these two (the .NET SIG and the blogger meetup) have been of more value to me than all the sessions put together. Not to say that the sessions aren’t valuable, but they mostly go over concepts that we work with every day. I can safely say that I have never felt better about developing with ESRI tools than I do right now (even more than when I used to write all those sexy Avenue scripts). We all get jazzed up after these user conferences, but I’m hopeful this new support we are receiving from ESRI will continue to grow.
Well it has been one month since I decided to restart Spatially Adjusted back up. Over that time I’ve posted 118 times and had over 5,000 unique visitors. Thanks for sticking around and reading and if I don’t have you in my GIS blogroll on the left, leave me a comment here and I’ll add you.
I just heard that ESRI is blogging the User Conference. Check them out.
http://esriuc.blogspot.com/
Chris tells me to move on (dead link) and don’t worry about how ESRI is seen by others.
Moreover, the comment posting and removal scandal happened more than a month ago. That was Before Google Earth (B.G.E.) and I’m surprised that it is still being discussed. What do you think?
Chris is missing my point or at least combining my post with Howard’s in his response. Personally I don’t think ESRI has much to worry about open source, at least in the United States, Canada and Japan and I don’t think too many people are losing sleep over it at ESRI. Chris seems to think that personal opinions are just that and I totally agree, but if you put your company name on your post/blog/email you are bringing your place of work into the discussion. The perception, right or wrong, is that ESRI doesn’t care about open source. I tend to lean toward the thought that they view open source as just another way to get people to use their products and what is wrong with that? The point I was making and I have made here, here and here is that ESRI needs to take advantage of the open dialog that blogging gives them, not delete posts because they feel threatened by other posters.
ESRI has learned much since that incident last month. All the new bloggers are posting some great new information about the User Conference and have even opened up EDN to us bloggers. Talk about a total role reversal. All I’m trying to do is point out what doesn’t work and hopefully they’ll continue the great strides being made blogging. At least to me it seems that they are having a blast doing it.
One point Chris did make that got me thinking is
I don’t see a connection between that scenario of personal opinions posted/retracted and ESRI (The Company) playing the article badly.
I can see how Chris could read it that way and I’m sure many others did too, but perception is a hard thing to figure out and you don’t want to give anyone reasons to doubt your honesty. One thing out of all this I’d like to see is Bryan Baker start up a blog and post. That is the best way to control this conversation.
Love the blog title Chris!
Jumping into the blogger world can seem like fun at first, but as with anything there are plenty of jerks who will want to criticise you for your views (you know the ones who post their comments anonymously). The big thing to keep in mind is to be honest and open to suggestions. Don’t let these “trolls” (didn’t think there was a huge article on that did you?) keep you from posting about your passion. Personally I’ve always been outspoken (what others might call quick with the mouth, slow with the brain), but I’m always listening to what others think about my views. That is what blogging is all about, learning from others.
The best way you can participate is to write about what moves you (I’m guessing GIS?) and in turn others will better understand your position. Read something on someones blog that is critical of your software? Don’t just write a quick response in their comments but create a post on your blog. They’ll get the message by looking at their referrer logs. I’ve got nothing against comments, but they should only really be used for quick answers/statements. If you want to dissect their post, it is best to be done on your own weblog where you have time to think about what you want to say (and have search engines crawl your posts so users can find it (dead link) when they search).
So go ahead, post about how much you love GIS, programming or even Java. Tell people about how your software makes their lives easier. Give people reasons to talk about your software on the blogosphere and you’ll be surprised about the results. Passion attracts passion (positive and negative) so go ahead and post and have fun.
I am a developer on the .NET Application Developer Framework at ESRI. Lots of people here at ESRI have blogs and it seemed like the cool thing to do, so I decided to try it out.
Thank’s to Art Haddad for the heads up. Go ahead and add him to your RSS Aggregator.
Naked Conversations: Chapter 11-Doing it Right
Robert Scoble and Shel Israel have posted some hints on corporate blogging. This is mostly a follow up to my post last week on ESRI Taking Control of the Conversation. I think everyone can admit that ESRI has made some poor decisions over the past few years (who can forget this one?), but taking an active roll in the blogging community can totally change
My favorite is “Demonstrate Passion”. If you truly love what you are blogging about, it will come through. Lets face it, there are few companies that are hated as much as Microsoft, but when you read their blogs you begin to understand what they are trying to do (right or wrong) and that is compelling to read. You might still not agree with what they are saying, but at least you can see why they make the decisions they do. The reason I called my other post “Taking Control of the Conversation” is that you need to be proactive in this blogging medium because if you don’t, you’ll end up with with this situation, which is painful for everyone involved.
I’m playing around with the template a little bit so I’ve removed some of the links from the side. I’ll put them back as soon as I like the look.