Spatially Adjusted

Tag: blog

  • New Title Graphic

    I’ve updated the title graphic (dead link) in preperation of the ESRI User Conference. The SDCC will be rocking about a week from now.

  • Corporate Blogging Policy

    I’m not sure if ESRI has a corporate blogging policy, but I can tell you that my company does not. Some day I’m sure that the blogging policy will be part of every employee’s handbook, but until that day I thought I’d share some examples on the Internet that I use as my own personal blogging policy.

    If you are unsure if you are allowed to blog, print out some of the policies above and talk to your supervisor or HR rep. Going in with a policy is much better than being found out via a Google search and then reprimanded.

  • Taking Control of the Conversation

    I was very happy to read on Brian Flood’s blog (dead link) the other day that David Maguire had started up a weblog. If you have ever had a chance to talk, listen or read anything David has been involved with, you know he does a very good job of getting everyone excited about ESRI and GIS in general. I hope he’ll use his blog to focus on what ESRI is doing and has been doing over the course of their existence. Perfect case in point is the latest craze with Google Maps and Google Earth. I pointed out last week to everyone that was excited about Gmaps Pedometer that there was an ArcWeb Services application that was 100 times better and just as free. Gjermund has done a great job with Sportsim and he was kind enough to point out some new features he is working on. But even bigger than that has been the notice that my blog entry has gotten in the blogsphere. C.A.R. Report among others noticed the post (dead link) and featured it in their post on Gmap Pedometer. Without my post, I’m sure it would have gone unnoticed by them. (though they do call me a Google Maps naysayer, but I think I’m more of a Gmap Realist)

    I hope David that you’ll be able to do more of this (as well as all ESRI bloggers). Weblogs are a really easy way to educate people to your products and with RSS Aggregators, people get that information as soon as it is posted, not when an email or magazine shows up months down the road. If ESRI can take control of the conversation about GIS, more people will better understand what you are doing and you’ll improve your relationship with your users. Sure, people will still make statements like “ESRI Sucks” but if you can directly answer them (take a look at my post about reading the blogsphere) you’ll be able to most likely change their opinions or at least discount them (the search “ESRI Sucks” is of great benefit). Google is using weblogs to increase their exposure and as I said in my post about ESRI and their PR battle it is something you should look into too.

    Lastly David, you should read this article by Bob Lutz (who writes on General Motor’s weblog Fast Lane) which does a great job of explaining why corporate blogging is important and hits on some themes that I outlined above. I think we are all really excited to see some more ESRI bloggers and all of them should take advantage (after you recover for the UC) of weblogs and bring the discussion to the blogsphere.

  • Directions Magazine is looking for bloggers to cover ESRI UC

    Link: Blogging ESRI UC – All Points Blog (dead link).

    If you’ve wanted to get move involved in blogging, but haven’t had an opportunity, Directions Magazine is looking for blogger (or wannabe bloggers) to cover the UC. Just email Adena to find out more.

  • Blogroll Updated

    UPDATE – Looks like there is a bug with FeedDemon uploading only the RSS feed address into my blogroll. I’m goin to put it back to the RSS feed list so you can at least subscribe to them if you wish. I’ll post back when it is resolved.

    I finally got my blogroll updated. Since I use FeedDemon as my RSS Aggregator, I can now take advantage of Newsgator Online to synchronize my feeds. The two blogrolls on the left are dynamically updated as I add or removed GIS feeds from FeedDemon so they should be as up-to-date as I am.

    I’m sure I’m missing someones blog so if you see one that you think I should be reading, feel free to either post it here or email me (my address is located under my photo on the upper right of the page).

  • ESRI Blog Updates

    Link: ESRI Blog Updates (dead link).

    Brian Flood has posted some links to 2 new ESRI bloggers. I like the momentum building before the ESRI UC. I’m hopeful we’ll see some great news by them from the floor of the UC.

  • GIS blogger meetup is scheduled

    Link: So let it be written so let it be done.

    The blogger meetup at the UC will be on Wed @ 6pm at Dicks Last resort. Be there or be somewhere else

    I’ll be there and hopefully so will you. Let Steve know on his blog.

  • ESRI is losing the blog PR battle

    It is pretty hard these days not to see daily news of Google Maps, Google Earth or MSN Virtual Earth. Click on any one of those links to see all the blog posts about them in Technorati. Bloggers can’t get enough of these services, but us long time GIS folks know that we’ve been doing this stuff for years with and without ESRI’s help. Google Earth is pretty much the same as a demo I saw Jack Dangermond give a couple years ago. Of course while we all know this, what about the average user who is now interested in these kinds of geospatial products. Go ahead and click on the Technorati ESRI tag link below.

    Technorati Tag: ESRI

    A whole bunch of my posts appear. That is it. People are finding my blog by using that tag, but they aren’t being directed to any ESRI blogger sites. Currently there are a couple of ESRI bloggers, but none of them are able to make the kinds of posts that would be required to get the ESRI name and their services in the blogosphere more. I’d love to see someone take every new Google Maps API website and show how ESRI has been doing this for years. When someone posts about how Google Earth is going to be the end of ESRI, a nice history of the immense task it was moving from ArcInfo 7.x/ArcView 3.x to ArcGIS 8 and how successful ESRI has been since then would be perfect.

    When you currently find stories about ESRI in the blogosphere, usually they are just “reprints” of ESRI press releases similar to the ones that Directions Magazine posts. Sure there is good content out there, but it gets lost because there is so much noise. ESRI has begun to offer RSS feeds, but again it is only on their press releases. Hearing about how some city in the mid-west saved millions of dollars because they used ArcGIS is nice, but people want to read about the Northrop Grumman Touch Table that was demonstrated at last years conference. That was impressive, maybe not practical for most people, but it got everyone excited. These kinds of implementations of ESRI technology occur every day of the year, but we only get to read about them in ArcNews or ArcUser and by that time it is old news.

    So what should ESRI do? First they need to find a PR blogger. Someone like Robert Scoble or Jeremy Zawodny who can help bloggers learn about ESRI and show the world what they are doing. It doesn’t have to be a “professional” blogger such as them, but it should be someone who knows how the weblogs interact and can leverage tools such as PubSub, Technorati and Feedster. Second, they need to get their project managers and staff blogging. It is easy to look at Microsoft to see how they have grown doing so, but companies such as General Motors are jumping on the bandwagon and you can see the results with the amount of bloggers that are commenting about their posts. Third, they need to offer up more RSS feeds of their existing content. I’m sure there are plans to do so, but the latest support documents and ESRI Developer code samples are difficult to find.

    I went to BlogPulse to see how the keywords “ESRI”, “ArcGIS” and “Google Earth” rated over the past month. You can see on the graph below that there is almost no blip for ESRI, even with the increased focus on GIS brought out by Google Earth.

    Esri google blogpulse1

    As the 25th ESRI International User Conference is upon us, I also thought it would be nice to see how they keyword ESRI compared against the Where 2.0 conference. I wonder if ESRI will see a similar spike later this month. With the lack of bloggers talking about ESRI these days, I sincerely doubt it. To ignore the blogosphere is ignoring your customers.

    Esri where blogpulse1

  • Blogger Meet-up Planned for the ESRI UC

    Link: My Own Little World – Blogger meet-up for the UC.

    Steve and Brian (dead link) are trying to set up a meet-up at the ESRI User Conference later this month. If you are intersted, navigate over to Steve’s site and let him know what you think.

  • Tracking GIS Across the Blogosphere

    Trying to find GIS information on the Internet can be like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. Well lucky for us we have a couple tools that enable us to see what other users are saying about topics we care about. I use my RSS aggregator to read the blogs that I feel keep me up to date the most, but what about the thousands that mention GIS?

    Enter Technorati, PubSub and Feedster. These three tools allow me to use keywords or “tags” to find blog postings that match terms that I want to follow. What is ever better about them is you can subscribe to them with your RSS aggregator. I will use the keyword/tag “ESRI” to show you how each of them finds and displays blog entries.

    PubSub is a little different than those two as you really need to create the keywords yourself, but I think I get better results with PubSub than Technorati or Feedster.

    I’ve got PubSub feeds for ESRI, ArcGIS, PostGIS, Oracle, MapServer, Ka Map, Cartography and Geospatial. I don’t have one for GIS because you get many results for GIs (think Iraq). Any time almost anyone posts about the above terms on their blog, I get to read the post. I know many users know about these services, but if you don’t you should really check them out.