Transcript ® ® Global Advisory Council (GAC) Outreach overview, Jan 2011 Mark Reichardt, President and CEO Open Geospatial Consortium © 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium Outreach and OGC standards Definition •

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Global Advisory Council (GAC)
Outreach overview, Jan 2011
Mark Reichardt, President and CEO
Open Geospatial Consortium
© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Outreach and OGC standards
Definition
• Outreach in the context of the Global Advisory
Council means reaching out to emerging and
developing regions
• Highlighting the value of Spatial Data Infrastructure
(SDI) and geospatial information sharing enabled
through open, consensus-based standards.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Current situation
• Extensive use of industry events and publications
• OGC provides international best practice
• Typically done at a national level (NSDI)
• SDIs are at different stages of development and
market conditions and institutional arrangements
vary significantly.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Reported issues
• Potential language barriers, full participation may
require good English skills and there may be a
need for additional translations
• Membership fees too expensive, maybe a need to
review the membership levels and pricing strategy
• Costly to participate actively, due to time and travel
• GovFuture addresses a number of these areas.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Reported issues
• Finding the right people to participate in OGC
activities above and beyond technical people
• Government agencies compete for funding to
control activities and the value of investing in the
OGC processes is often not clear
• Explain benefits for private companies/software
vendors/system integrators
• [OGC Business Value Committee tackling these
topics.]
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Reported issues
• Address the argument that international vendors
have already implemented the standards in their
products and nothing more needs to be done
• Outreach activities to be tailored to specific regional
and national requirements, which vary widely
• The basic IT infrastructure is in place, with key
issues being politics and human resources
• There is a perception that some national and
regional leaders are barriers, due to lack of
understanding of the value of participation.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Suggested approach
• Create an online booklet written in different
languages for public and private sector execs
• The booklet should include:
– Vision of society
– Current interoperability situation in each country
– Role and position of geospatial interoperability in
information infrastructures
– How OGC and geospatial standards contribute to society
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Suggested approach
• The booklet should also address:
– What kinds of standards and networking opportunities are
provided through the OGC
– Relationships to other standards development
organizations worldwide
– Resources needed to construct standards-based SDIs
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Suggested approach
• Another suggestion was to adopt modern
marketing techniques (e.g. videos, social media,
such as Twitter and LinkedIn)
• Try to engage more members of the geospatial and
IT community.
• These are existing activities for the OGC, e.g.
several thousand connections on LinkedIn
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
ISO and OGC
• ISO standards are part of the outreach picture
• Industry demands an implementation environment
of the ISO standards because otherwise the ISO
standards remain useless (too abstract)
• How do we communicate the links and joint work
between OGC and ISO? There is a Joint Advisory
Group (JAG) between OGC and ISO/TC211
• OGC standards are now recognised as ISO
standards/ISO standards support OGC standards.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Additional feedback
• Standards-based geospatial information
infrastructure is restricted because:
– Organizations need a substantial reason and resources to
improve legacy systems and data to follow standards
– Too few engineers understand geospatial standards and
use of standards components not common with developers
– For the engineer, it is hard to use the implementations
without local technical support
– Organizations in charge of public policies do not have
required leadership or are not promoting standards
– At the organizational level the adoption of values that
promote interoperability are not in place.
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Summary
• There is still an overriding need for education –
both inside and outside of the consortium
• Interoperability problems are common across the
world, priorities laid out in SDIs vary greatly
• OGC works very closely with other standards
development organisations, e.g. ISO, Oasis, W3C
• Reported issues actively being addressed
• The Council can advise and guide on these topics
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
Outreach and OGC standards
Conclusion and next steps
• Outreach will be supported by Council input
• It will be tailored to specific communities of interest
and will take regional requirements into account,
such as language and culture
• Marketing activities will consider the local
perspective when supporting:
– Conferences and seminars
– Publications: online and offline
– Website development
• Regular Council input is important
OGC
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© 2011 Open Geospatial Consortium
Making location count.
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Thank you