James Fee Gives His Two Cents on GIS and GeoWeb

We had the opportunity to catch up with James Fee at Spatially Adjusted and Planet Geospatial to get his opinion on the current and future state of GIS and the GeoWeb. James is a certified GIS Professional (GISP) and GIS developer, analyst, and consultant and has spent the last decade implementing, developing and consulting on GIS projects. He has experience with almost all of the large players in the geospatial field such as ESRI, MapInfo, Manifold, OSGeo (MapServer, GDAL, QGIS, OpenLayers), MapDotNet, Oracle, Microsoft and Google.

FortiusOne: Where do you see GIS going in the next 10 years?

James Fee: I think data and collaboration will be huge in the next 10 years.  The explosion of Neogeography and projects such as OpenStreetMap have brought many new faces into GIS.  Not only are we seeing spatial data being pushed out to the public at large, but this data is beginning to be integrated into GIS workflows.  We’ll begin to see metadata and documentation of these datasets as well making them very valuable.  

While freely sharing data has been great, the next logical step is allowing companies to monetize their datasets, share as easily.  The ability to pay and use data services should revolutionize the industry.  The price of data hasn’t really been a limiting factor yet, but the difficulty of integrating these datasets into online mapping or even in desktop GIS has hurt adoption.  In addition the speed of geospatial data services has been poor so moving these services into the Cloud should improve performance and increase profitability given that there is no need for large overhead (such as servers, or bandwidth).

FortiusOne: Will there be convergence between GIS and the GeoWeb to the point that they become indistinguishable?

James Fee: Possibly, I think this have been the holy grail that everyone has been trying to attain.  GIS by its nature is complex and you generally need complex solutions to complex problems.  That said I think we’ll see many operations that were the domain of GIS begin to be part of the GeoWeb.  Basic geoprocessing over the web via an easy-to-use interface can satisfy a vast number of use cases of general users without hitting them over the head with a steep learning curve.  

Usually moving GIS to general uses has been by giving them the kitchen sink and expecting them to figure it out.  Simple solutions to their “simple” problems is how we’ll see GIS and the GeoWeb converge.  Over time more and more “complex” analysis will be available to use by just about anyone with a computer, but I’m not sure we’ll see that in the next 10 years.

FortiusOne: Do datasharing and crowdsourcing have a place in GIS?

James Fee: Yes, but the problem is how do you give GIS professionals the ability to use the data and make decisions about its accuracy.  I guess it brings up the question, do you trust a Biologist in the field with at GPS more than a hobbyist?  I’d guess most GIS professionals would pick the Biologist, but a degree in Biology doesn’t mean the data is necessarily good.  

Datasharing and crowdsourcing are great ideas but for GIS to use them, they need metadata, documentation, and possibly a rating system.  A “marketplace” should allow users to rate the quality and accuracy of the data which both helps others make decisions about the data and gives feedback to the creator on how they can improve their dataset.  OpenStreetMap has been a great example on how “experts” can help “novices” grow to be experts in data collection.

FortiusOne: Should there be a marketplace for online geodata?  

James Fee: Totally, I think there has to be.  First off, you need some place users can feel comfortable buying data.  Second you need a place where data can be rated and reviewed.  Third you need a place where data providers can put their information in the cloud for quick and easy access buy everyone.  If someone is investing time and energy into creating their data, I don’t see any reason they can’t be rewarded for this.  

I think some data will be available via micropayments and other data will be very expensive (or the ability to pay for read only data vs editable data).  Having some place where users can go to both sell and buy data, search for data, and review data is critical today.  Sure Google will index spatial data, but being able to go to a focused marketplace will put buyers and sellers together quickly.  And at least today, any site that sells data should be compatible with ESRI software.  Offering up data types that aren’t compatible with ESRI will limit any marketplace.

FortiusOne: What emerging technology trend will have the biggest impact on GIS?

James Fee: I think putting a GPS in so many “ordinary” things is going to impact GIS immensely.  Walking around with a GPS in your phone should give you access to many GIS applications, digital cameras and video cameras with GPS will spatially enable tons of datasets.  

FortiusOne: What is your reaction to the Google – ESRI announcement?

James Fee: We’ll have to see what impact this really has.   It isn’t revolutionary the idea that Google might index GIS servers, the hard part is getting all these traditional ESRI clients to open up their data is the challenge.  They’ll need to see the benefit to allowing users to view their data in any way they choose rather than the traditional hard to use ESRI web mapping front end.  

FortiusOne: What impact will Google have on GIS?

James Fee: Google has already had a huge impact on GIS.  At a minimal level, it has already allowed GIS users to search for data sets.  Google Maps has totally changed how web mapping is used and displayed on the internet, Google Earth has pushed 3D GIS to the mainstream and now their geo search 2.0 and geo sitemaps they pushing spatial searching.  Google has been really good about getting spatial data in front of everyone in a way everyone can use it.  GIS has learned much from this and the new tools coming out by ESRI, Autodesk, etc. all are very “Google-like”.