GIS.org.nz

The Ministry of Health recently released the Altas of Socioeconomic Deprivation (NZDep2006). PDF maps are available from this Atlas's homepage on the Ministry's website, but shapefiles aren't directly available from the website. A free CDROM is available that contains shapefiles - as well as all the reports. I received my CDROM a couple of days ago and it contains the following layers - CensusAreaUnit, DistrictHealthBoard, NZ_Outline,NZDep2006, and TerritorialAuthority.

In an email out late last week John from the NZ Geospatial Office announced the following...

Hi All
The New Zealand Geospatial Office is pleased to announce that John Clegg from ProjectX has been awarded second prize for his Mashup - Crime 10K.

Check out Crime 10K @ http://blog.projectxtech.com/page/2/ or http://www.gis.org.nz/wiki/Geospatial_Mash-up_2008_Participants

Cheers
John

Congratulations to John, not only for winning a prize, but for also actually completing a working solution! :) Thanks also to the New Zealand Geospatial office, and the other central and local government organisations that rallied around the mashup.

After the strong turnout at the initial Mashup meeting at the start of May, it is disappointing, but perhaps not unexpected to have so few completed entries. I wonder if the short time frame - e.g. less than 2 months from discussions to submission resulted in too tight a timeline, especially as those that have the skills to mash something up in a short time are probably quite busy with work already? I hope that the Geospatial Office does not lose heart from the low number of submitted entries. I would have liked to have played with the data in Sahana, but I think Sahana needs another 6-12 months before it will be ready to support that, and I certainly wasn't in a position to currently build something from scratch!

Perhaps a competition needs more time to be run? Given that most participants would be doing it as a voluntary effort anyway it may need a 3-6 month timeframe to get more teams participating.

Alternatively, perhaps we look at moving away from a competitive, team-based, do-it-in-your-own-time approach, and try something like a soild 2 days to work through some geospatial issues or a particular theme to provide some focus - for example a mashup to bring a pile of different GIS systems together and work on interoperability around a certain issue. My favourite would be around a disaster scenario as that provides a very dynamic environment where lots of new data is being produced, and mashups are needed to aggregate data from many different organisations, and it is needed in a timely manner.

Who knows? Perhaps trying to get it all nailed in one weekend, or a combined Friday/Saturday (one day off work, one day of weekend) may be a lot easier for most. It also has the added benefit of throwing a pile of people in the same room(s) and setting them to a task, rather than providing an independent, work-at-your-own-pace challenge.

I'd be interested to hear some comments on this issue!

One of the benefits of moving to the ProjectX servers has been the ability to better integrate RSS feeds and the like into the website. One interesting new twist on this has been the release of the 'nz data announce' feed. The first data feed to be piped in here is the 'recently added layers' feed from http://koordinates.com/. I'd like to thank Ed Corkery from Koordinates for implementing a feed that we could subscribe to and publish any new data.

I would like to encourage any other organisations that are publishing or releasing data sets to consider publishing a feed to enable easy aggregation of new spatial data sources in New Zealand. Additionally, we will probably look at creating our own announce feed on here that we can manually announce new spatial data sources.

Of course, we'd prefer that if you release data sets regularly, or they are updated often, that you publish a feed in preference, and let us know so that we can subscribe the aggregator to it.

The MapInfo New Zealand User Group have released their Call for Presentations for the annual User Group conference to be held in Wellington in September. More details are contained in the attached pdf.

By telling your GIS story, you’re communicating your best practices, successes, and innovative GIS applications with others who face the same day-to-day challenges. We look forward to hearing about your exciting work in the following areas.

• Pitney Bowes MapInfo
• Case Studies
• Local Government
• Web mapping
• Transportation
• Civil Defence
• Retail
• Application Development

Authors will present a 20 to 30 minute live presentation as part of the 2008 MUGNZ Conference. Abstracts and papers will also be published as part of the conference proceedings.

The first of a few conference announces we're going to circulate here. Yes, I know this one starts today. Note that we will also be including conferences in the gis.org.nz calendar as well.

How GIS can transform organisations
23 & 24 June 2008. Duxton Hotel, Wellington.

This unique and inaugural event will focus on the ability of GIS systems to provide true value through enabling practical solutions to enhance business performance. The event will feature innovative uses of GIS systems from around New Zealand, and how GIS tools are used to provide real business benefits across a range of industries.

The programme will take you through the journeys many organisations have overcome and the challenges associated with GIS to help integrate the tools into everyday business processes. Numerous case studies will demonstrate how results can be achieved and provide plenty of practical solutions to the big issues. Explore lessons learned and make sure you are on the right path to success.

For more in-depth information and hands-on learning, there are also separately bookable half-day workshops:
Gaining Buy-in for Investment in GIS
Developing and Implementing Processes that Ensure Data Quality and Integrity

To view the programme in its entirety, please click on the following link:
http://www.brightstar.co.nz/nz/inaugural-geospatial-information-systems-summit.html

I have just uploaded the following guideline to gis.org.nz. It is also accessible in the wiki.

The purpose of this Guideline is to unlock the government Geospatial Divide that is holding back NZ Inc.

Geospatial data is a key component of the governments Digital Content Strategy, and Geospatial Strategy, key initiatives of the Digital Strategy with its vision of “New Zealand will be a world leader in using information and technology to realise its economic, social, environmental and cultural goals, to the benefit of all New Zealanders.”

This Guideline focuses on the key questions of;

• What information to deliver
• What web channels should be used to deliver that information
• What web presence should be used
• What information barriers should be used if any

LINZ is undertaking a survey to understand the usage of NZTopoOnline. I would encourage everyone to fill it out and let them know how you use the site, and where they could make improvements.

The New Zealand Geospatial Office is pleased to announce that John Clegg from ProjectX has been awarded second prize for his Mashup - Crime 10K.

Check out Crime 10K at Geospatial Mash-up 2008 Participants .

I've been passed the following links from the 'Our Place in Space' miniconference that was held as part of GOVIS08 at the start of May. These are all available from here, and are linked directly to the individual presentations below.

Delivering the NZ Geospatial Strategy
Brendon Whiteman - New Zealand Geospatial Office

KEYNOTE: The Australian Scene: Issues & Trends Facing the Australian Spatial Industry
Gary Nairn - Former Australian Special Minister of State

KEYNOTE: Spatially Reengineering Honolulu
Jeremy Harris - Former Mayor of Honolulu City

Achieving Excellence in the Spatial Information Through Partnerships: The Western Australian Phenomenon
Marnie Leybourne - WALIS & SSI President Elect

Case Study: National Aquatic Biodiversity Information Systems
Kim Duckworth - Ministry of Fisheries

Case Study PHI Online
Dyfed Thomas - Public Health Intelligence, Ministry of Health

The New Zealand Scene: Issues and Trends Facing the NZ Spatial Industry
David Park - Geospatial Research Centre

Industry Trends - Focus on Open Source Movement
Simon Nitz - Napier City Council

The Global Geospatial Browser
Scott Campbell - Eagle Technology, Brett Roberts - Microsoft

Central & Local Government Collaboration
Neville Perrie - ALGGI

Future Directions for Spatial Industry
Jim McLeod - Environment Waikato

As part of the GOVIS Geospatial miniConference, a maps mashup is being held the day before with data sets being provided by LINZ and others. More information will be made available on the barcamp page (for more on what a barcamp is - click here).

A challenge to innovate! A challenge to find open data! Create and present your mash-up with a few data sets provided for the BarCamp! Cool Prizes! Sponsored by Statistics New Zealand, The New Zealand Geospatial Office and the Spatial Sciences Institute. Entry is open to everybody who is enthusiastic about using New Zealand's core geospatial data in presenting current issues and analysis challenges! MashUp 2008 is an event which brings together New Zealand's leading technical experts, as well as budding enthusiasts, in combining information sources with mapping boundaries and data in innovative ways. Rules of the competition will be downloadable here as soon as possible.