Monday 23 September 2013

LGS Inc. Launches PermitLogix.com. A premium development control cloud service for local government.

PermitLogix.com Launches Cloud Services Follow Us
 

Closing The Technology Divide for Municipalities

 
The PermitLogix team has combined web management and mapping technologies to bring an easy to use service for all local government development permit and application requirements. We have truly created a product for the Gov. 2.0 era. In 2010, LGS Inc. successfully launched the Local Information Utility Cloud GIS for small local government and now to complement the LIU we have designed PermitLogix.com
 
 
 
Email Us Visit Website 1(902)8401695
 
Local Government staff will be able to map and track development applications and permits with a few clicks of the mouse. Staff can take PermitLogix with them on a tablet or smartphone, notify staff of changes to applications or permits, and organize approvals with all the information needed in real time to make approvals correctly and efficiently.
 
 
PermitLogix has the ability to consume your current application and permit forms so you do not have to change anything other than being more efficient. The web application does not require any extensive training to get your staff on the right track. Is your local government sharing development control services with another jurisdiction? No problem, our licensing is based on a multiple users within a single development department.
 
Please feel free to contact us for further details on how this new web technology will fast track your development control requirements at PermitLogix.com
 

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Friday 23 August 2013

10 Map Services Your Business MUST Be Listed in

It is very important as a business to get found by potential clients. Here is some key services from Google that will help get your business on the map.

10 Map Services Your Business MUST Be Listed in

Friday 9 August 2013

Online Maps: Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic...

Online Maps: Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic...: Flying low and slow above the wild, pristine terrain of Alaska's North Slope in a specially instrumented NASA plane, research scientist...

LGS INC. ASSISTING WITH A CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION PLAN FOR THE TOWN OF CLARK'S HARBOUR

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LGS Inc. has been contracted by 4Site Group of Halifax to assist in the development of a Municipal Climate change Action Plan for the Town of Clark's Harbour.





Using criteria built from a climate change study designed by Service Nova Scotia and the Department of the Environment we have created a GIS analysis that shows the potential tidal surge risk areas for the town through the year 2100 and with sea level rise and surge levels as high as 5 metres.


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Friday 2 August 2013

Transforming Essential GIS Skills

Over the years GIS has grown to cover a very broad horizon. It’s no longer the domain of specialized departments; instead it has become deeply woven into an organization’s fabric and extends to a very public and connected audience. The fact that we think differently today than in the past about how we use–and perhaps more importantly how we can use–GIS reminds us that we need to continue to evolve our skills in new directions, whether we’re seasoned GIS veterans, or simply trying to land that first job. - See more at: http://blogs.esri.com/esri/esri-insider/2013/08/01/transforming-essential-gis-skills/#sthash.sb7Q0PtZ.dpuf

Transforming Essential GIS Skills

Google Maps Mania: San Francisco Planning Department Maps

Google Maps Mania: San Francisco Planning Department Maps: The San Francisco Planning Department has a great selection of San Francisco maps. Much of the data used to create the maps is available ...

Wednesday 24 July 2013

Geomapix Gateway July Newsletter

Geomapix Gateway Monthly Newsletter
Issue
20

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My Marketing Notes

Well it’s vacation time and I decided to write up a nice and light newsletter on a few things that I have been watching for the past month. I am heading on vacation this summer so, like everyone else, I am trying to get a ton of professional and personal tasks completed before our family leaves for a camping vacation to the beach. I have my hands full with a bunch of marketing ideas and campaigns for my business. One thing that I have realized in the past year is that when you have created a product like our Local Information Utility, you need to commit as much effort in marketing the product as you do creating the product. I have recognized that being and staying connected today is a lot of work whether it’s for business or personal. Information is being consumed at an alarming rate and people have a short attention span. So your message in any situation needs to be short and to the point. I am very techy in nature and in a sales and marketing scenario the techy talk does not work that well. As a business person I have a couple of great avenues to be able to meet people and chat on a professional and a personal level. I am comfortable with beginning conversations on a personal level and letting the chat take its course.

 

This leads to me and the person I am talking to getting comfortable and “what we do” or “what we sell” comes out naturally. So I think the goal is to be yourself at all times and try not to talk or look-like something that you are not. This leads into the development of some great soft skills which is an additional asset for any professional. One soft skill that is very important to me is to first listen to the person you are talking to.

 

Recently, I found a group called Sip.Chat.Connect (SCC) and it’s bringing Nova Scotia businesses together at local café’s or professional centres to chat about business. Founded by Charlie Aubie in the 2011, the Sip.Chat.Connect meetings are totally relaxing and everyone is very open to conversation. The SCC goal is to create a living and expanding network of businesses that not only meet together, but work together, to build a community of expertise for everyone to grow and learn from. They have weekly meet-ups in a variety of locations across mainland Nova Scotia and I see it spreading to other parts of the province. Note, the weekly meet ups are free to attend and are open to any business.

 

As Charlie puts it, “It's about shaking hands, asking questions, and making connections. We have so much to offer here, in this great province.” Charlie is so right! We have a wealth of untapped potential here in the province. The Nova Scotia business community is smart, innovative, and full of free thinkers that know what it takes to run a small business in Nova Scotia.

Please check out their website. Follow SCC

 

Techy Things We're Doing

GISbuzz.com has certainly created some buzz! Our Analyst and GISbuzz.com creator Phil Schnetzer shared some stats with me last week. His Google Analytics numbers show for the first month after launched there were 5586 visitors to the site and there were 16594 page views. These are great numbers for a one month launch.

 

Our partner, Gerry Watson, has been working with us on the development of a web based permit tracking system for small local government. We have officially named this product PermitLogix. Local government staff will never have to deal with managing “the paper trail” again. Permitlogix is fully customizable and we can consume your current permit requirements so you do not have to change the way you do things. The PermitLogix web interface will work with any major mobile OS using a standard data connection.

 

Also, Gerry works with businesses to develop interactive web sites such as the one he just created for the Middle Sackville Baptist Church, check it out middlesackvillebaptist.org

 

Speaking of Cloud, another business partner, Annapolis Valley Computers, is part of a new dynamic way for IT managers across the globe to manage thousands of corporate desktops without the infrastructure, hassle, or expense. They have partnered with Faktor11 of Ontario to offer their MokaFive desktop management solution. This solution that can run on any hardware platform. . . Mac or PC, desktop or laptop, personal- or corporate-owned. But can still be integrated into an enterprise Windows environment. Welcome to the new era!

 

Don't Forget, If your in the Halifax area and would like to network please check out my calendar at Meet Up Halifax.

 

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Wednesday 10 July 2013

Meet Up Halifax Nova Scotia

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I am visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, every second Tuesday of the month to connect with professionals and chat about mapping, IT, web, social media marketing, and business

James Boxall, Director of the Dalhousie GISceince Centre has graciously offered a little space for me to hook up my laptop and connect with professional across Halifax. For a small firm like ours it is greatly appreciated :)

So if you work or are visiting Halifax on business I would love to chat with you. Please checkout our Meet Up Halifax webpage to check out our calendar for available times to meet. Click Here



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Friday 21 June 2013

Geomapix Gateway June Newsletter

Issue
19

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GISbuzz.com

Our Analyst, Phil Schnetzer, recently created a cool website that consumes mapping related content from across the globe. He has rightly named the website service GISbuzz.com and tagged a slogan of “All things mapping”. Since going live on June 12 it has received thousands of hits and great feedback. The backbone of GISbuzz is a feed aggregator which continuously pulls new content from over 100 sources. The latest jobs, news, blog articles, videos and images are all available and can be read/viewed in their unaltered original state directly from within GISbuzz. If you produce GIS related content on the web that you would like to contribute to GISbuzz please visit his contact page.

 

GANS Conference

We recently took in a Geomatics Association of Nova Scotia (GANS) event in Halifax, Nova Scotia. GANS is a Non Profit Association that works to promote the Geomatics or map technology industry in Nova Scotia. I have been involved with the association for many years. As a small firm I cannot make it to all events but this event had particular significance to me. In a nutshell it started with a discussion about the future of Geomatics through the new group called the “Canadian Geomatics Community Round Table”, and was then followed by a presentation from Michael Goodchild, Emeritus Professor of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, called the “Future of GIS ”. He is widely credited with coining the phrase "Volunteered Geographic Information" and is considered the world's foremost expert on the topic.

 

James Boxall - Canadian Geomatics Round Table

 

Starting off is James Boxall, Director of the Dalhousie GISciences Centre and a member of the Round Table committee. It was an introduction to most of us on what this round table group is and explains that in the early days of Geomatics in Canada we played a fundamental role in the development of what we call Geographic Information Systems. Roger Tomlinson, the Father of GIS, created the first ever GIS system called the Canada GIS. Sure he was not born in Canada, but his roots in building the Geomatics industry started at the University of McGill. The round table is trying to understand why the Geomatics industry in Canada has fallen behind the rest of the world for innovation and leadership. 


One interesting piece was the discussion of the term “Geomatics” and if the Father of GIS created the Canadian Geomatics industry why isn’t the term “Geomatics” as synonymous as the word “Google”. The word Google is now a verb in the English language, why not “Geomatics” for the Geospatial world we now live in? Everyone knows the word “Maps”, but the word “Geomatics” Is just the start of a foggy conversation about the technology our industry uses. Is Maps too simple of a word? Is that why none of us in the industry can say we just make “Maps”? I think it’s perceived the word “Maps” may mean that what we do is not important to society.


Heck, it was certainly important in the days of exploring new worlds and all the survey and mapping work that David Thompson was so acclaimed for and was paid a good sum from the British Empire. In our profession we are explorers, surveyors, and map makers just in the digital context and more rapidly than in the past. For any Geomatics professional the elevator pitch to explain what we do would require a shaft that would reach the moon. The term Geomatics or GIS can spark a frenzy of technical jargon that literally stops time for the listener. When I am talking to someone that is not in my industry I say that “we make maps that can be delivered through the Internet to any client around the world with pretty much any kind of information that they want on the maps.”


But it was more than just the term Geomatics, it was about engaging the users on a study that looks at where the industry is right now. What are some of the road blocks in restoring our credibility as a leader? What are the factors that all levels of government, private sector, and higher education need to consider in reshaping our industry to standout and innovative?


These factors were discussed;


  • How is our industry identified? When we talk to people do they know or understand Geomatics and GIS or do we have an identity crisis?

  • Market? What are other countries doing in this field and what does the global market look like?

  • Business model? Where do public and private sector fit in the new Canadian Geomatics world of 2020 and who shall shape the spatial data of tomorrow? Who funds it?

  • Governance? Who makes the rules and leads the pack?

  • Where does the data come from? Does public sector carry the burden of the costs? Where does the public play a part in data capture. Does private sector take over the role?

  • Privacy? How do we protect the public’s privacy in a world where people are trying to get noticed and mobile applications are accessing our information without us really knowing it?

As you can imagine this discussion could have spanned days. The point obviously is for you, the reader, if you’re interested, to join the discussion. Because whether you are aware of it or not Geomatics, GIS, and map information is everywhere and is used without you even knowing it.


Please visit the round table resources by clicking below and don’t forget to check out their usual social media links. Visit http://eratosthenes-project.org/.


 

Michael Goodchild Lecture - The Future of GIS

 

Ok, I always said that I would not create a newsletter more than a page but I cannot help myself. Next, Dr. Goodchild lectured on the Future of GIS. Professionally, I needed to see this presentation so I could gauge, as an owner of a GIS consulting firm, if we are moving in the right direction. We are developing GIS products and services which are cloud based systems. A lot of financial risk and sweat equity has gone into our Geomapix Gateway service.


I am only going to highlight the key points for this article because it spanned 67 minutes and covered an enormous number of concepts in the GIS world. You definitely need to check out the video recording at http://spatial-information.org/goodchild-lecture/


Here are some of the highlights that I took from the lecture:


  • In Goodchild’s 45 year career GIS has been one of the most dynamic fields to work in.

  • New ideas for the use of GIS are endless and Goodchild had some great examples.

  • He says that we only have begun the exploration of GIS and that today is only a prologue to what is to come.

  • GIS technology is transitioning from the traditional 2d (Flat) mapping to visualizing data in 3D.

  • Advances in technology and the speed of the web have allowed us to better depict location information in real time and at a lower cost.

  • Real time tracking is a significant trend today because of our appetite for information and the rate at which we can consume it.

  • Tracking will also include not just location but collection data about the physical environment.

  • GIS web mapping technology has changed the way we collect data globally through open software and data concepts and that volunteers can contribute to a map.

  • One of the biggest advantages of open data concepts is the speed at which data is collected and consumed by users.

  • One of biggest challenges with open data concepts is the quality and reliability of the data.

  • The role of the GIS professional has changed because anyone can make a map now but that is countered by the fact it might not be a good map.

  • Mapping and geography is more user-centric than ever because of the reduction in cost to produce and distribute maps via the web and mobile.

  • The average person has been a consumer and a producer of Geographic Information by accessing things like mobile applications that consume and distribute your location to a community of people.

  • People want to map information of social significance such as their friends’ location, social dysfunction, and environmental issues.

  • Volunteers now can validate information in real time at the local level reducing the amount of ground varification required by the industry.

  • Computing has switched from desktop to remote or cloud based. Many things can be done more effectively within a cloud system.

  • The Cloud redefines a GIS from desktop software to a GIS platform.

  • The new GIS platform can access more information, from many locations around the world, all at the same time.

  •  Google has played a significant role in transforming the concept of GIS and bringing mapping to people anytime, anywhere.

  • Google’s service strategy is that there should be a little GIS in everything. So every service that Google offers could have a map view.

  • Cloud GIS is creating the mother of all databases, the Geo-Internet.

Finally, what we are seeing today is just the start of massive changes to geographic or place information becoming an integral part of our life.


Geomapix Gateway is on the right track and will continue to position and align itself to current needs while always looking ahead.

 

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