The World on a Screen

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Computers have always been dedicated to the organization of knowledge, but the importance of easily and precisely understanding -- and thus using -- that knowledge has often been overlooked.

Given the nuances and subtleties of language, it is not unusual for even the best-run agencies, departments and governments to experience communication breakdowns.

However, geographic information systems (GIS) offer an exacting, tangible way to conceptualize and understand the majority of issues and actions addressed by public-sector entities.

Further, ESRI's GIS technology provides innovative functions that can increase productivity while facilitating both communication and decision-making.

"GIS allows public administrators to visualize what's going on," said Jack Dangermond, president of ESRI, the world leader in GIS technology. "And by seeing it, you can direct resources -- whether it be money, staff time, a police force or an educational emphasis -- in the direction of the problems."

The unique capabilities and broad applications of a GIS are well known to Dangermond, who founded ESRI in 1969 as a consulting firm specializing in land use analysis projects.

By the late 1970s, requests to purchase software created by Dangermond's 100-person staff started pouring in. A few years later, following the vision of Senior Software Engineer Scott Morehouse, ESRI began packaging its software as a product rather than a service. ESRI continues to provide GIS-related services in addition to producing GIS software.

Today, ESRI is the largest producer of GIS software in the world, implemented by more than 140,000 organizations and used by more than one million individuals on any given day.

Here's Looking at You -- the User
Despite that unprecedented success, ESRI's current staff of more than 2,700 remains focused on meeting the needs of the people and organizations they serve.

"Our applications are in many different fields," said Dangermond. "They're in healthcare. They're in planning. They're in the utilities. They're very much in local government -- that's about onefourth of our total business. They're in the military. They're in forestry. About 60 percent of our focus is public sector."

Each year ESRI spends about 25 percent of its revenue on research and development. With more than 600 researchers working to meet changing customer needs, ESRI remains at the vanguard of GIS development and implementation.

Serving up the World
So exactly how do agencies, departments and governments take full advantage of a GIS? Certainly there are -- and always will be -- a large number of desktop users. By accessing GIS desktop tools, professionals improve productivity in a number of ways. Planning departments use GIS to make plans. Police analyze crime patterns or chart incident information. Fire departments note implementation of abatement projects. And divisions of forestry look for trends in vegetation growth or deterioration.

But desktop applications are only a small part of what a GIS has to offer. This year, ESRI is introducing ArcGIS Server.

"It can connect all the activities that an organization does because they all have geographic context," explained Dangermond. "And I think the important thing to realize is that a geographic information system is an information system."

Over the past few years, ESRI spent nearly $300 million reengineering its products. The new technology allows GIS to become a framework for organizing government information. And unlike information systems based on financial or personal data, a geographic information system can present data that's much more relevant and cross-cutting.

Though this GIS-centered approach is just beginning to emerge, it offers unlimited potential for public-sector use. Server technology allows several layers of information to be combined, providing a detailed view of many different aspects of a geographically specific item, location or route. Furthermore, updates made by one department are immediately integrated into the central server and are available to all users.

Ultimately, ArcGIS Server allows government to structure data in a way that's extremely relevant to internal staff and citizens.

"GIS is unique because it deals with real geographic things like roads, bridges, pipes, buildings, parcels and electrical networks," said Dangermond. "It's the abstraction of real things that people care about."

In their quest to connect directly with the individuals they serve, many agencies are implementing GIS systems as e-government tools. A GIS can allow citizens to see plans, problems, proposals and a variety of other data in an easily comprehensible and meaningful way.

Indeed, new and creative applications of GIS technology are being implemented every day. Some organizations have even connected their personnel in the field with real-time GIS applications that allow them to immediately respond to citizen requests, and then notify that citizen when the issue has been resolved.

Naturally, when communication -- both in and across organizations and also between organizations and the community -- flows efficiently and smoothly through the use of easy-to-understand visual data, savings in both time and money inevitably follow.

In fact, helping public-sector agencies do more with less is a key focus -- and a key benefit -- of ESRI's GIS software.

Portal for Your Thoughts
The grasp of GIS technology reaches far beyond effective, specific and sometimes narrowly defined solutions. It also embraces the broadest of global visions.

GIS networks and GIS portals are just-emerging technologies, but they hold the key to delivering geospatial information to virtually anyone anywhere on the planet.

GIS networks are systems of servers that distribute geographic information via an Internet portal. Basically, information provided by the portal can be thought of as layers of maps. Users access the information with a Web browser.

"These are different servers, different services," explained Dangermond. "But the maps are geo-referenced so I can overlay them and see the integration of data just like I do inside of a GIS, but using basic Internet network protocol."

Information can come from a plethora of sources including cities, counties, states and the federal government as well as private companies and organizations. The scope and possibilities of such networks and portals are just now becoming evident.

On June 30, the federal government -- with the help of ESRI -- launched www.geodata.gov, a Web site commonly referred to as the Geospatial One-Stop.

"It's basically a metadata server that points at all of the individual distributed servers on the Internet," said Dangermond. "It's like a big library card catalog where I can search and find the image that I want, the data that I want."

This unprecedented access to geospatial data promises to affect nearly every profession, organization and agency in the world and will likely completely change the way geography is perceived and taught in schools.

That all-encompassing geographic framework is something Dangermond has been working toward for 34 years. "That's the digital earth," he said. "Or, as I like to call it, the 'nervous system for our planet' because it will measure and serve up all the changes to our world."