Kortste routes

Moved to a new place

Jw — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:13:17 +0000

This blog was moved to www.kortsteroutes.nl I am keeping this life for a while, just to be sure that selfhosting works out fine. So far, so good.

Filed under: over het web

Maps of our lives

Jw — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:13:20 +0000

Been cleaning up at home. I have a few atlases –and maps- every normal person would trash. I don’t even consider it. Some of these maps & atlases I bought myself, like the official Atlas of the Netherlands. We had to buy that one while in college (studying cartography, so it made some sense). Others were given to me on special occasions. In a way they all describe my life.

After working with maps, geography and information systems these many years, I still can’t explain the magical dimension of maps and atlases. Is it just the yearning for lands and seas far beyond the horizon or understanding spatial phenomena? There has to be more to it: I remember observing how no single participant of a geo-conference dared to step on a map, which was put on the exhibition floor. What is the secret or sacred of geography? Well, I still have time to find (a direction to) an answer.

Bit of a goofy, soft blog entry? Well, heck, it is weekend and vacation time! What do you expect? At least I did start a new category : me, myself and I.

Filed under: Me, myself and I

the UC experience in pictures

Jw — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:24:00 +0000

Click to view slideshow. Recently I uploaded a few pictures to Flickr, mainly to test how Flickr connects to WordPress. The hosted version of WordPress has a much richer ‘user experience’, so I will switch to that soon.
Now about these pictures: they might not look like your ‘average’ UC pictures, but I will likely use them in future presentations. E.g. the word Innovation (I hope to be presenting on that subject again soon!), the chess rules (in some games the rules are not clear…to me), and the ‘fishing prohibited’sign (the standard sign apparently is not clear enough…). Drawing the outline of my new blog now, some holiday…

Filed under: ESRI User Conference

Hope to CU next year at the UC!

Jw — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:13:19 +0000

What a week it has been. If you ever want to feel a worldwide connection to geography, I propose this place, this week is a good opportunity for you. Personally I met with people from e.g. Switzerland, Chile, Surinam, India, US, Germany, Italy, Georgia (the state), Maryland, etc… apparently one out of five participants is ‘international’ (depending on your perspective, only some 50 were not international to me).

The party last night was a bit awkward at first: drizzling rain (quoting a colleague for Redlands “especially for you Dutch guys, make you feel at home”), looked like people were leaving. Then later on the crowd really came and it was like the good old times again. And I loved the “dude it’s ez-ree” action!

Just about to go home now, sorry to miss the closing session (I’m closing my bags instead). Got lots of notes to work out on my way home. Goodbye all you people. Adios, hope to CU next year at the UC!

Filed under: ESRI, ESRI User Conference

Speaking Dutch – all night long

Jw — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:41:20 +0000

Last night we had our ‘Hollandse avond’ / Dutch evening. For all those that speak a few Dutch words: you were cordially invited for a small tour of the bay, a few drinks (no alcohol, naturally) and interesting conversations. I shared a table with a alumni from my college, one of them was perfect in imitating professors from way-back-when. Brought back mostly good and some bad memories…good fun.

Times flies when you’re having fun a User Conference. I had several meetings about open innovation, prepped the City of Rotterdam’s presentation (the one that was featured in the 3D part of the plenary) and went through the –endless- exhibition floor again. Thursday morning I met up with Geocortex, one of our partners, to review where we are both going. We really have a working partnership, didn’t that get started here at the UC two years ago? I noted there are even more companies participating in the exhibition this year, great that we are able to provide this platform to them. Next (in one hour): a goodbye party!

BTW: I took a break from the UC (felt like skipping class) to visit a bookstore. At Borders –great name for a bookstore, I explore borders of GIS- I got a few new books, should get me through the summer.

Filed under: ESRI, ESRI User Conference

Meetings and long walks

Jw — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:48:38 +0000

A day of meetings for me at the UC. Meetings and long walks. That’s not a complaint, but the hotel is a bit further away from the presentations and exhibition than what it used to be.

So meet about what? Some of the subjects: about being an open core company, about our cooperation with ITC (in the Netherlands and abroad), about cloud computing (still can’t see it is that new of an approach as is often claimed). I went only once through the exhibition floor, took me already over one hour. There are some really neat applications here; I am looking into the possible use for our (current and future) users in the Netherlands.

That GeoLounge is a nice resting point, but did I see a few people sleeping there? Is it all too overwhelming? My jetlag is not out of my system yet, should be about the time when I get home. Had a great dinner, by the way. Talked about GIS, Africa, databases, Africa, GIS, database (and China a bit as well) …

Filed under: ESRI, ESRI User Conference

Monday’s tweetcloud

Jw — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:41:02 +0000

Well, what a day here in San Diego. The User Conference clearly is about learning and meeting people. It is also about having fun and it has its moments of high seriousness. Not sure where the soul of the GIS tribe really is. As inspiring as (most of) the presentations were, I found it also during the Lightning talks and at the MapGallery.

Lots of tweets yesterday as well. My htc or the wireless failed me, that’s what you get when you want to be in the middle of the crowd. What did the crowd tweet? Check out the overview in the picture (from tweetcloud). I concur with the keywords. This is what happened on day 1 of the UC.

Filed under: ESRI, ESRI User Conference

Getting ready for the ESRI User Conference

Jw — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 22:37:26 +0000

After the multiple hours trip to San Diego (through Minneapolis, it kinda changed since 1982) we arrived late Friday in San Diego, hometown of the ESRI UC. Saturday I partly attended the Global marketing summit, an ESRI internal event where news and directions are being shared.

My contributions (short presentations) where titled ‘why go social’ and ‘working at the sealevel’. Social media works very differently across the globe, my guess it relates to our cultures (…). Good discussions! I attended a presentation by the Geomedicine man Bill Davenhall, one of those ‘when he talks we listen’ stories.

Sunday’s Exec was very interesting as well. Maurice Williamson brought an integrated story about the next frontier of geospatial, which excelled in content and form. This is also a story to be jealous about, and it made me change my mind about every wanting to visit our –almost- antipodes. I look forward to hear from Richard Saul Wurman tomorrow, when the ‘real’ conference starts. I’ll bring out my ‘ideas worth noting’ booklet!

*I had to interrupt (sneak out) for the soccer match. It was one of the few soccer games I ever watched, it’s not my kind of game. Wish I was in Spain for the party…congrats to Spain!

Filed under: ESRI User Conference

Kortste Routes goes English, por qué¿

Jw — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:46:37 +0000

Well, rather simple: I started this blog about one year ago and it is a nice way to end the experiment. I used to be good at English (…) and communicating in English does give a blog a greater reach. And it is about the same effort anyhow.

As starting things has become much easier (e.g. starting a blog), keeping up seems to be much more difficult (doesn’t that sound like your regular enterprise challenge?). But blogged I have, for years, more on a personal level. With this experiment I have been able to combine a few skills (writing, technology, GIS), interests (openness, open innovation) and goals (finish my master, explore a new medium).

I have enjoyed putting my thoughts on paper a blog and will likely continue with that. But what is next I am not sure about yet. We’ll see after the summer break!

*Why English? My Spanish is not that good anymore…need help!

Filed under: ESRI User Conference, Studie

GIN maakt een dienstreis naar de ESRI User Conference

Jw — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:41:54 +0000

Niet helemaal waar, maar ook niet helemaal onwaar. Louis Smit en ondergetekende zullen deelnemen aan deze grootse bijeenkomst (al jaren meer dan 10.000 deelnemers). Niet dat de vereniging voor de kosten opdraait, het is voor beiden een ‘dienstreis’. Grootste dilemma: gaan we de WK finale kijken of werken we gewoon door…*

Het thema dit jaar “Geography – Opening the World to Everyone”. Open en geografie, spreekt me wel aan! Wij gaan zeker even langs bij de verenigingen, die daar deelnemen aan de beurs: Association of American Geographers (de Amerikaanse KNAG), Cartography and Geographic Information Society (de VS versie van oude NVK) en American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (de VS versie van voormalig remote sensing club). Het programma is redelijk druk, maar we sturen zeker af en toe een update.

*Is niet echt een dilemma hoor, wij gaan Oranje steunen vanuit San Diego (“het belangrijkste is winnen!”).

Filed under: ESRI, ESRI User Conference, Open