Building a Web GIS Business
I'd. Like, you to meet an interesting Penn Stater. Stephen. Ansari is co-founder. Principle, of blue roster the, company that you heard about in the video prelude, to this case study, this. Story is about how Stephen and his partner built a successful business in web GIS it's. Also about what you can do to create opportunities. For fulfillment. In your own career I, met. Stephen in 1997. When he was an undergraduate, student, in a course I taught at Penn State in fact, that course called mapping our changing, world was, an early on-campus, version, of the online course you're taking now in those. Early days of the web I built, HTML. Files to illustrate, and share my lectures and assign, students, to code HTML, -. Steven, came to, Penn State from Downingtown, high in southeastern, Pennsylvania to. Study earth science and mapping he. Was already into web programming, by the time he enrolled in my class. Stephen, had been coding since age 8 when, his family bought an apple 2e and he found a book on basic, programming. Later. He upgraded to, a Tandy, 1000. SX which, he says opened up a whole world of programming, simple, applications. And user interfaces, he. Says he loved the immediate gratification of. Building things with code it, was like engineering, but without the need for raw, materials, for. A time coding, remained a hobby for Steven his academic, interests, centered, on earth science, and mapping. Then. In, 1995. The, US Census, Bureau launched, its Tiger map service, one, of the earliest web mapping services. Even. With his slow, modem, connection, to the Internet Steven, was amazed at the ability, to explore, the Census Bureau's Tiger, lined files and thematic, maps online. Later. In our mapping our changing, world class Steven. Discovered, the United States geological, surveys, digital, rest or graphics, as you. Know dr. G's our topographic. Maps that have been scanned and geo-referenced. That's. When he started to see connections between maps, and computers, as an. Earth scientist, working on the field he'd, always thought of topo, maps as Jay printed, things maps. And the world really, were changing, but. It wasn't until his first job out of college that. Steven got to put these insights, to work. After. Graduation, in 1999. Steven. Found a job in the Washington, DC area as, a policy, analyst, for a firm that was writing groundwater, guidance, documents, for the US Environmental, Protection Agency. Working. At the desk next, to him was Michael Lippmann Mike. Had earned a bachelor's, degree and then a master, of Public Administration and. Environmental Policy at Cornell, a fellowship. At EPA brought, him to DC, where, he later found work as a policy, analyst at the same firm as Steven. The. Co-workers, shared, an interest in the potential of web mapping and an, early Internet map server, technology. Called arc IMS, which, their employer, was just beginning, to experiment, with the. Company sent Mike and Steven to Redlands, for training in the new technology, they, made connections there, that, would serve them well later. Some. Of their employers, government, agency, clients wanted. To begin mapping contaminated. Sites in the US that, provided, Mike and Stevens, first foray, into GIS. Although. Their employer didn't create the National, Institutes, of Health toxmap, shown, here the example, does suggest what an arc IMS, like web, mapping, app, looked. Like in those, days. Steven. And Mike began, to envision how web GIS could be a game-changing. Technology. But. Electronic, maps still, seemed esoteric. To most of their employers, clients, even, Google Maps was still years, in the future and the. Dot-com, boom had recently gone bust it. Would take a while longer before a business model based on web mapping and GIS would. Seem viable, in. 2002. Steven. And Mike took the plunge and founded, blue raster, LLC. In interviews. For this case study Steven, and Mike explained, that the name blue, raster, is meant, to connote the ability, to cap, sure complex, reality. Systematically. And to, represent it simply, in ways, that reveal the meaning, their customers, wish to convey, that's. The value they aim to deliver with, web GIS. Blue. Rosters earliest, contracts, involved, creating web, mapping apps about. Radioactive. Contamination. At research, sites for, the Department, of Energy, the, first of those sites was Brookhaven. National Laboratory. On, Long, Island. Brookhaven. Operated. A high flux, beam reactor. Used, for scientific research, from. 1965. To 1996. According. To the Department, of Energy the reactor. Was decommissioned, in 1996. After tritium. A radioactive. Form of hydrogen, and a byproduct of reactor, operations, was, found in nearby groundwater.
Monitoring, Wells. Investigators. Subsequently, found that, contaminated. Water quote, had, been leaking from a spent fuel pool, located. In the basement of the reactor, building for. More than a decade as. Urban. Development spread, eastward on Long Island, public, concern about contaminated. Groundwater increased. Years. Before, the term open data was coined Brookhaven. Commissioned. Blue raster, to create web apps that provided, maps and other site-specific. Information. Graphics, needed, to keep residents in the press informed, for. Example users could drill down into, monitoring, well locations, to view graphs like this that, showed how tritium, concentrations, decreased. At the wells with time and with, restoration, efforts. Functionality. Like that may seem obvious now, but it wasn't then which, leads me to wonder what. World users, expect, from web mapping apps 10 or 20, years in the future. Brookhaven. Engineers. And contractors modeled. And tracked the tritium plume and shared, the data with blue raster for the website every. Week Stephen, and Mike would take an early, morning flight from Baltimore Washington, International, Airport. To Islip, Long Island. After. Consulting with the engineers, they travel home to Washington, on the last flight of the day. Brookhaven. National Lab, met its remediation. Targets, and blew rasters public outreach was considered, a success. Similar. Department of Energy projects, followed in time. They were branded, programmatically. As land, trick, but. Brookhaven, success, in meeting its goals convinced. Mike and Steven that blue raster needed, to diversify. They. Experimented. With maps for election, campaigns, and apps, for the real estate market, they, got their name out by participating, in meetups in the DC area. Finally. One of their contacts, at ESRI introduced. Them to the World Wildlife Fund. The. World Wildlife Fund, had combined, compiled. A database of the global distributions. Of thousands, of mammals. Amphibians reptiles. And, birds in. 2004. WWF. Hired. Blue raster to design and build a web mapping app called wild finder that lets users search the, WWF. Database, and visualize, ecoregions. In which species live. Mike. Explains that they built the first version of the, web app with, ARC web services, the technology. That evolved, later into. ArcGIS, online in. 2009. Blue raster, and WWF. Released, wild Finder - which, is built on ArcGIS. For server and flex, to, keep, pace with evolving. Technology. Blue, raster hopes to create an updated version built, with the ArcGIS API. For JavaScript. Working. At the intersection, of conservation. And global affairs blue, raster, began to hit its stride the. Wild finder app became, for a time one of the most visited, areas, of the World Wildlife fund's, site their. Success caught ezra's attention, in just four years after its founding blue, raster was named business partner of the year in 2006. Remember. This conceptual, map of the web GIS technology. Ecosystem, from an earlier case study. Mic Lippmann co-authored, it like. His collaborator, Robert, Cheatham Mike stresses, that this should be considered a living document that's, updated continuously. In. The, lower middle of the map notice, the cluster of technologies. Labeled map servers, one. Of blue rosters, core competencies. Is the ability to deploy server, technology. As a means, to publish, geospatial. Data and interactive. Geo apps, on the, web. One. Example of a project powered, by server technology. Is global. Forest, watch an, initiative. Sponsored by the world wildlife, institute. Global. Forest watch includes. A suite of data maps, and, apps all, intended. To help people everywhere, to better protect forests. One. Of those apps is global. Forest watch fire. Shown. Here is blue rosters, 2014. Wireframe. Design, of the, global forest watch fire, analysis. Interface. Driven. By concern, about the role of fire and deforestation. And air pollution, WRI. Convened. A partnership, involving, new raster digital. Globe NOAA. And others. To. Create a high-resolution, near. Real-time global. Fire, monitoring. System, that anyone can access and, use on the web, this. Is a design, comp, a next, stage in the app development, process, at which. The, customers, vision for the product and the developers, vision, begin, to converge. The. Live version I viewed in July 2017. Reflects, expanded, functionality, including. Crowdsourcing. Global. Forest watch fires, brings together several, organizations. And technologies. The. Modus at alight based sensor, is used to, detect fires, around the world, daily. Updates, of fire events, are stored and served from. ArcGIS, for server. High. Confidence fire, events, trigger. The capture, of high-resolution digital, globe, imagery, which, is made available for, near real-time viewing.
Analysis, By, the ArcGIS, image, extension, for server. Global. Forest watch users, can subscribe, to fire alerts, which, are delivered by email or, text and. To. Help visualize, the potential, impact, of air pollution an, open-source, JavaScript routine. Is used to create animations. Of wind, directions and speed, every, four hours. Blue. Raster, uses either arcgis, enterprise, which has recalled, arcgis for server until, version 10 5 or, arcgis. Online to, serve their web maps and apps the. Choice depends, on project, requirements. Other. Options, are available of course including. Map server geoserver. And others, you'll, have a chance to explore the alternatives if. You take the Penn State course cloud, and server, GIS. The. Ability, to design a, geospatial, system. Architecture. That responds, to user needs, is a, key competency, for blue raster, and maybe for you too. In. The. Video prelude, to this case study Christine, movius, pointed out the importance, of coding, in a web mapping business, like blue raster, of, the. Several languages, shown in the web GIS, technology. Ecosystem map. Python. And its associated, libraries. Are perhaps, most important, for GIS pros. Python. Is useful for automating, repetitive tasks. For customizing. Desktop, GIS interfaces. And for, what data scientists. Call data, wrangling, a common. Estimate, is that up to 80% of, data analysis, is consumed, with preliminary tasks. Of cleaning. And preparing data, python. Is widely used for, such tasks. But. As Python has matured geoprocessing. Has, emerged, as another common, usage. Libraries. Like pi solve a python spatial, analysis, library, and application. Programming, interfaces, like the ArcGIS, for python, api make. Python an increasingly. Valuable tool, for serving, what mike Lippmann, calls an increasing. Demand for more robust, spatial, analysis. One. Blue raster project, that benefited, from Python scripting, is landmark. In, collaboration. With the, World Resources Institute, and, others blue, raster designed, and built landmark, as the, first global, repository, of community. Land rights data. According. To WRI, as much, as 65, percent of the world's land is held by indigenous, peoples and local, communities, but, little more than 10 percent is recognized, as belonging to them, the. Landmark platform. Allows users, to draw, a shape on a map to, query the attributes, of communities, within, that area of interest. Blue. Raster developer, David Idol Berg used Python to calculate, the quantity of indigenous. And community, lands, within political, borders. Landmark. Is useful precisely, because it combines, many disparate, data sources in, forms. That allow further, analysis. And visualization. Stephen. Ansari says that ten years ago GIS, pros use, desktop, software, to, perform analysis, and then, produce derivatives. That might be included in web Maps today. He says we're using Python, to build repeatable. Systems, that run in real time and can do, on-the-fly. Combinations. Of data that, are controlled, by end-users. He. Urges, every GIS, pro to hone their Python skills, python, scripting, is specifically, called out in the gtcm. Opportunities. For python training, abound including. Penn State's online course, GIS. Programming, and customization. The. 2015. Paris, climate, conference was. The 21st, annual conference. Of parties at, which representatives. Of, 195. Nations meet. To, assess progress in confronting and reversing. Human, induced climate change, in the. Lead-up to the December conference, hopes were high that an international, agreement to keep global warming, below, two degrees Celsius, was, possible, a.
Mere. Two months before, the conference. Roster took a call from UNICEF, the, United Nations children, fund, believe. It or not UNICEF. Discovered, blue roster, out of the blue with, a Google search. UNICEF. Wanted to produce a compelling, statement, about the risks that climate, change poses for. The world's, 2.3. Billion people, under age 18, they. Had lots of data and analysis, but no clear idea of, how to tell a story that, would make a difference in Paris, and beyond. Stephen. Mike and Kevin McMaster. Engaged, their clients, in an iterative design, and, development process that, soon yielded, information. Products, that, helped crystallize, unicef, story, for. Example this map of the distribution of, children, living, in flood occurrences. Owns combines. Unicef. Analysis. With flood maps produced, for the aqueducts online, water, resource, Atlas which, blue roster developed, with the World Resources Institute. Blue. Roster succeeded, in helping UNICEF, complete, its publication. Unless, we act now in time, for the Paris conference later. Stephen, and Mike called it their proudest, achievement, to date. The. Experience, in contacts, they gained brought more collaborations. With UNICEF, including. Clear the air for children, in 2016. And thirsting. For a future in 2017. Following. The thirsting, for a future project, UNICEF policy, analyst, Nicholas Rees said, blue, roster has helped us make the case for protecting. Children's, access to safe water and, sanitation a. Common. Thread that connects blue rosters projects, is their, emphasis on, helping clients define, goals that, are consistent, with their organization's. Purpose and in crafting, stories that, advance those goals to. Support. Blue rosters growth Stephen, and Mike look, for employees, who are good communicators, who. Can geo enable, their customers, data to, tell stories, with abundant, information. Here. They stand with Penn State alum, Chris, Gabrus, and, steena Fong who, co-hosted my, first visit to their offices, in, 2016. Chris. Recently, developed, the u.s. US, National, Arboretum botanical. Explorer, mobile, app which, helps visitors and researchers, explore. The Arboretum, grounds, and plant collections. Among. Many other things, Cristina created, the story Maps starter, kit we use in discourse, I. Asked. Steven and Mike how they determine, whether an applicant, has what it takes to be successful at, blue raster, their. Job interviews, start with non-technical. Conversations. About what excites, applicants. They, look for innate talent. Good, imagination. Writing. Skills public. Speaking ability. And especially. Excitement. About geography. Next. They look for tech skills such as programming, the, JavaScript, API and, newer JavaScript. Libraries. Html5. And IT, skills such, as server setup and administration. Mike. Remarked, that they look for people who fill the gap between, college, curricula and, the real world. They. Also seek applicants, who are active, in the community as, in, dev meetups, and user groups and who. Assert thought leadership, on the web. Finally. And especially they, need people who know how to find things who, have the right mindset, to, learn collaboratively. And independently.
And Who, are energized, to move on to the next level. These. Same traits that prepared Steven and Mike to build a successful business in web GIS are what. We hope you will develop and build upon in your time, with us at Penn, State. You.
2018-06-09 21:21
