By Andres | In Toolbox
Here’s an interesting use of Twitter by the State of Utah:
http://twitter.com/UtahGov/statuses/838685656
Unfortunately, the link in the ‘tweet’ was cut off (and the word geospatial is misspelled), but I think this is a pretty cool use of Twitter by a state government. A good example of a government using an additional gateway for dissemination of updates and other relevant news to some of its constituents.
Found via Summize ‘GIS’ search RSS feed.
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By Andres | In Toolbox
Congratulations to the University of Oregon research team that has put together an exceptional web site that marries 18th century cityscapes by Italian artists Nolli and Vasi with interactive maps. The Grand Tour of Rome is an excellent resource for educators, researchers, and the public to explore Roman cityscapes in a spatial context.
From the press release:
The UO team carried the historic documentation a step further by developing an interactive Web application combining the two artists’ work with satellite images and modern photographs overlaid on the locations documented by Vasi and Nolli. Combining all of this data into an online resource for engaging academic and general audiences, the Web site is searchable by building type, architect, city district, and depictions of city life, including one topic called “mischief.”
You can check out the Grand Tour at: http://vasi.uoregon.edu
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By Andres | In Toolbox
I’ve been meaning to blog about this new project by Seth Godin for quite a while, but I wasn’t sure if I should ‘leak’ the site, as it hadn’t been formally released when I first learned about it. Anyway, I think it’s okay to blog on it now, as it does show up on Google numerous times.
Chalk it up to Seth Godin and the crew at Squidoo with creating SquidZipper, a super-sweet hyperlocal/Local 2.0 web site that allows users to explore (and share) you guessed it: Zip Codes. Just type in a Zip Code and away you go. SquidZipper returns all kinds of content, including demographics, maps (of course), weather, photos, news, local site reviews, and even some surveys for residents of that Zip Code. [Read more…]
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By Andres | In Toolbox
Some of you have heard me discussing this before…but I am a big fan of webinars. I wish there were more geo* webinars out there, and I hope to see the use of webinars increase in our community over the coming years.
Anyway, as I mentioned, I am a big fan of webinars…and here are some of the things I think make webinars so great:
- Webinars are Green
No driving, no flying, no excess consumption of crappy food in some stuffy room, and no need to hand out any hard copy collateral (of which 90% gets tossed most of the time).
- Webinars are Low Cost
Both for the presenter and the attendees. Yes you may have to pay for a webinar hosting service, or you may have to pay a registration fee, but overall the cost is quite low compared to having an in-person seminar or workshop. Check out Zoho’s free Presentation app if you haven’t already…it’s just as good as gotomeeting.com.
- Webinars Are Short and Sweet
Subtract the travel time to/from a venue and the setup/take-down time of conventional seminars/workshops, and you begin to see that webinars are really time-efficient. Plus, you can duck out without disturbing anyone else in the ‘audience.’
- Webinars Are Very Accessible
Aside from those pesky time zones, webinars enable just about anyone to participate, no matter their geographic location, professional affiliation, or industry background (or favorite ice cream flavor).
- Webinars Are Repeatable
Given the fact that a webinar is presented on a desktop 99.99% of the time, it’s easy to record and archive the webinar for others to view at a later time. So, even though you might be asleep if someone is giving a webinar on GIS tips and tricks at 9:00 a.m. GMT, you can likely still see the ‘replay’ once you wake up.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know. There’s still something to be said for in-person meetings…and I am certainly not arguing against the value of those (especially for the value of networking/camraderie)…but I hope we see more folks in the future using webinars to spread knowledge.
With that said, I would like to introduce one more reason for why webinars are so great: showdango. Why showdango? After attending a few webinars last month (including a great one by Seth Godin), I was inspired to look for more webinars that could prove to be valuable. Alas, I found no one-stop shop for searching for webinars (also referred to as webcasts I found out). Searching on Google yielded all kinds of mixed results. So…
showdango was born. It is the world’s first webinar index. Anyone is free to submit their webinars, which are accessible via categories and keyword (tag) search (sortable by timeframe…e.g., next 7 days, etc). Following suit with what just about everyone else seems to be doing, it bears the ‘beta’ qualifier, which I hope will go away in a few months.
Consider this a soft (preview) release for now…more to come in the following weeks. Email me if you want a comp’ed ‘premium subscription’ in the next week or so…
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