Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/174312
The Location Wildcard in Enterprise Computing OPENGEOSPATIAL CONNECTION I BY DENISE MCKENZIE n March 2013, for discussions with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Board of Directors and the OGC Planning Committee, George Percivall, OGC chief engineer, prepared a slate of "ripe issues" that are shaping the environment in which OGC will operate in the future. Percivall currently is partway through a series of OGC Blog entries (see www.opengeospatial.org/ blog) that summarize each issue and look toward future trends: Percivall notes that predictions often are wrong but sometimes useful. The future is trending toward more open systems that connect the intellects of a larger and more diverse population. Businesses must compete, innovate and win based on the merits of their products in a marketplace with emergent structures that meet user needs. Open platforms spawn more variety of products and services, and create the necessary conditions for relationships among them. A rich ecosystem such as this produces new niches for new players. New types of order emerge from such complex systems. Start with Imagination Denise McKenzie is executive director, Marketing and Communications, Open Geospatial Consortium Inc.: e-mail: dmckenzie@ opengeospatial.org. 30 For information system architects and developers, this situation is challenging, but its upside is far greater than its downside. The best approach is to close your eyes and imagine how any type of location information might be magically created and applied to the business processes you're trying to augment. Then assume it's possible (because it probably is) and look for people who are making it happen. Open standards enable convergence of capabilities such as cloud-based geoprocessing services, G E O W O R L D / S E P T E M B E R 2 O 1 3 location apps, augmented reality, sensor integration, indoor/outdoor navigation, decision support, Point of Interest databases, business intelligence, etc. Open standards make it possible to mix and match such components from different vendors, and open standards make it possible to plug such capabilities into legacy systems, extending the useful lifetime of those systems. Open standards are semi-stable elements of a complex information system that allow for emergence of innovative solutions. These spatial technology capabilities now can be more easily bound together in solutions, and supporting capabilities are being developed that increase their value. In many domains, for example, data value depends on data preservation and quality, and important work is being done in developing open standards that ensure the delivery of such value. Standards are contributing to the advance of spatial semantics, spatial metadata, temporal encodings and security. Policies regarding ownership of data and personal privacy become more relevant to development as more data become available on the Internet. Change Is Everywhere But that's not the whole picture. Architects are well aware that it's not only geospatial computing that's undergoing rapid change. Changing currents in programming have a bearing on spatial concerns. For example, there's migration to the cloud, crowdsourcing, social networks and mobile. Can you leverage phenomena such as these in location solutions for the enterprise? The answer is yes, but you need to know where to look. How do you find the players in the "community of interest" that are focused on the particular set of issues you care about? OGC is an international consortium in which members participate in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards, but it's also a hub that connects communities. Companies and government departments use OGC to help shape standards, but they also use it to network. For example, in the OGC, people focused on collecting geospatial information are separated by few "degrees of separation" from people using location information in a wide variety of applications. For OGC members and non-members, the consortium provides a window on the evolving and growing world of spatial technology. In a world where everything's changing, OGC is changing, too. The "Ideas for OGC" (Ideas4OGC) effort aims to collect feedback, ideas, critiques and comments to develop ideas and actions to improve OGC. Search on Ideas4OGC to learn more, and send your comments to Ideas4OGC@lists.opengeospatial.org.